Church Christ Disciples cult followers repatriated from Ethiopia to Uganda - ministry

News24
June 13, 2023

• Cult members who believed was going to end, have been deported from Ethiopia.
• Church Christ Disciples followers travelled to Ethiopia from Uganda.
• Their pastor told them they would find Jesus after a 40-day fast.

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Ugandan authorities said on Tuesday that 80 followers of a religious cult from the country's east had been deported from Ethiopia where they travelled believing they would find salvation through starving.

The followers of Church Christ Disciples from Soroti travelled to Ethiopia in February after their pastor claimed they would find Jesus there after 40 days of fasting, said a spokesperson for Uganda's internal affairs ministry.

"Working with the Ethiopian government, we were able to process their repatriation and they are all safely in Uganda," said the spokesperson, Simon Mundeyi.

"A joint security and intelligence team has put the religious cult leader, Pastor Simon Opolot, who is a Ugandan, on the wanted list and he will be apprehended."

He said the followers were drawn from across Soroti, a largely rural area, and told to sell all their possessions because the world was coming to an end.

Mundeyi said:

They were fasting for 40 days and on the 41st day is when they were to meet Jesus Christ.

"But Ethiopian officials learnt of their arrival in the country, picked them (up) and confined them until their repatriation documents were ready."

Authorities in Uganda were alerted to the plan by concerned residents in Soroti after the cult followers began leaving for Ethiopia.

In 2000, some 700 members from the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God in Uganda burned to death in one of the world's worst cult-related massacres.

Members of the cult, which believed the world would come to an end at the turn of the millennium, had been locked inside a church, with the doors and windows nailed shut from the outside.

The building in southwestern Uganda's Kanungu district was then set alight.

In neighbouring Kenya, more than 250 people linked to a doomsday cult that also believed in extreme fasting have been exhumed from a forest near the country's coast since April.

Cult leader Paul Nthenge Mackenzie is facing various charges in the grisly case, accused of driving his followers to death by preaching that starvation was the only path to God.

 

https://www.news24.com/news24/africa/news/church-christ-disciples-cult-followers-repatriated-from-ethiopia-to-uganda-ministry-20230613

 

CultNEWS101 Articles: 1/2/2020

Recovery Workshop, Gregg Schoof, Rwanda, Uganda, Legal, Mount Gerizim Baptist Ministries, Hillsong, Sexual Abuse, Televangelists, Child Marriage, Israel, Legal

Online Workshop/Support Session January 9th!

To New and Returning Participants,

If you would like to attend Saturday,  1/9, 12:00 Noon – 2:00 Pacific Time, please send in your payment of $50 for one session or $150 for three sessions to reserve your place.  I keep the total participants to about 10 each time to allow for your exploration of relevant issues in your lives. Some of you have already paid but if you could please confirm your attendance, I'd appreciate it.   Janja and I look forward to seeing you on the 9th !

Colleen Russell, LMFT, CGP

415-785-3513

www.colleenrussellmft.com

 

Vice: U.S. Pastor Deported From Rwanda Now Works in Uganda

"Gregg Schoof claimed the Rwandan government had "taken a stand against God with its heathen practices" before being arrested last year.

Gregg Schoof, the controversial evangelical pastor deported from Rwanda last year, is now living and working in Uganda. 

In a "prayer letter" published today on Fundamental Baptist Missions International, Schoof wrote that his family plans to start new radio stations and local churches in Uganda, and has recently found funding for their work. "In Rwanda, we were entirely by ourselves, but in Uganda, there are several good churches that we can work with," wrote Schoof, who launched the NGO Mount Gerizim Baptist Ministries in Uganda this summer. "From the radio station we had in Rwanda, I still have a love for the radio ministry … I am looking at seven different cities where we could start radio stations with local pastors. We also have an open door to start three stations in Burundi." He then requested funding for radio equipment for four different stations, where each setup, he said, "costs about $15,000."

In Rwanda, Schoof's radio station, The Amazing Grace Christian Radio, was shut down in 2018 after one of the station's presenters, Nicolas Niyibikora, referred to women as "evil" during multiple broadcasts. This prompted the Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority to revoke the radio station's license. 

Schoof, a missionary, also had his Baptist church shut down for not complying with city regulations regarding noise pollution and building safety standards. (This closure was not specific to Schoof, and was one of many in Rwanda at the time.) During his 16 years in Rwanda, Schoof frequently critiqued the government for teaching evolution and allowing access to family planning services like condoms and abortion. (Schoof has also continued to struggle with science: At a livestreamed September event in the Lighthouse Baptist Church in Ohio, Schoof told attendees and viewers that believed he had the coronavirus in 2019, and said he "took God's medicines … good old fashioned exciting raw garlic." There is no scientific evidence that eating raw garlic will cure COVID-19.)

After his radio station was closed in Rwanda, Schoof tried to host a news conference in 2019 to discuss his situation. The conference did not occur, as he didn't have government approval. "I did not come here to fight the government," he said in a written statement. "But this government has taken a stand against God with its heathen practices." Schoof was then arrested for, according to Reuters, "disturbing public order," before he was deported. 

Uganda, where Schoof and his family have lived since November 2019, has its own contentious history with evangelical missionaries from the United States, many of whom have been linked to promoting anti-LGBTQ legislation and exporting homophobia. In his letter today, Schoof said, "Truly, God has given us a wide open door in Uganda. Thank you again for your interest in our ministry and for your prayers and support."

Jezebel: Turns Out, Hillsong Megachurch Has Allegedly Been Full of 'Inappropriate Sexual Relationships' for Years!

