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Religion News Report - Apr. 6, 2000 (Vol. 4, Issue 187) - 1/2
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=== Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God
1. Kanungu Toll Reaches 1,000
2. Relatives Attack Kinyatta
3. MP Is Accused Of Kanungu Cover-Up
4. Kibwetere Faked Death In 1990
5. Police Probe Cult Leader's House
6. The Old Man Of Kanungu And Kibweteere's Feast
7. Are We Lemmings?
8. Kibwetere Rejected By Own Family
9. Pope To Probe Cult Deaths
10. Questions Around Ugandan Massacre
11. Ex-Uganda Sect Member Speaks Out
12. Uganda Police Search for More Cult Mass Graves
13. Check 'Mushroom Churches'! (Editorial)
14. Ugandan Parents Led Kids to Deaths
15. Ugandans Mourn Mass Murder Deaths
16. 'Cult Hired Hitmen'
17. 'No change' fuelled Kanungu cult fire
18. Cult leader's ex-husband tells of wife's powers
19. Balokole see plot in Kanungu deaths
20. In wake of Uganda cult deaths, survivors are also victims
21. Doomsday Sect's Handbook Had Message
22. Uganda Cult Handbook Excerpts
23. Victims of Cult Fire Burned Alive
24. Cult Dead Were Tabliqs - Awori
25. Uganda cult members shunned neighbours, never spoke

» Part 2

(26. Cult Deaths Recall Jonestown
(27. Jonestown Survivors Remember
(28. Police Storm Mubende Cult

=== Waco / Branch Davidians
(29. Expert challenges Davidian suicide theory
(30. Waco Case Judge Asked to Nix Claims

=== Falun Gong
(31. China Man Held in Mental Hospital

=== Scientology
(32. Scientology to argue for dismissal of case
(33. Scientology weddings legalised

=== Hate Groups
(34. Victim Suing Supremacist in Shooting
(35. Lawsuit boosts legal pressure on supremacist and his church
(36. Court Upholds KKK Highway Rule

=== Mormonism
(37. Mormons hold historic conference
(38. Great trials ahead, faithful told
(39. Refocus on family, gospel, LDS men told

=== Buddhism
(40. Stateside Buddhists Await Visit

=== Voodoo
(41. New recognition of Vodou's role in Haitian culture
(42. Rite of Passage

=== Other News
(43. Catholic Church investigates possible second Ugandan cult
(44. Cult order to stash weapons
(45. Cults Vigil
(46. Police suspected of killing Zambo cult members
(47. Whitewash feared in Zambo cult killings
(48. Farmers denounce powerful cult on Mt. Banahaw
(49. Suspect churches warned
(50. Another cult mass suicide bid aborted!
(51. Police arrest teen accused of killing family with samurai sword
(52. Sikh father held in Texas kidnapping of daughter from Hindu lover
(53. Occidental chairman sues protestors for harassment

=== Noted
(54. Chinese log on to honour the dead
(55. Hell - it's about to get hotter
(56. Angels still on guard in Italy

=== The Psychic Around The Corner
(57. Psychic who defrauded client ordered to repay money


=== Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God

1. Kanungu Toll Reaches 1,000
New Vision/Africa News Online (Uganda), Apr. 3, 2000
http://www.africanews.org/east/uganda/stories/20000403/20000403_feat1.html
Kampala - The death toll in the Joseph Kibwetere cult mass murder has reached
1000, the Vice-President Speciosa Wandira Kazibwe has said.

''The official figure reached 1,000 dead people. I believe there will be more
than that,'' Kazibwe told reporters as she arrived in Kanungu, where the cult
had its headquarters and where some 400 members died when their church, its
windows and doors nailed shut, was torched on March 17.
(...)

Meanwhile, Police units were scouring the nearby countryside, examining
houses and locations once used by the sect led by former Roman Catholic
Kibwetere. ''The horrific state at Kanungu is no longer a case of mass
suicide but a murder carefully planned by criminals still believed to be on
the run,'' Kazibwe said adding that the perpetrators had out-witted the
security network by playing on people's ignorance in the name of religion.

Kazibwe also said the Government had apologised for failing to detect and
take timely response to stop the mass murders which were planned and
instituted by the leaders of the Restoration of the Ten Commandments cult.

