So the men on an eccentric do-gooder mission to save Africa told
police not to worry: they had merely been placing tower busters
beneath Cahora Bassa's huge hydroelectric towers and about 170 hand
grenades around the dam.
The men, including South African citizen Joseph Ngwato and SA resident
Georg Ritschl, now face charges of sabotage and are spending their 20th
day in a Mozambican jail. Supporters of the SA branch of the
earth-healing Orgone cult, the four men have placed more than 12000
lumps of goo they call holy hand grenades and tower busters in 11
Southern African countries.
Apparently undetected until last month, their Operation Paradise
expedition has included dropping the grenades outside the Koeberg
nuclear power station and on the grave of Cecil John Rhodes; tossing
rougher versions called Dirty Harrys from their Land Rover beneath
every cellphone tower they see, and donating an all-healing zapper
device and a weather-altering cloud buster machine to Thabo Mbeki's
mother.
Police statements that the group had placed corrosive substances into
the turbines of the region's largest single source of power caused such
outrage in Mozambique that President Armando Guebuza had to call for
calm.
Ngwato, 21, is a guide at the Credo Mutwa Cultural Village in Soweto
while another member of the group, Tino Phuthego, is a former Botswana
Air Force pilot.
The fourth member of the group, Portuguese national Carlos da Silva,
told local reporters: We were arrested on suspicion of terrorism,
something we find incredible. We came here with good intentions.
Saying their mission is to reverse the negative effects (especially
drought), of (modern) technology and secret biochemical warfare on the
continent, Ritschl, 50, wrote that the current expedition's goal was
to lay out at least a thin grid of tower busters, neutralising at
least most of the entropy transmitters in one country and other obvious
sources of negative energy such as battlefields, ritual murder sites,
prisons, police stations and Masonic lodges.
This week despite being very worried and frustrated Ritschl's
wife, Friederike, 46, joked that the Tete police station would likely
benefit from a wealth of healing energy, having confiscated the group's
remaining 500 tower buster devices.
Made in muffin trays at the Ritschl's Johannesburg home, the devices
comprise aluminium filings, crystals and resin, which the group
believes can channel energy to counter the destructive effects of
modern technologies, including cellphone signals.
This week their attorney, Heminio Mhatumbo, told the Sunday Times
police were confused. This orgone substance is not known in
Mozambique, but it is obviously completely harmless.
Friederike Ritschl said her husband had been jailed on a previous trip
to Zimbabwe, where baffled police could only come up with a charge of
littering in response to Ritschl gifting the devices around the
countryside.
She said she believed the group was caught because their own boat had
broken down, forcing the men to drop the devices from a public ferry in
full view of passengers and crew.
Some people like to make fun, and I can understand that even though
we have statistical evidence that orgone energy does work. But this
situation is very serious, she said.
Mhatumbo said tests by the government had confirmed the orgonite
devices were harmless, and he hoped the men would be freed this week.
Friederike Ritschl said the expedition was entirely charitable, seeking
to gift positive energy around Southern Africa. Asked about a branch
statement that where we suspect alien or secret military underground
bases we use earth pipes, hammered into the ground, she acknowledged
the group was referring to space aliens.
The Times (SA)
Post published in: Zimbabwe News