"Last month, news broke that Carl Lentz, one-time "spiritual confidant" to celebrities including Justin Bieber and head pastor at Hillsong megachurch, was "released" from his job due to unspecified "moral failures." Soon afterward, it was revealed that Lentz cheated on his wife, having had an affair with Brooklyn-based fashion designer Ranin Karim (and potentially, many others). As of last week, it appeared like his redemption arc was beginning to unfold, having reportedly entered treatment for anxiety, depression, and "pastoral burnout." Except, of course, new information about a seedy, "sexual inappropriate" culture at Hillsong has begun to emerge, and I just don't get how a "religious man" gets out of this one!

According to Page Six, back in 2018, whistleblowers within the Hillsong organization sent a letter to church leaders citing "verified, widely circulated stories of inappropriate sexual behavior amongst staff/interns," allegedly labeling Hillsong "...dangerous and a breeding ground for unchecked abuse."

Apparently, one high-ranking church leader was instructed to leave after the letter exposed he had "multiple inappropriate sexual relationships with several female leaders and volunteers and was verbally, emotionally, and according to one woman, physically abusive in his relationships with these women." Another high-ranking male church leader was accused of "not respecting physical and sexual boundaries within dating relationships with female church volunteers."

The letter also stated that church volunteers face "harsh words, belittlement, name-calling from certain pastors and staff," and one pastor in particular was guilty of "losing his temper, bullying, yelling and outright screaming at other volunteers and leaders... that's just how they are—it's their personality/culture."

How very Christian of them! The time for a reckoning is nigh."

The Revealer: Reluctant Televangelists: Worship in the Bible Belt during the Pandemic

"With every verse and refrain, Bryan Dougan's voice becomes more urgent. "We are so weary of this coronavirus and so hungry for the physical community of the Holy Family. Feed our desperate hungers with your divine mercy and grace. Bread of the world, hear our prayer." Despite the intention in his timbre, his prayers echo hollowly in the cavernous nave; its pews sit empty. A member of Church of the Holy Family in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Dougan is one of the congregants who helps create Sunday's weekly video service, a necessity of the pandemic given the dangers of mass gatherings.

"We're basically producing a TV show," observes Reverend Clarke French, who says the process has been the steepest learning curve of his twenty years in the clergy. "I had to learn five new software platforms since the pandemic started."

In March, two days after the state reported its first COVID-19 death, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper issued an executive stay-at-home order that banned gatherings of more than ten people — essentially outlawing in-person religious services. A May order that moved the state to 'Phase One' of the reopening process relaxed general restrictions by allowing retail stores to resume business at 50% capacity, but permitted religious institutions to exceed the ten-person gathering limit only if their services were held outdoors. That decision provoked a lawsuit from a coalition of religious conservatives who argued that churches were being unfairly targeted, an infringement on the First Amendment protection of the free exercise of religion."

The Times of Israel: Police prevent ultra-Orthodox marriage of 14-year-old bride in Jerusalem

"Parents of girl who was set to marry 24-year-old man arrested, daughter transferred to custody of welfare authorities; mother insists child was mature enough

Police prevented a Haredi wedding of a 14-year-old girl to a 24-year-old man in Jerusalem, at the last minute.

The ceremony had been slated to take place last week, Channel 12 said Thursday, reporting that police were tipped off shortly beforehand and arrested the girl's parents.

They have since been released to house arrest, but the child has been placed in the custody of welfare services.

In a recorded phone conversation with Channel 12, the girl's mother insisted that she was not aware Israeli law bars marriages of children under the age of 18, and insisted there was nothing wrong with the arrangement.

"I didn't know this was like a person stealing or murdering or that it is something that harms anyone," the woman claimed. "I know a lot of girls who get married at the age of 15. It happens a lot [in our community]. There are a lot of girls who are ready for it."

She lamented that relationships between teenagers in the "secular world" are deemed legitimate, while the marriage of children in Haredi communities are not. The mother went on to demand that authorities return her daughter home."

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Pastor fails to resurrect 5 month-old baby, arrested for murder

Observer
October 5, 2018

Police in Luweero have arrested a 'pastor' and three other people for the alleged murder of a five month-old baby.

The 'pastor', Viola Nassanga and her aides Juliet Nakayenga, Edith Nabuule and landlord Lazaro Walakira were arrested and are currently detained at Luweero central police station. Luweero district police commander Benson Byaruhanga Mworozi says that the suspects were arrested in connection to the death of Anita Kwagala.

Byaruhanga explains that a week ago, Nassanga hoodwinked Asineyi Biira, the mother of the child to give her the child for prayers after complaining of sickness. He adds that the child never appeared again until reports emerged on Thursday that she died in the room they'd hired from Walakira while praying for her.

Byaruhanga says that police got the information of the death from area LC 1 chairperson. The toddler's body was found decomposing in the house. It is reported that after learning of the death, the pastor lied to the mother that she had powers to resurrect her and she should remain calm.

The body was taken to Luweero health centre IV were and will be transferred to Mulago referral hospital for post-mortem to establish what caused the death. 

However, pastors led by Morris Kigongo and Amos Nayepe of Luweero Pastors' Fellowship in Luweero have disassociated themselves from the suspect. They claim that Nassanga was practising witchcraft and not Christianity.

https://observer.ug/news/headlines/58849-pastor-fails-to-resurrect-5-month-old-baby-arrested-for-murder

18 years later, talk of memorial for Kanungu cult victims is still just that—talk [MRTCG]

Gilbert Mwijuke
Chwezi Traveller
July 2, 2018

On March 17, 2000, close to 1,000 people were burnt to death in the rolling hills of Nyabutogo in Kanungu district, southwestern Uganda. The victims – men, women and children – were locked up in a church and set ablaze in broad daylight.