She said the cult leaders were alive and had started spreading to Tanzania
and Kenya. The Government has also directed that the NGO board reviews
licences of other registered sects and de-register that might be harmful.
(...)

She said those who had information prior to the fateful incident but failed
to take action would be punished.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


2. Relatives Attack Kinyatta
New Vision/Africa News Online (Uganda), Apr. 3, 2000
http://www.africanews.org/east/uganda/stories/20000403/20000403_feat9.html
Kampala - Relatives of the Rev. Richard Mutazindwa, the arrested deputy RDC
Kabula, have criticised Kinkiizi East MP Stanley Kinyatta for ''engineering''
his detention by linking him to Kibwetere's cult.

Mutazindwa, a former assistant RDC for Kanungu, for more than six years, was
arrested on March 29 at his new station in Lyantonde on allegations that he
''sat'' on information about the ''plans'' of the millennium doomsday cult,
the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God led by
self-styled prophet Joseph Kibwetere.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


3. MP Is Accused Of Kanungu Cover-Up
The Monitor/Africa News Online (Uganda), Apr. 5, 2000
http://www.africanews.org/east/uganda/stories/20000405/20000405_feat6.html
Kampala - Relatives of former ARDC Rukungiri in charge of Kanungu sub-county,
Rev. Richard Mutazindwa, have accused Kinkizi East MP, Stanley Kinyata, of
engineering his arrest over the Kanungu cult mass murders. Rev. Mutazindwa's
two brothers, Patrick Rwabuhinga and Clovis Nyakaana came to The Monitor
offices yesterday.

''Rev. Mutazindwa's arrest was engineered by Kinyata because Mutazindwa
campaigned for Darlington Bakunda, Kinyata's rival in the 1996 parliamentary
elections,'' Rwabuhinga said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


4. Kibwetere Faked Death In 1990
New Vision/Africa News Online (Uganda), Apr. 3, 2000
http://www.africanews.org/east/uganda/stories/20000403/20000403_feat10.html
Kampala - Doomsday religious cult leader Joseph Kibwetere faked his death in
1990, sources have said. Quoting Israel Bagarukayo, a former school inspector
in Rukungiri, the sources said Kibwetere bought a coffin and told his
followers to fill it with stones and dig a grave.

''He told them to announce he had died while he dressed in white robes and
hid in the roof of his church at Kanungu so that he would 'resurrect' on the
third day,'' the sources said yesterday.

They said this was meant to make the followers believe he was a true prophet.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


5. Police Probe Cult Leader's House
New Vision/Africa News Online (Uganda), Apr. 3, 2000
http://www.africanews.org/east/uganda/stories/20000403/20000403_feat8.html
Kampala - The Police on Saturday began investigating another house in Fort
Portal used by the doomsday cult linked to the deaths of at least 900 of its
members.
(...)

The Fort Portal house, more isolated than other properties so far
investigated by the Police, belongs to John Katebalirwe, who the police say
was a senior member of the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God cult
led by self-styled prophet Joseph Kibwetere.

The house is at Sweswe, several hundred kilometers north of Kanungu, where
530 members of the cult, died in a fire at the movement's headquarters on
March 17.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


6. The Old Man Of Kanungu And Kibweteere's Feast
New Vision/Africa News Online (Uganda), Apr. 2, 2000
http://www.africanews.org/east/uganda/stories/20000402/20000402_feat17.html
Kampala - From the ashes of the Kanungu cult tragedy came the story of a poor
old man who was duped into meeting his end. He was one of the only five
victims of Kibweteere's cult to come from the parish of Kizhubwe where the
Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God had its
headquarters at a village called Kalengye.
(...)

The lingering question is why it was possible for so many people to be led to
their deaths in this manner. The answers are to be sought first with the
victims and then ultimately with government. Most of the victims had lived
wretched existence of poverty and hopelessness with no chance of their lot
improving in this lifetime. These circumstances opened them to the
manipulations of con artists who robbed them of their worldly belongings
while promising a lifetime in heaven of eternal bliss. If in this country we
had cared to provide basic social services such as medical care, education
and opportunities to earn a normal living, then Kibweteere and his cohorts
would have found a less than willing flock with the gullibility to swallow
their lies wholesale. The job of providing social services and generally
improving their welfare belongs to government. That people were so
impoverished and lost hope to the point of abandoning formal institutions
speaks tons about the failure by government to deliver on its social contract
with these people.

