Necklacing is a method of extrajudicial summary execution and torture carried out by forcing a rubber tire drenched with gasoline around a victim's chest and arms, and setting it on fire. The term "necklace" originated in the 1980s in black townships of apartheid South Africa where suspected apartheid collaborators were publicly executed in this fashion.
South Africa
Necklacing was used by the black community to punish its members who were perceived as collaborators with the
apartheid government.
Necklacing was primarily used on black police informants; the practice was often carried out in the name of the struggle, although the executive body of the African National Congress (ANC), the most broadly supported South African opposition movement, condemned it.
In 1986,
Winnie Mandela, then-wife of the imprisoned
Nelson Mandela, and who herself had endured torture and four imprisonments to a total of two years,
stated, "With our boxes of matches, and our necklaces, we shall liberate this country," which was widely seen as an explicit endorsement of necklacing.
This caused the ANC to initially distance itself from her,
although she later took on a number of official positions within the party.
The first victim of necklacing, according to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, was a young black woman, Maki Skosana of Duduza, on 20 July 1985:
However, according to Ball,
Photojournalist Kevin Carter was the first to photograph a public execution by necklacing in South Africa in the mid-1980s. He later spoke of the images:
Author Lynda Schuster writes:
Some commentators have noted that the practice of necklacing served to escalate the levels of violence during the township wars of the late 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s as security force members became brutalized and afraid that they might fall victim to the practice.
Other countries
Haiti
This form of
lynching was used in Haiti, where it was known as
Pé Lebrun, or
Père Lebrun (French), after a tire advertisement showing a man with a tire around his neck. It was used prominently by mobs allied with Jean-Bertrand Aristide to assassinate political enemies. Aristide himself allegedly showed strong support for this practice, calling it a "beautiful tool" that "smells good", encouraging his
Fanmi Lavalas supporters to use it against wealthy people as well as members of the Lavalas party who were not as strong in their fervor.
Others argue he was actually speaking about people using the constitution to empower themselves and to defend their country against right-wing death squads. Earlier in the speech he is quoted as saying "Your tool in hand, your instrument in hand, your constitution in hand! Don't hesitate to give him what he deserves. Your equipment in hand, your trowel in hand, your pencil in hand, your Constitution in hand, don't hesitate to give him what he deserves".
Sri Lanka and India
During the 1983
Black July riot against Sri Lankan Tamils,
Sinhalese people rioters used necklacing.
Necklacing was also widely used against Sinhalese youth by government supported paramilitary forces in the second armed insurrection (1989–1991) led by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna. A graphic description of one such necklacing appears in the book
The Island of Blood by journalist
Anita Pratap.
This technique was widely used against Sikhs during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, which took place throughout North India after the erstwhile Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi, having presided over Operation Blue Star earlier that year, was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards.
Ivory Coast and Nigeria
In the early 1990s, university students in
Abidjan, Ivory Coast, were plagued by burglars stealing from their dormitories. The students took matters into their own hands by capturing the alleged thieves, and then executed them by placing tyres around their necks and setting the tyres on fire. Ivorian police, powerless to stop these necklacings, could do nothing but stand by and watch.
In 2006, at least one person died in Nigeria by necklacing in the deadly Muslim protests over satirical cartoon drawings of Muhammad.
Brazil
A form of necklacing where victims are forced inside a stack of tyres doused with petrol and set on fire is widely used by drug dealers in Brazil, notably in Rio de Janeiro, where it is called
micro-ondas, or
microwave oven in Portuguese.
[.] One notable victim was journalist Tim Lopes, who, while trying to do a journalistic investigation, was kidnapped, tortured, and eventually placed within several tires, covered in diesel fuel, and set on fire.
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