One of the worst cult massacres in human history, this hideous act was orchestrated by the infamous Joseph Kibwetere, a self-styled 'prophet' who had spent several years duping his gullible Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments followers that the world would end on December 31, 1999. Once the year 2000 kicked in, Jesus would return and take them to heaven, Kibwetere convinced his 'herd'.

One of Kibwetere's precepts dictated that his followers had to sell off everything they owned – land, livestock, household items, clothes, etc – and tithe all proceeds to his church.

Numbering about 30,000 people, the majority of them lived as one big family at Kibwetere's sprawling estate in Kanungu – complete with adequate residences, a primary school, market, hospital, church and other amenities. This land belonged to Kashaku Mwerinde, the father of Cledonia Mwerinde, Kibwetere's partner in crime.

As we dived into the new millennium, Kibwetere's followers waited for the end of the world – and the return of Jesus – in vain. As we moved deeper into the new millennium, many of Kibwetere's followers began to suspect, or realise, that his Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments was a sham, that they had been defrauded.

They demanded a refund, and they wanted it immediately. See, Kibwetere had only lured them with one promise: that the world would end on December 31, 1999, and that Jesus would return and take them to heaven. But the world was not ending and Jesus was not returning. They wanted out. They wanted to begin a new life.

As pressure mounted on Kibwetere, he was compelled to deliver what he had promised his herd: the end of the world. And deliver he did on March 17, 2000 – albeit only for his people, and in nauseating brutality.
Where did Kibwetere go?

Images from Kanungu, awash in media all over the world, depicted a scene from a poorly produced horror movie. The world was in shock. Kibwetere himself was nowhere to be seen, and no one, at least as far as the general public is concerned, has ever set sight on him since that fateful day.

"He must have died with his people. He wasn't a ghost so if he was alive at least someone, someone somewhere, would know," says Micugwa, who is now employed at the tea firm that has since replaced Kibwetere's once bustling estate.

In 2000, Micugwa was a teenage boy living nearby and one of the first people to arrive at the scene when Kibwetere's church went up in flames.

Burnt beyond recognition, the only logical thing to do at the time was to bury Kibwetere's victims in one mass grave, on site. The mass grave was rudimental, corpses simply thrown into one huge pit.

Up until now, this mass grave is not even marked by a tombstone. 1,000 innocent people buried in an undignified manner. The mass grave cannot even be recognised by a first-time visitor.

The only visible structure here is the dilapidated church, which Kibwetere had constructed and was set to officially launch on that same day when he ironically decided to deliver the mortal blow.

"It was a very beautiful structure," says Micugwa, who has vainly tried to bury those unpleasant memories.

This is a spot that seems to have eternally ensnared Micugwa, now 36 years old. For the bigger part of his life, he has been tending to the farm that was set up here by Byaruhanga, the man who bought the land from Kashaku's family a few years after the grotesque massacres.
The long-awaited museum

Now Micugwa says that his boss has plans of constructing here a museum whose exhibits will include exhumed bodies from the mass grave. The museum will serve as a place where friends and relatives of the victims can always go and honour their loved ones.

But there are two problems. One, most Kanungu residents claim that there are ghosts here – ghosts of Kibwetere's victims that roam this spot tormenting anyone who comes nearby.

"At night you hear sounds of people crying," one Kanungu resident told me.

But Micugwa dismisses the claims as fictitious. "If there were ghosts, I would have seen one because I've been working here for the bigger part of my adulthood," says Micugwa, who clearly frowns upon any claim of the existence of ghosts.

The other problem is that the government, according to Micugwa, also has the same plan as Byaruhanga, so the two parties are yet to agree on how the project should be tacked together and managed.

What remains to be seen is whether this project will ever kick off as this is a plan that was first mooted by the Uganda Tourism Board (UTB), the country's tourism industry regulator, about 15 years ago.

www.chwezitraveller.com/featured/18-years-later-talk-of-memorial-for-kanungu-cult-victims-is-still-just-that-talk/

Witch doctors are sacrificing children in drought-stricken Uganda

Doreen Ajiambo

Religion News Service
September 26, 2017

KATABI, Uganda (RNS) — Jackline Mukisa sobbed as she described how her 8-year-old son was found in a nearby swamp in February without teeth, lips, ears and genitals.

“My innocent son died a painful death,” said Mukisa, 28. “How could somebody intend to murder my son?”

A motorcyclist offered John Lubega a lift as he walked back from school, according to fellow students who saw him last. His remains suggest he was slowly killed as part of a human sacrifice ritual performed by witch doctors, apparently to appease the spirits, said Mukisa, who filed a police report.

No arrest has been made so far.

In this landlocked country whose diverse landscape includes the snow-capped Ruwenzori Mountains and immense Lake Victoria, many believe sacrificial rituals can bring quick wealth and health.

Among those rituals, human sacrifice, especially of children, occurs frequently despite the government’s efforts to stop it.

Seven children and two adults were sacrificed last year, said Moses Binoga, a police officer who heads Uganda’s Anti-Human Sacrifice and Trafficking Task Force. Seven children and six adults were sacrificed in 2015.

But experts said the number could be much higher.