The above was not the only let down on the part of government. There was a
failure to act against the cult even in the face of overwhelming evidence
showing that they posed a security risk. There is no reason why the GISO who
made the report did not copy the same to his line supervisors or if he did
why they also did not take it seriously.

If the President's local representative in the area could sit on such vital
information and continue to cavort with the cult leaders without sanction
then how much control and allegiance does Kampala command over the officials
they appoint to take care of the interests of the central government in areas
where the local authorities govern. One is tempted to question not just their
competence and efficiency but also how much else is withheld by such people
to the in sabotage of their appointing authority.

The local Members of Parliament are also to blame. They were better placed to
pursue this matter and cause action against these people they knew were a
potential source of disaster. If they did not it is mind-boggling how
hundreds of people could get killed and no one detects? But then again once
you are familiar with our ineptness you can understand how vulnerable we are,
not just as a country but as a people.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


7. Are We Lemmings?
New Vision/Africa News Online (Uganda), Apr. 2, 2000
http://www.africanews.org/east/uganda/stories/20000402/20000402_feat16.html
Kampala - What kind of perception must the rest of the world have of recent
events in Uganda? Every day for the past two weeks there have been fresh
reports of more bodies being dug up, - children who have been strangled,
women who have been poisoned or stabbed.
(...)

In western Uganda we have a cult which kills a thousand of its members and
the leaders run away. In the east we have armed warriors who raid their
neighbour's cattle and kill their women and children. They seem to think they
are still in the nineteenth century, - swooping down with war cries to raid
the other tribe's bomma; except that they are in the twenty-first century
with twentieth century weapons, which are far more lethal than the spears
they once had.

In the north we have Kony, - another man who believes in the Ten
Commandments, - carrying out his own interpretation of biblical punishment,
cutting off ears, lips and limbs, and just across our borders we have rabid
Interahamwe for whom killing has become as routine as answering the call of
nature. Across our borders in our neighbouring country of Kenya we have bus
drivers who play 'chicken' with two bus loads of passengers, losing the lives
of a hundred people.

On the Kampala streets every day we have boda boda drivers who think that
their brazen stupidity affords them protection from the impact of bull bars
and bumpers, like Alice Lakwena's Holy Spirit warriors being divinely
protected from bullets in battle.

We are right to ask what kind of country is this? What kind of people are we
who live in it? How can these things happen in the midst of a 'normal' life?
(...)

Probably no-one watching CNN, seeing the bodies being dug up, and remembering
last year's massacre at Bwindi would believe that life can be so normal in
Uganda.
(...)

However, the appearance of normality cannot lead to complacency.
(...)

Like Lemmings we will follow and throw ourselves off the cliff. What a lethal
mixture when a leader actually murders his own followers, but we should not
be surprised. The Sudanese among other regimes, have been doing it for years.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


8. Kibwetere Rejected By Own Family
New Vision/Africa News Online (Uganda), Apr. 2, 2000
http://www.africanews.org/east/uganda/stories/20000402/20000402_feat12.html
Kampala - Millenium doomsday cult leader, Yozefu Kibweteere passionately
pleaded with his family to allow him return home after they rejected him
because of his ''faith''. But the family, including his wife, refused to have
him back.

Kibwetweere lamented that his family even installed an heir to replace him
when he was still alive.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


9. Pope To Probe Cult Deaths
New Vision/Africa News Online (Uganda), Apr. 2, 2000
http://www.africanews.org/east/uganda/stories/20000402/20000402_feat11.html
Kampala - The head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope John Paul II has
developed keen interest in the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten
Commandments cult led by Yozefu Kibweteere.

The Apostolic Nuncio in Uganda, Archbishop Christophe Pierre confirmed the
Pontiff's concern over the Kibweteere tragedy, which has left at least 1000
followers dead.
(...)

Archbishop Pierre also dismissed claims by Kibweteere that he had met Pope
John Paul II during his historic visit to Uganda in February 1993.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


10. Questions Around Ugandan Massacre
AOL/AP, Apr. 3, 2000
http://my.aol.com/news/story.tmpl?table=n&cat=01&id=0004030449444875
(...) But after hundreds of bodies were found here and at similar spots
across the lush hills of southwestern Uganda, the question remains: How could
so many people not see what was happening in their midst?
(...)

