Christians in Panama respond to cult’s ritual mass murder
LIMA — After a religious sect’s brutal mass murder in a remote mountain area, Christians in Panama were quick to label the group a cult that doesn’t follow the Bible.
Leaders of the religious sect in Panama brutally murdered a pregnant woman, her five children and another girl from the Ngäbe Buglé indigenous community in Alto Terrón, about 200 kilometers from Panama City, during a ritual last week.
“We did not know anything about this group that killed this woman and her children in the region,” said Teodoro Santos, an evangelical who belongs to the indigenous community and lives in the locality.
Obniel Gonzales Virola, 21, and Mario Gonzales Blanco, the self-styled "pastor" of the sect known as “La nueva luz de Dios” (The new light of God), organized the ritual and with others attacked Bellín Valdez, 33, and the children with sticks and machetes, accusing them of sorcery and having contact with demons, according to police.
“This has been deep inside the mountain,” Santos said. “It is difficult to get there, and this has nothing to do with what the Bible teaches.”
Santos points out that instead there is a presence of various Catholic and evangelical churches and communities, which have been working for several years in the region. "We reject all violence because it does not agree with the Word of God and we had no knowledge of this cult," Santos sa
At the same time, the Evangelical Alliance of Panama, rejected in a statement, any relationship of evangelical churches with this sect and lamented the death of community members.
“We condemn any action that goes against biblical postulates related to love of neighbor, help to the needy, respect for human dignity, and any other life-threatening behavior,” the Alliance said.
Some of those who participated in the ritual against their will managed to flee and notify the authorities. When the police arrived at the remote place in the Panamanian Caribbean on Jan. 15, they found about 15 people who had been kidnapped and subjected to rites of exorcism by members of the unknown religious group. Some were found tied, with cuts and bruises on their bodies. Bibles, machetes, sticks and other objects used in the ritual were found nearby, as well as the bodies of Valdez and the children (ages 1, 3, 9, 9, 11 and 17) buried in a pit, the public prosecutor’s office confirmed in a tweet Jan. 16.
The woman and her children killed are the daughter-in-law and grandchildren of one of the leaders of the sect, according to superior prosecutor Rafael Baloyes.
The Prosecutor’s Office of Panama is investigating the murders and the members of the sect to determine who all is criminally responsible. So far, 10 people, all belonging to the indigenous community, have been arrested on charges of homicide, feminicide, sexual crimes and deprivation of liberty.
"Most members of the community practice Catholicism," Baloyes said. "It seems that in the last week, one of the cult leaders said he received a ‘divine revelation’ and forced the members of the community to undergo mistreatment and torture to convert.”
In Panama City, Pastor Edwin Álvarez, leader of the Hosana Church, one of the largest evangelical churches in the country, said that the community has the native religion Mama Tadta or Mama Chí that teach a certain level of punishment. “But we never knew that this level could be reached. For us it is a mystery how they emerged,” he said.
Mama Tadta, also known as Mama Chí, is a religion born in the middle of the Ngabe and Buglé indigenous communities in the northeastern territory of Panama and also Costa Rica that combines elements of Catholicism with animistic ancestral beliefs and mystics. In these religious practices, visions and trances are common.
Adherents believe in a young woman’s revelation in 1962 in which Jesus rode up to her in a motorcycle and said God would destroy the world because of the community’s sins, especially debauchery and drinking liquor during indigenous festivals. It is taught that God abolished the church and relates only with their community through this prophetess, called Little Mama after the Virgin Mary, called Big Mama.
Mama Tadta is practiced exclusively by the members of this indigenous community.
Reynaldo Aragon is a former CNN en español anchor in Peru and is a correspondent for Religion Unplugged. He sits on the board of The Media Project and is based in Lima.