Times are tough in Uganda, and people are looking to sacrifices to improve their fortunes. The worst drought in over half a century has hit parts of East Africa, leaving more than 11 million people in this landlocked nation facing food insecurity and 1.6 million on the brink of famine, according to the Ugandan government.

“There is no food due to the ongoing drought, and some believe that this has been brought by ancestral spirits,” said Joel Mugoya, a traditional healer. “So there is a high desire for people to conduct sacrifices so that they come out of this problem.”

Recently, Uganda police arrested 44 suspects in Katabi, a town 24 miles from the capital, Kampala, in connection with a spate of killings of children and women. Half of the suspects have been charged in court, including two alleged masterminds.

Uganda Police Inspector General Kale Kayihura said one suspect confessed to killing eight women. More than 21 women have been killed between May 3 and Sept. 4, Kayihura said.

“The murders were for ritual sacrifices,” he told residents last week. “We are working hard to arrest the remaining suspects and end the practice.”

Francis Bahati’s wife was among the victims. He discovered her body after three days of searching. Her fingers and feet had been cut off for ritual purposes, likely in hopes of securing better fortunes.

“I was shocked and even lost consciousness,” he said.

Last year police arrested Herbert Were, a resident of Busia town in eastern Uganda, for beheading his 8-year-old brother, Joel Ogema. Were, 21, confessed to police that he killed his brother in hopes of attaining wealth.

Church leaders are teaming up with police to end the brutal practice.

Pastor Peter Sewakiryanga, who heads Kyampisi Childcare Ministries, a Christian organization that fights child sacrifice in Uganda, said children disappear in the country every week. They are often found dead, or alive with missing body parts.

Most survivors or victims do not file police reports, Sewakiryanga said, adding that he implores victims to come forward.

“It’s a serious problem but we are fighting it with the help of the government,” he said.

Sacrifices often involve removing body parts, blood or tissue while the child is still alive.

“It’s a brutal ritual that destroys the lives of our children and affects their parents mentally,” he added. “We are working with the police to arrest witch doctors involved in the ritual. We are also assisting the survivors financially and with moral support.”

Sewakiryanga said his charity worked with Ugandan police three years ago to arrest a witch doctor and his accomplices who sacrificed a 7-year-old girl named Suubi.

The witch doctor drained her blood and cut out her genitals, he said. He then cut the neck and drained the blood of the girl’s 10-year-old brother, Kanani.

In June, a Ugandan court sentenced the witch doctor to life in prison.

Fears of witch doctors have hurt women who practice traditional medicine, however.

According to KidsRights, a global organization that fights for the rights of children, Uganda has 650,000 registered traditional healers and an estimated 3 million unregistered practitioners. Unscrupulous witch doctors hide among so-called healers, the group said.

“They should arrest people who murdered my son,” Mukisa said. “The government is doing little to protect our children. They must begin to arrest all witch doctors.”

But Sewakiryanga said arresting everyone claiming to practice medicine was going too far. He hoped to end the practice by changing the hearts of those who promote human sacrifice.

Efforts to end the practice need to expand, he said. Other countries in Africa reported to be practicing child sacrifice include Tanzania, Nigeria, Swaziland, Liberia, Botswana, South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe.

http://religionnews.com/2017/09/26/witch-doctors-are-sacrificing-children-in-this-drought-stricken-african-country/

Four voices, one concern – Addressing “faith-healing only” in context of HIV

World Council of Churches (WCC)

September 5, 2017

“I believe we need an advocacy strategy to listen, share experiences, and address the issues we face in working for treatment adherence,” said Rev. Dr Nyambura Njoroge, World Council of Churches Ecumenical HIV and AIDS Initiatives and Advocacy (WCC-EHAIA) coordinator as she addressed a consultation on HIV Treatment Adherence and Faith Healing in Africa on 5 September.

Two days later, religious leaders and governmental organization representatives from across Africa and beyond met in Kampala, Uganda, to explore what it means to be healed and to offer healing, in the context of a disease that has no cure.

At the heart of the issues addressed at the consultation lies the phenomenon of “faith-healing only”, where some faith communities have begun encouraging people living with HIV to stop taking their anti-retroviral drugs, claiming that they can be healed by faith alone – a practice that can have devastating consequences for the work towards overcoming HIV and AIDS.

So how can the issue of “faith-healing only” be understood and addressed, to ensure that people living with HIV adhere to treatment? How can bridges be built to those among “faith-healing only” practitioners who are open to dialogue? And what does it mean to believe, to be healed, in a context where there is no cure?

Medicine and faith healing: science, spirituality or both?

“I believe, to overcome HIV,” said Rev. Canon Prof. Gideon B. Byamugisha from the Anglican Church, Province of Uganda, “we need to overcome the dichotomy between science and spirituality. The God of life is also the God of science. Everything that gives life, that encourages life – and this includes not only the air we breathe and the water we drink, but also the wonders of science, such as medicine and anti-retroviral treatment – we should view as a gift from God.”

Reflecting on the issue of “faith-healing only prophets”, Gideon added, “We should not be afraid that there are those who call themselves prophets. We are all in a prophetic movement. People who are saying human rights and human dignity must be affirmed, that is a prophetic movement. So let us not be intimidated, but pray for the wonders of science too.”

Aisha Usman, Northwest Zone coordinator for the Nigeria chapter of the International Network of Religious Leaders Living with or personally affected by HIV and AIDS, continues, “we need to take a common stand. It happened to me long ago, when I was very sick, I was told I shouldn’t take my drugs, that I should go for deliverance instead. Refusing, I was locked up in a room for two years, until I was discovered by the Catholic Church.”