There is no simple explanation, but instead a combination of reasons: Cult
members and villagers lived side-by-side but were still divided; hundreds of
cult followers came and went at odd hours; cult leaders knew how to stop
officials from probing too closely.

And there was a silent fear: Maybe, just maybe, the cult leaders had powers
that would make it better to steer clear of them.
(...)

More than anything, it was the cult's isolation that kept villagers from
discovering the killings.

For years in Rugazi, cult members had lived and prayed at the compound -
sometimes hundreds at a time - but they had almost no contact with local
villagers. To the people of Rugazi, the cult members were strangers who spoke
only in the hand gestures demanded by sect leaders.
(...)

The cult's actions apparently were dictated by visions of a coming
apocalypse, where believers would be carried away on homemade arks and
everyone else would perish.

In preparation, the leaders imposed more and more commandments on their
flock: no speaking, no sex, little food, minimal contact with outsiders. They
sold their possessions and cut contact with relatives. They spent hour after
hour in prayer.

At least a couple of times, Ugandan authorities did look into cult
activities.

In Rushojwa, site of another mass grave, officials contacted police in
connection with a series of sudden deaths among cult children.

Officials arrived, but left after the group showed they were a registered
non-governmental organization. The deaths, they were told, were the result of
malaria.

In Rugazi, police appeared once during a meeting at Kataribabo's compound.
Again, cult leaders produced registration documents, paid a tax to hold the
meeting, and the authorities left.

A final explanation for the villagers' ignorance lies deeper, in traditional
beliefs and an undercurrent of fear.

In a country where the vast majority of the people believe in the
supernatural, the strangeness of the sect and the leaders' control over their
followers were unnerving.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


11. Ex-Uganda Sect Member Speaks Out
AOL/AP, Apr. 3, 2000
http://my.aol.com/news/story.tmpl?table=n&cat=01&id=0004030144200601
(...) Until Sunday, no sect member, past or present, had confirmed the common
belief here: The failure of the world to end Dec. 31 led members to demand
belongings they had surrendered to join the Movement for the Restoration of
the Ten Commandments of God - a challenge that allegedly led to retaliation
by sect leaders.
(...)

Ahimbisibwe, whose mother and sister died in the fire two weeks ago, said
sect members began pressing Credonia Mwerinde, a movement founder who was
known as ''The Programmer,'' about the fate of their property during worship
services.

''The people who sold their property would inquire one-by-one. Whoever would
inquire would disappear,'' Ahimbisibwe told reporters in Kanungu on Sunday
for a government-convened prayer service for the victims.

Ahimbisibwe survived March 17 only because he became hungry during what would
be the last of the sect's frequent fasts, and slipped away to eat at his
father's house, he said.
(...)

Ugandan Vice President Speciosa Kazibwe called the architects of the
deadliest cult tragedy in modern history ''diabolic, malevolent criminals
masquerading as holy and religious people.''

During the memorial service, Kazibwe acknowledged the failure of the
country's police and intelligence agencies to expose sect.

''Through deception and conspiracy, these criminals outwitted the security
network (and) exploited the ignorance and illiteracy of thousands,'' she
said, adding that the government planned to convene an interagency group to
study the country's cults.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


12. Uganda Police Search for More Cult Mass Graves
AOL/Reuters, Apr. 3, 2000
http://my.aol.com/news/story.tmpl?table=n&cat=0106&id=0004030612300352
MBARARA, Uganda (Reuters) - Ugandan police said on Monday they were searching
the hills in the southwest of the country for more mass graves of victims of
a Doomsday cult blamed for the deaths of around 900 people.
(...)

''We've halted exhumations for the moment, but we're still looking for
suspected sites where we think other bodies might be.''
(...)

Police believe cult leaders had been systematically killing their followers
for months after a prediction that the world would end failed to come true.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


13. Check 'Mushroom Churches'! (Editorial)
New Vision/Africa News Online (Uganda), Apr. 3, 2000
http://www.africanews.org/east/uganda/stories/20000403/20000403_feat14.html
(...) So we are left to guess on FM radios what really led to this - for the
cult's evil charisma alone is not a good enough explanation. And poverty
should not really make people gullible on such a large scale.

Accusations and counteraccusations as to which religious group is to blame
for the cult have been taking centre stage. But apportioning blame after the
event is the easy bit and merely detracts us from drawing lasting lessons
from the event.

The Government, whose officers in the district let it down so badly, must now
monitor religious, splinter groups more keenly.
(...)

Hindsight is perfect vision. We now know how important property and money are
to the leaders of such cults. Theirs is not a world of tithe. No, you must
sell everything and give the proceeds to me, they tell their followers. Only
the desperate poor could find this invitation very appealing.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


14. Ugandan Parents Led Kids to Deaths
AOL/AP, Apr. 2, 2000
http://my.aol.com/news/story.tmpl?table=
n&cat=01&id=0004020445100783
(...) Children made up a large part of the bodies recovered from mass graves
in southwestern Uganda since the March 17 inferno at the chapel at Kanungu
alerted the world, and some Ugandans, to the Movement for the Restoration of
the Ten Commandments of God. Authorities now are pursuing the sect's leaders,
who they believe masterminded the murders of at least 924 people.
(...)

For the movement, childhood was an occasion of sin. ''These days ... the
majority of the youths go to hell; only very few go to heaven in a day,'' its
handbook states. The sect's leaders went to brutal lengths to ensure children
wouldn't fall into what they believed were the clutches of Satan.

In the early 1990s, Credonia Mrewinde, one of the movement's founders, forced
60 children to live in a 15-by-40-foot backyard shed in the village of
Kabumba, according to Juvenal Rugambwa, son of sect leader Joseph Kibwetere.

He said the shed's windows were nailed shut and the children forced to sleep
on the dirt floor, where many contracted scabies, a contagious skin disease.

Children and their parents were placed in separate living quarters when they
joined the sect, Rugambwa and former sect members said. Parents also were
forced to withdraw their children from school.

Rev. Paolino Tomaino, who became acquainted with the sect when he worked in
Kabumba from 1976 to 1989, says it was inevitable that the children would
follow their parents, even to their deaths.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


15. Ugandans Mourn Mass Murder Deaths
AOL/AP, Apr. 2, 2000
http://my.aol.com/news/story.tmpl?
table=n&cat=01&id=0004020652122033
KANUNGU, Uganda (AP) - Thousands of townspeople gathered on a hilltop soccer
field Sunday to mourn the mass murder of neighbors they barely knew.

Dignitaries joined residents of Kanungu and nearby villages to deplore the
deaths of 924 members of a reclusive Christian doomsday sect who authorities
say were murdered by their leaders.

Ugandan Vice President Speciosa Kazibwe called the architects of the
deadliest cult tragedy in modern history ''diabolic, malevolent criminals
masquerading as holy and religious people.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


16. 'Cult Hired Hitmen'
New Vision/Africa News Online (Uganda), Apr. 4, 2000
http://www.africanews.org/east/uganda/stories/20000404/20000404_feat12.html
Kampala - The Police are investigating reports that the leaders of the
doomsday cult responsible for at least 900 deaths, hired hitmen to strangle
and bury hundreds of their followers.

A CID officer, part of a team investigating the cult, told The New Vision on
Saturday that they had received reports that hitmen were hired from the
neighbouring countries of Rwanda and the DR Congo to help in murdering the
cult faithfuls.
(...)

He said some of the people who defected from the cult early this year
recalled seeing people who were close to the cult leaders but who did not
behave like the other followers.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


17. 'No change' fuelled Kanungu cult fire
The Monitor/Africa News Online (Uganda), Apr. 4, 2000 (Editorial)
http://www.africanews.org/east/uganda/stories/20000404/20000404_feat8.html
(...) While we mourn the deaths of our brothers and sisters, we must ask why
Uganda is particularly fertile ground for these deadly cults.
(...)

President Yoweri Museveni's NRM has been in power for 14 years now.
In this time, Museveni has built a good reputation in the West for being
progressive and dynamic. He has been hailed by Western leaders as the model
African statesman.

But the deaths at Kanungu and other events in the recent past point to
incontrovertible realities about a people who are desperate, destitute and so
hopelessly forlorn.