“What the Catholics did,” Usman said, “was they brought me out, took me to their church and let me stay there, they bought the drugs for me. I took the drugs for a year right there in their church, and I got well. Now that is what I call faith healing.”

From witness to strategy, finding common ground for action

The consultation in Kampala is one of two similar consultations on HIV treatment adherence and faith healing in Africa taking place this month, the second one convening in Kigali, Rwanda on 25-29 September. Among the expected long-term outcomes are a manual on capacity building for people living with HIV and faith leaders on treatment adherence and advocacy on positive use of faith in HIV response; and to inspire a counter-movement against ”faith-healing only”, led by faith communities in each country represented.

Charles Serwanja, programme manager of health and HIV/AIDS at the Inter-Religious Council of Uganda, reflected on the importance of communities from a variety of faiths finding common ground on concerns of health and healing.

“From the Ugandan context, we know that until we as faith-based organizations can come together to agree on common positions, on common messages, common processes together, we will have fragmentations and interventions across the board, and the government becomes suspicious about what we are doing.”

“But we also know that there is a power in religious leaders coming together, generating common positions and speaking with one voice, on many issues, including HIV and AIDS. If we could mobilize those faith communities that are today not part of our inter-religious work to become part of the discussion, I believe many of the challenges we see today, in communities issuing controversial statements on faith healing and encouraging people to stop taking their anti-retroviral drugs, could stop.”

“Because with testing for HIV and for treatment, common messages are very key in mobilizing the communities to uptake services.”

“After two days listening to testimonies, presentations, and crying with people whose stories are so touching,” reflected Julienne Munyaneza, consultant with the PEPFAR-UNAIDS Faith Initiative, “I ask myself if we shouldn’t review our funding mechanisms for some of the issues we are addressing, or the way we are addressing them. Sometimes we seem to be stuck in old stories, in the way we have been doing things, and we miss the new developments around HIV and AIDS, especially in connection with the theme of ‘faith-healing only’.”

“But this theme is not new,” Munyaneza concluded. “It has come up in many of our discussions during the PEPFAR-UNAIDS Faith Initiative. Although we don’t really have the statistics, we know people in various countries have died because of ‘faith-healing only’. But what has become clear at this consultation, is that God uses also medication to heal people, and that there are many different definitions of what it means to be healed. I believe it is time to take this theme and the concerns we have raised and addressed here, to the next level.”

Distributed by APO on behalf of World Council of Churches (WCC).

https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/402564800/four-voices-one-concern-addressing-faith-healing-only-in-context-of-hiv

Many wounds remain unhealed 17 years after Kibwetere cult mass murder

Families who lost relative and friends are still haunted by this day day.

NTV
March 19, 2017

A shadowy doomsday cult in Uganda, led by an enigmatic man called Joseph Kibwetere, brought the small Ugandan district of Kanungu to the world's attention on March 17 2000 after reports of a mass murder by fire started trickling through.

Over the days that followed the scale of the horror wrought by the cult became shockingly apparent after over 700 people were discovered to have perished in the fire at the Kanungu church and hundreds more bodies were unearthed at different properties owned by the cult. In the end over 1,000 cult members were confirmed dead and many have been missing since.

The killings were the work of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, which thrived amongst the impoverished peasantry in the remote Kanungu district and other parts of South western Uganda.

17 years after this incident, government has not released a report on the investigation it conducted into what transpired and it still remains unclear whether the cult leaders; Joseph Kibwetere, Fr Dominic Kataribabo, Father Joseph Kasapurali and Credonia Mwerinde perished in the fire or escaped to safety after fleecing their victims of all their money and possessions.

Leaders of the cult had earlier on claimed that the world was coming to end on December 31st 1999. They asked their followers to sale property, hand over all the proceeds as they prepared their souls to meet God. When this did not happen, the leaders are thouht to have orchestrated a plan to kill the cult members.

Families who lost relative and friends are still haunted by this day day.

Residents of the area say that for weeks after the fire, the entire area was filled with the sickening smell of burning human flesh and later the smell would become one of putrid decomposing flesh.

The site of the massacre is still distingushable from the sorroundings and even part of the structure in which hundreds met their fiery end still stands. People in the area point to a deep in the ground, which they say was used as a dumping site for those killed earlier on, before the inferno on March 17th.

Some leaders in the area now want the 48 hectares of land, on which the massacre site is located, to be developed into a memorial for those who perished. They believe that it will serve as a both a tourist attraction and an centre from which the visitors can learn about the effects of dangerous religious beliefs.



http://ntv.co.ug/news/crime/19/mar/2017/many-wounds-remain-unhealed-17-years-after-kibwetere-cult-mass-murder-16649#sthash.bYBjga8V.RQV9luBe.dpbs

FILM: Kony abductees speak out

Bamuturaki Musinguzi

The East African

December 24 2016

IN SUMMARY

In the film, the four friends escape captive service in the guerrilla army and are currently trying to reconstruct their lives, leading quiet lives in Kampala after being granted amnesty by the government.

The Kony war of northern Uganda and its effects on society has been captured in a documentary film Wrong Elements.

The 135-minute film acted in Acholi and English is directed by the Franco-American novelist Jonathan Littell and produced by Veilleur de Nuit.

Littell is best known for his Holocaust novel, The Kindly Ones that won him the prestigious Prix Goncourt in 2006. He believes that it is important to discuss the past even if it is painful and then move forward. Wrong Elements shows the healing power of film.

The documentary features three young people; Geoffrey, Nighty and Mike, and their mutual friend Evelyn Lapisa. They were among 60,000 children abducted by the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army from schools and homes and coerced into violence as child soldiers or sex slaves. Most of them were hardly 13 years old.

In the film, the four friends escape captive service in the guerrilla army and are currently trying to reconstruct their lives, leading quiet lives in Kampala after being granted amnesty by the government.

As ex-child soldiers, Geoffrey and Mike are now earning a living as boda boda (motorcycle taxi) riders. Nighty, who was abducted at age 13 and married off to the LRA top leader Joseph Kony, says she had one child with Kony and lives with the child in Gulu.

She recalls the challenges of getting married an early age and life in the “big man’s” compound. Kony is reported to have sired over 100 children with different women.

Nighty, an impoverished mother has also given birth to her second child with an army man who is not providing for the family.

Geoffrey and Mike recall their capture, the time they spent in the bush fighting in Kony’s army, which involved often returning to the scenes of battles, committing atrocious human rights violations and looting sometimes with gruesome shocking details.

The film was recently screened at Century Cinemax, Acacia Mall in Kampala and in one shocking scene, is Geoffrey is talking with a mother whose two children were hacked to death by LRA soldiers in her compound. “I thought they were cutting wood,” the grieving mother recalls.

Geoffrey, who was among the attackers, seeks her forgiveness. And her willingness to forgive him is moving.

The theme of the documentary is that the perpetrators of the murders are remorseful while the victims are ready to forgive in a reconciliation gesture so that society can move forward.

The three also return to the site of their now-destroyed base camp in South Sudan and recall how they narrowly survived a UPDF helicopter gunship onslaught in “Operation Iron Fist” in 2002. They reminiscence of the life, looting, games played and jokes shared in the camp.

“It was a stupid life,” Geoffrey admits, quickly adding: “but it was also interesting.” The title Wrong Elements comes from a 1987 quote by the late Acholi spirit medium and rebel leader Alice Lakwena who said: “War is supposed to get rid of all the wrong elements in society.”

Although the ex-rebels are remorseful and determined to put the horrors of war behind them, their reintegration into society is complicated by the pain of the thousands who suffered devastating loses at the hands of the LRA. They are still viewed as “wrong elements. ”

The movie probes LRA’s methods that prey on young innocent minds, psychological, moral and spiritual aspects of the returning abductees and the mystical powers of Kony.

The Ugandan army and its international partners continue to hunt for Kony in the jungles of the Central African Republic as he is also wanted for war crimes at The Hague.

“I would like it (the film) shown in Gulu in my presence for people to know what we experienced in the bush,” Mike said after the screening in Kampala. “If it is shown in Gulu the people will understand and many families will forgive us after watching it. I myself haven’t overcome this experience and I have a wound that hasn’t fully healed.”

Geoffrey disagrees, arguing: “This film will bring back bad memories to the victims and those who lost loved ones. I don’t want it shown in Gulu because there are people who are still looking for us.”

“We have had a lot of bad experiences. Even when I returned, many people wanted me dead. I am a lucky person. I am now a grown up and I believe we cannot solve our problems by killing. We need to develop our country,” Geoffrey adds.

“With this film, people will try to recall and forgive us. When we returned there was a lot of stigma and finger pointing. For us women we can’t get married because people say we are possessed by evil spirits.

http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/magazine/FILM-Kony-abductees-speak-out-/434746-3496422-juaot4z/index.html

UGANDA: Kibwetere Used HIV Scourge to Lure Victims - New Book Reveals

30 OCTOBER 2016

The Monitor (Kampala) 

Stephen Wandera

 

Kampala — A new book that seeks to lift the lid off the mysterious massacre of more than 1,000 people in a church in Kanungu District reveals that Joseph Kibwetere took advantage of the HIV/Aids scourge to lure unsuspecting victims to their doomsday.

The Kanungu Tragedy, authored by Fr Narcisio Bagumisiriza, reveals that the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, a religious cult, which was accused of the deaths in an inferno in 2000, used the raging Aids pandemic to warn of an end to the world.

Speaking at the launch of the book at Christ the King Church in Kampala on Friday, Fr Bagumisiriza said the whereabouts of Joseph Kibwetere, the mysterious leader of the cult, remain unsolved and it's unclear whether he is dead or alive.

"He took advantage of HIV/Aids that was a big problem in society to justify his argument that it was a punishment from God to sinners as the world came to an end," Fr Bagumisiriza said.

"During my research, I found out that some journals published wrong information insinuating that the Kanungu incident was suicide. The dead were set ablaze by Kibwetere. He had promised his flock that the world would end on December 31, 1999," he added.

A Parliamentary committee that probed the massacre ruled that there was laxity on the part of police because prior to the deaths, there was a complaint by residents that was not followed through by the security agencies.

The report by Parliament's Defence Committee indicated that the police, acting on a complaint from a citizen about dubious activities being carried out by the Joseph Kibwetere group, curiously flagged off the sect as an NGO.

Rattled by how Kibwetere managed to disguise his activities, Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda yesterday said the government was forced to amend the NGO Act in the wake of the Kanungu massacres.

"Let us not take things for granted. What happened 16 years ago can still happen today. Let us still play our role of coming together for worship but look at each other. Be vigilant so that masqueraders like Kibwetere are exposed," Dr Rugunda said.

Preliminary investigations by the police at the time indicated that the killings were well planned by the cult leaders after it apparently became clear that the world was not going to come to an end at the turn of millennium. For instance, on March 24, two mass graves containing 153 bodies were found at a cult compound in Kalingo, 45 km to the west of Kanungu. Some had been dead for more than four months.