After the terror of Idi Amin and Milton Obote, the Museveni era has not
provided Uganda with the peace and stability many had hoped for.

Throughout his 14-year rule, the northern part of Uganda has been burning.
(...)

On Museveni's so-called economic miracle, we can only say that not all that
glitters is gold.

True, there has been a lot of investment in Uganda and the economy has grown
steadily over the years. But the million dollar question is; who is
benefiting from this growth?

Certainly not the ordinary people who are afflicted with poverty, hunger and
disease.
(...)

The people of Uganda are desperate. Unless their conditions change, we will
see more Kanungus.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


18. Cult leader's ex-husband tells of wife's powers
The Monitor/Africa News Online (Uganda), Apr. 4, 2000
http://www.africanews.org/east/uganda/stories/20000404/20000404_feat4.html
Kampala - Just outside Kanungu, in the village of Shunga, Eric Mazima, 70,
who was once married to cult leader Credonia Mwerinde, is certain his former
wife was the brains behind the cult.

He left her 12 years ago, after she tried to convince him that the image of
the Virgin Mary was visible on a rock face, and that Mary was speaking to
her.
(...)

Authorities now believe the leaders of a doomsday cult linked to the deaths
of around 1,000 people are still alive, while those who knew them suggest
self- enrichment was their motivation.
(...)

From the testimony of various witnesses, it now appears that Credonia
Mwerinde, the cult's so-called ''programmer'' rather than its ''prophet''
Joseph Kibwetere, a former mental patient and one-time politician, was the
driving force behind the murderous movement.

Mwerinde presented herself as a former prostitute, an unverified detail whose
reference to Mary Magdalene would nevertheless not be lost on those familiar
with the Bible.
(...)

One poor woman, Night Nalongo, recalled that Mwerinde sent her away because
she could not raise the Shs 250,000 entry fee. Mwerinde told her there was
no room for the poor in the cult.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


19. Balokole see plot in Kanungu deaths
The Monitor/Africa News Online (Uganda), Apr. 4, 2000
http://www.africanews.org/east/uganda/stories/20000404/20000404_feat1.html
Kampala - Born-again Christians have said the Kanungu massacres in which at
least 1,000 cult followers perished, is a deliberate plot to tarnish their
name by churches that have lost followers to them.

In a meeting of Pentecostal churches, April 03, at Victory Christian
Fellowship in Ndeeba, born-again Christians complained that they have been
barred from preaching, with people calling them ''Kibweteres''.
(...)

Pastor Joseph Serwadda said the doomsday cult leaders were Catholics and not
balokole (born-again).

''The people in Kanungu were Catholics, but they are being levelled against
us. Our history is not based on dead people. The religion which killed people
in Kanungu has a history of killing people in its past,'' Serwadda told a
heated up congregation of pastors and believers who kept blaming the deaths
on the Roman Catholic Church.

He challenged government for referring to unregistered churches as
''mainstream'', yet born-again churches were the churches registered with
government. ''The constitution does not attach itself to any religion. So
who determines a mainstream or sub-stream church,'' he said amidst applause.
(...)

They were particularly offended by the recent closure and burning down of
their churches in Luwero district, following the Kanungu incident.

They gave the Simeon Kayiwa-led National Fellowship for Born-Again Churches
mandate to deal with authorities.
(...)

He recommended that all church certificates be nullified to enable fresh
registration through the association.

''Let us agree that Balokole have an identifying symbol of BAC (Born-Again
Christians) at the end of the label so that the association is liable for all
that happens in the churches,'' he said.

Chairman Kayiwa suggested outspoken Bishop Musisi for ''Inspector of
Churches'', to keep cults from registering as born-again congregations.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


20. In wake of Uganda cult deaths, survivors are also victims
CNN/AP, Apr. 4, 2000
http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/africa/04/04/uganda.children.ap/index.html
(...) To headmaster Frank Rwabambari, the stunned students at his school are
themselves victims of the deadliest cult killings in modern history.

Uganda, though, can offer the horrified survivors little help.
(...)

''People are shattered, really shattered,'' said James Walugembe, the Health
Ministry's chief for mental health, who was working Monday to put together a
crisis team for survivors.