Ms Adyeeri Omara, the Delight Uganda Ltd chief executive officer, bought the first book at Shs200,000 while Dr Rugunda bought five books at Shs1 million. The official price of the book is Shs25,000.

The background

 

Cult leaders: Fr Dominic Kataribabo.

According to a March 2000 BBC report, Fr Kataribabo left the US in 1987, after earning a degree in religious studies from Loyola Marymount University, one of America's top Roman Catholic colleges. Fr Kataribabo also had a degree from Makerere University and was rector of Kitabi Seminary where he was known as a good counsellor, the BBC reported.Little is known about Angelina Mugisha, who was also among the cult leaders.

Credonia Mwerinde

Born 1952 in Kanungu at Kateete, Nyabugoto, Mwerinde was the high priestess and co-founder of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments. She was born in a village where Kibwetere's camp was located. Among the followers of the cult, she was referred to as the 'programmer'. She is reported to have first contacted Kibwetere in 1989.

About the cult: The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God sprung up in the 1980s after breaking away from the mainstream Roman Catholic Church. The focus of the preaching by the group was that to avoid apocalypse [end of the world], believers had to strictly follow the Ten Commandments. Cult leaders preached that the world would come to an end in the year 2000.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201610300247.html

 

Joseph Kony and Mutiny in the Lord’s Resistance

October 3, 2015
LEDIO CAKAJ
New Yorker

One of the many child soldiers in the
 Lord’s Resistance Army.

Vincent Okumu Binansio, nicknamed Binany, was one of the many children who have been abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army in northern Uganda. Captured in the mid-nineties, when the group was rapidly growing in power, Binany was taken to live in the compound of the L.R.A. leader, Joseph Kony, in Sudan. In Binany’s late teens, he became one of Kony’s bodyguards, and he eventually rose to the position of his chief aide, managing the welfare of Kony and his several families. This close proximity made Binany and other boys blindly loyal to Kony.

“Binany was so naïve, so sincere,” said A., who was Binany’s wife for a few years, before she escaped, in 2004. “He believed what Kony said and did everything he ordered.” (A., who was kidnapped from her boarding school, in 1996, is now living in northern Uganda.) This devotion meant that, by 2009, when Binany was still in his early thirties, he was one of the most senior L.R.A. commanders. Kony entrusted him with the leadership of all groups operating in the Democratic Republic of Congo, nearly three hundred armed men, or almost half of the L.R.A.’s troops, according to my estimates. Binany allegedly was one of the leaders of an assault on the Congolese region of Makombo that killed three hundred and twenty people. In 2010, Kony tasked Binany with a mission that he said could “determine the future of my government,” according to former L.R.A. fighters.

Kony ordered Binany to lead his group of thirty-four people (the L.R.A. has operated since 2009 in groups of thirty to fifty) to kill elephants in Congo’s vast Garamba National Park, collect as many tusks as the group could carry, and transport them back to Kony in Kafia Kingi, a disputed sliver of land between Sudan and South Sudan, under the partial control of the Sudanese Armed Forces. Kony intended to barter the tusks for food, uniforms, and ammunition. This would be a lifeline for his fighters, who were attacking and often killing civilians to steal their food and clothing.

The journey from Garamba National Park was long and hazardous. Binany’s group, which included eleven women and children, walked more than three hundred miles, through some of the world’s densest vegetation, to avoid major roads in the Central African Republic. On the way north to Kafia Kingi, they carried thirty-eight tusks, some as long as six feet and shoulder-saggingly heavy. In November, 2012, after more than four months of walking, the group finally made it back to Kafia Kingi, where a proud Binany delivered the load to his mentor.


But the L.R.A. leader quickly turned from jubilant to furious. Three fighters in Binany’s group had brought back three teen-age Congolese girls. From interrogating the girls, Kony learned that his three lieutenants had disobeyed his strict constraints regarding sexual intercourse. Kony ordered the lieutenants’ immediate execution, and he released the women. “It was so cruel,” a former fighter, who called himself Mugabe, later said. “They walked for so long to bring the tusks and were so tired. Kony did not even let them recover; they were all skin and bones. And he killed them for what? Because of these women.”

Kony founded the Lord’s Resistance Army in 1987, at first to combat Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who had seized power a year earlier. Claiming to have been possessed by spirits, Kony at first enjoyed a following of a few hundred and garnered a few minor victories in skirmishes with Museveni’s soldiers. His standing changed dramatically in 1994, when Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir agreed to provide Kony with guns and ammunition in exchange for L.R.A. attacks on the South Sudanese rebels, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, and the Ugandan Army. To create his army, Kony ordered the abduction of thousands of young men and women throughout northern Uganda. Groups of L.R.A. fighters descended on villages, usually late at night, kicking in doors and grabbing terrified young men and women. The youngsters were often forced to kill their family members or friends, as a way to seal their entry into the rebel force and prevent them from ever leaving.

By the late nineties, an estimated three thousand people were fighting in the L.R.A., which was based in southern Sudan and northern Uganda. Kony was the supreme commander, exercising complete control over all his groups through a combination of martial discipline, spiritual guidance, and brainwashing. Although he is often portrayed as messianic or even crazy, Kony has been a shrewd, if extremely predatory, operator, and has proven adaptable and resilient under extremely harsh conditions. His stay in the middle of bush camps insures that he is the last to be attacked (and the first to escape). Similarly, his insistence on not allowing fighters to sleep with young women is an attempt to control the spread of H.I.V., and to remain free of the infection.

The three lieutenants who brought Congolese girls to Kony’s camp had done more than flaunt the rules; they had reminded Kony of his worsening loss of control over his troops. In December, 2008, a Ugandan-led offensive drove the L.R.A. out of Garamba National Park and forced them to scatter throughout northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic. Ongoing conflict with the Ugandan Army decimated the ranks and eventually pushed Kony to Kafia Kingi. With his groups operating far from one another, Kony was no longer able to exercise any meaningful supervision. For a man accustomed to knowing everything from when women menstruated to the contents of his commanders’ dreams, the three youngsters’ sexual laxity perhaps suggested his own unraveling.

The executions frayed the nerves of many fighters in the Kafia Kingi camps. Then in January, 2013, Binany, who had been sent on another elephant-hunting expedition in the Congo, was killed by Ugandan soldiers in the Central African Republic. The surviving members of his security escort returned and reported the news to Kony. In a rage, Kony demoted the entire group and had them beaten. He also ordered the immediate execution of the chief security escort, Otto Agweng. This was another extremely harsh decision, even by the L.R.A.’s standards, given the military superiority of the Ugandan Army.

After Agweng’s execution, Kony called a group meeting, where he explained that the security chief had actually been killed for having sex with one of the widows of the three murdered lieutenants. A former L.R.A. fighter named Walter, who went by the nickname Arec (which means fish in his native dialect, Acholi), told me that he believed Kony made up this claim in order to justify his decision. Agweng was a feared and respected commander, who often provided protection to Kony and his family members. So if Kony had killed one of his bravest commanders for failing to stand up to the Ugandan Army, then there was no one he was likely to spare.

A few weeks after Agweng’s execution, a dozen fighters from Kony’s group, including Walter, escaped. More followed during the next two years, and one senior commander, Dominic Ongwen, surrendered to the Ugandan Army. “Agweng was not a nice man,” one young Congolese man said. “He beat people over the smallest mistakes and always did what Kony said. But he did not deserve to die like that.” Soon after the second anniversary of Agweng’s execution, the Congolese fighter and eight other members of Kony’s group in Kafia Kingi made a plan to kill Kony. The former fighters and L.R.A. experts I spoke to believed it was the first assassination plot in the group’s history. “We were beaten or even killed as if it meant nothing,” the lead plotter, Alex Aligiri, told me. “We had enough of that life.”

The nine men hid food and water in preparation for a late-night attempt to assassinate Kony, followed by an escape to Obo, in the Central African Republic, the nearest base of the Ugandan Army, at least a month’s walk away. They agreed to make their attempt when Kony’s eldest son, Salim, and his escorts left to fetch ivory in the Democratic Republic of Congo that another group had collected over the previous six months, and there would be fewer guards around the camp.

For many former L.R.A. members, it seems unfathomable that anyone on the inside could conceive of killing Kony. In fact, one of the nine was convinced that his gun stopped working whenever he was near Kony. Two others escaped on their own before the agreed-upon moment for the assassination attempt, taking with them some of the group’s provisions.

The desertion spurred the remaining seven to attack earlier than they had intended. After everyone else was asleep, six men left the camp and joined a seventh, who was on duty as a camp guard about five hundred yards away from Kony’s hut. The four Ugandans in the group told me they shot hurriedly at Kony and his bodyguard Odek’s huts and ran away. But one of the men, Jackson, gave a detailed description of how he shot straight at Odek’s hut, and at Kony’s, but both men managed to storm out of the mud-walled huts and run in the opposite direction. “Had we followed them, we could have killed them,” Jackson said, staring at the ground. “But we were scared.”

The seven grabbed their hidden food and water and started running southeast, toward Obo. Kony’s guards chased after them, and in a fire exchange, the seven killed one guard and injured another. The seven reached Obo and surrendered to the Ugandan Army in June, about a month after leaving Kafia Kingi. When I met them, at the military base in Obo, they had just returned from leading the Ugandan Army to the site of the Kafia Kingi camps. There was no trace of Kony, but they dug out a cache of thirty AK-47s that the group, which likely left in a hurry, had abandoned. All four have since been repatriated to Uganda.

Their defections reduced the number of fighters in Kony’s personal group to a historic low of sixteen, according to the defectors I interviewed. Outside the relative safety of Kafia Kingi, L.R.A. numbers are dwindling further—estimates suggest that only about one hundred and twenty armed men remain —despite Kony’s orders to abduct and train new recruits from the Central African Republic. Many of these young Central Africans leave the first chance they get.

“It is hard to defeat the L.R.A.,” Michael Kabango, the Ugandan Army officer in charge of anti-L.R.A. operations, told me over drinks one June night in Yambio, South Sudan. “Kony does not trust anyone outside of his groups, and he does not like to be controlled, which is why he stays away from Sudanese soldiers,” Kabango said. “No outside connections mean no weaknesses. Since we can’t reach him there and the Sudanese leave him alone, his end has to come from within.” I have interviewed dozens of former L.R.A. fighters and soldiers who say much the same.


Belle, Teo, and Esther, who are sixteen, fourteen, and twelve years old, respectively, were for a short time part of an L.R.A. group. I met them in Obo, where they had spent more than two months, but their homes were far away, deep in the heart of the Central African Republic. Hunched over a large map of his country, Teo pointed at all the territory the three were forced to walk while they were in the group, more than five hundred miles over a period of six months. They escaped as soon as they could. “We were not staying, no matter how many times they threatened to kill us,” Belle said.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/joseph-kony-and-mutiny-in-the-lords-resistance-army