''Something like this has never happened before. We have had war and people
killed in combat and we could predict something like that, but this has never
happened.''

Uganda, largely rural and poor, has no crisis counselors to rush to schools,
workplaces and churches. The nearest psychiatric center to any of the
villages is Mbarara, a drive of several hours' away on steep, winding roads
that often disintegrate into dirt tracks.

''People need counseling badly, but there is nobody to help them in these
areas,'' said Maureen Kahima, a counselor at Mbarara University psychiatric
department, whose experts will form part of the crisis team.

Without help, ''something may go wrong,'' Kahima said, warning of psychotic
episodes and post-traumatic disorders.
(...)

In the cult killings, the stigma of association with any member of the Ten
Commandments sect means that acquaintances and family members may hold on to
their grief that much more tightly.

''People do not want to come out openly because they fear the police and do
not want to be identified with the cult ... they are masking their emotion,''
Kayizzi said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


21. Doomsday Sect's Handbook Had Message
AOL/AP, Apr. 4, 2000
http://my.aol.com/news/story.tmpl?
table=n&cat=01&id=0004040444833400
KANUNGA, Uganda (AP) - In a 163-page handbook distributed across Uganda, a
doomsday sect offered a seductive message of heavenly salvation to African
villagers struggling with poverty and the scourge of AIDS.

For the unconvinced there was a different fate - a fiery torment where they
would burn for eternity.

The paperbound tract, ''A Timely Message from Heaven: The End of the Present
Times,'' was distributed by the thousands; The Associated Press obtained a
copy from a man in the southwestern village of Rugazi who said cult members
tried unsuccessfully to recruit him.

It offers little but stark choices and homespun advice for righteous living.
For hundreds who adhered to its tenets, the reward was ultimately a vicious
death.
(...)

The 16-part tract - with a picture of a bleeding, crucified Christ on its
cover - rarely refers to the surrendering of goods, noting only that the
movement ''resolves that each person should contribute.''

Instead, it focuses on Uganda's afflictions, casting them as satanic, with
obedience to the Ten Commandments the only cure.
(...)

For the unwary, evil lurks everywhere. Herbalists - called ''witch doctors''
by cult members but relied on by many Ugandans for medical care - are in the
''company of the devil.''

Even animals aren't spared: ''Cats and dogs are already possessed by the
devil. From these animals Satan is actually fighting against man,
particularly those who own animals.''

According to the booklet, Ugandans aren't alone in facing judgment. Cities
and countries also must repent or face punishment, it says, giving these
admonitions:

London? ''Your desire for doing evil will be fulfilled.''

Mexico? ''Heavy arms that are going to destroy five countries will be
transported through your roads.''

France? ''Your laziness will not permit you to endure the chastisement that
will be inflicted upon you until you are destroyed in lamentations.''

Because their membership drew heavily on Roman Catholics unhappy with, but
still loyal to, their church, the writers were eager to stress they were not
establishing a new faith.

''Ours is not a religion, but a movement that endeavors to make the people
aware of the fact that the Commandments of God have been abandoned, and it
gives what should be done for their observance.''
(...)

Yet the booklet, last updated in 1996, gives little attention to the sect's
end-of-the-world prophecy.

What it does mention is haunting.

''The Lord told me that hurricanes of fire would rain forth from heaven and
spread over those who would not have repented...This fire will also reach
inside the buildings; there is no way one can escape.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


22. Uganda Cult Handbook Excerpts
AOL/AP, Apr. 4, 2000
http://my.aol.com/news/story.tmpl?
table=n&cat=01&id=0004040637888272
Excerpts from ''A Timely Message from Heaven: The End of the Present Times''
by leaders of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of
God:
(...)

We are definitely taking you to Jesus through the Blessed Virgin Mary, who
have (sic) commissioned us, and through the Pope.

Since the Ten Commandments of God have been abandoned and are being broken,
those who go to hell are very many. ...Those going to heaven are few.
(...)

A great number of youths now move about more or less naked. They move about
putting on slit-skirts, see-through dresses without any under-clothing. Some
move about half-naked putting on back-show dresses. Girls prefer wearing
men's trousers to wearing their own dresses. ...All these are symptoms of an
urge to violate the Sixth Commandment. Our Blessed Mother Mary says that we,
the youths, are like simpletons or fools because of having allowed Satan to
dwell in us and make us do all sorts of shameful actions

AIDS ... is a disaster that has befallen the world. AIDS is a punishment that
has been released to the world due to its disobedience. The sole cure is
repenting our disobedience, and the restoration of the Ten Commandments of
God.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


23. Victims of Cult Fire Burned Alive
APL/AP, Apr. 4, 2000
http://my.aol.com/news/story.tmpl?table=n&cat=01&id=0004041213733972
KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) - The 530 people who died in a doomsday cult's chapel
burned alive, consumed by gasoline-fueled flames and trapped behind doors and
windows bolted from the outside, forensic tests showed Tuesday.

A.B.M. Lugudo, deputy commissioner of Uganda's forensics agency, said
investigators are trying to learn what role may have been played by three
people whose corpses, less thoroughly charred, were found in a separate room
of the chapel.

''We are still looking to see if these people started the fire and tried to
run away, but got caught up in the fire,'' he said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


24. Cult Dead Were Tabliqs - Awori
The Monitor/Africa News Online (Uganda), Apr. 5, 2000
http://www.africanews.org/east/uganda/stories/20000405/20000405_feat2.html
Kampala - The Kanungu mass murder mystery deepened yesterday with Samia Bugwe
North MP, Aggrey Awori, linking some victims with missing members of the
Tabliq Muslim sect.

Awori told a meeting between minister of State for Security, Muruli Mukasa,
and Parliament's committee on Presidential and Foreign Affairs that 38 bodies
exhumed from a mass grave ''bore characteristics uncommon to the area''.

''I had told the minister for Internal Affairs about it and he said that I
should wait for the probe and bring the information. These 38 bodies were all
circumcised!'' Awori told the committee.
(...)

Speaking to The Monitor after the meeting, Awori said it's possible that the
circumcised bodies could belong to ''Tabliq Muslims''. This brings a new
twist to Joseph Kibwetere's doomsday cult which March 17 burnt over 530
people in a church in Kanungu, Rukungiri. More than 500 other apparently
murdered people have been found in mass graves at sites used by the now
banned cult.

Awori and other MPs now claim something sinister is being ''covered up'' by
government.

''They (government) say the Gombolola Internal Security Officer (GISO)
reported his suspicions about the doomsday cult to the assistant RDC (Rev.
Mutazindwa). It's usual procedure for the GISO to give a copy of his reports
to the District Internal Security Officer (DISO),'' Awori said.

He wondered why government hasn't asked then DISO, Lt. Fred Mwesigye, who is
presently RDC of Kabale, to volunteer his copy of the GISO's report.
(...)

Minister of Internal Affairs, Edward Rugumayo added to fears of a government
cover-up when he revealed, over the weekend, that journalists will be barred
when investigations and exhumation on property used by the Restoration of the
Ten Commandments of God cult resumes.
(...)

Other sources told The Monitor that ''the way the bodies were piled on top of
each, suggests they were thrown in possibly from the back of a tipper truck.
You can't be strangling or poisoning people one by one, and they are buried
at the same level at about the same time, 80 of them''.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


25. Uganda cult members shunned neighbours, never spoke
AOL/Reuters, Apr. 5, 2000
http://my.aol.com/news/story.tmpl?
table=n&cat=01&id=0004050518104268
RUSHOJWA, Uganda, April 5 (Reuters) - Erneo Rwarinda lived a few metres from
a house used by the fanatical Christian cult blamed for one of the worst mass
murders in recent Ugandan history, but he knew remarkably little about them.

For years members of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments
of God -- who included one of Rwarinda's brothers -- spoke not a single word
to him, communicating strictly with each other through hand-signs, written
messages and prayer.
(...)

The prohibition on speech was meant to maintain discipline and prevent
quarrels. But it also guarded deep secrets.
(...)

Although the rules of the sect were bizarre -- they were denied soap, sex and
sometimes school -- local residents said they had no reason to be suspicious.

Local police say they too had little reason to suspect the sect of
wrongdoing, despite warnings from a local parish.

A local parish councillor filed a report last year raising concerns over
strangers and unaccompanied children in the area, but officials said they
could not act because the sect was a registered charity.
[...more...]

» Part 2