TEXT E How could faith beget such
evil After hundreds of members of a Ugandan cult, the Movement for the
Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, died in what first appeared to be a
suicidal fire in the village of Kanungu two weeks age, police found 153 bodies
buried in a compound used by the cult in Buhunga, 25 miles away. When
investigators searched the house of a cult leader in yet another village, they
discovered 155 bodies, many buried under the concrete floor of the house. Then
scores more were dug up at a cult member’s home. Some had been poisoned; others,
often-young children, strangled. By week’s end, Ugandan police had counted 924
victims—including at least 530 who burned to death inside the sealed
church—exceeding the 1978 Jonestown mass suicide and killings by followers of
American cult leader Jim Jones that claimed 913 lives.
Authorities believe two of the cult’s leaders, Joseph Kibwetere, a
68-year-old former Roman Catholic catechism teacher who started the cult in
1987, and his "prophetess," Credonia Mwerinde, by some accounts a former
prostitute who claimed to speak for the Virgin Mary, may still be alive and on
the run. The pair had predicted the world would end on Dec. 31, 1999. When that
didn’t happen, followers who demanded the return of their possessions, which
they had to surrender on joining the cult, may have been systematically
killed. The Ugandan carnage focuses attention on the
proliferation of religious cults in East Africa’s impoverished rural areas and
city slums. According to the institute for the study of American religion, which
researches cults and sects, there are now more than 5,000 indigenous churches in
Africa, some with. apocalyptic or revolutionary leanings. One such group is the
Jerusalem Church of Christ in Nairobi’s Kawangwara slums, led by Mary
Snaida-Akatsa, or "mommy" as she is known to her thousands of followers. She
prophesies about the end of the world and accuses some members of being witches.
One day the brought a "special visitor" to church, an Indian Sikh man she
claimed was Jesus, and told her followers to "repent or pay the
consequences." Most experts say Africa’s hardships push people
to seek hope in religious cults. "These groups thrive because of poverty," says
Charles Onyango Obbo, editor of the Monitor, an independent newspaper in Uganda,
and a close observer of cults. "People have no support, and they’re susceptible
to anyone who is able to tap into their insecurity." Additionally, they say,
AIDS, which has ravaged East Africa, may also breed a fatalism that helps
apocalyptic notions take root. Some Africans turn to cults after
rejecting mainstream Christian churches as "Western" or "non-African." Agnes
Masitsa, 30, who used to attend a Catholic church before she joined the
Jerusalem Church of Christ, says of Catholicism: "It’s dull."
Catholic icons. Yet, the Ugandan doomsday cult, like many of the sects,
drew on features of Roman Catholicism, a strong force in the region. Catholic
icons were prominent in its buildings, and some of its leaders were defrocked
priests, such as Dominic Kataribabo, 32, who reportedly studied theology in the
Los Angeles area in the mid-1980s. He had told neighbors he was digging a pit in
his house to install a refrigerator; police have now recovered 81 bodies from
under the floor and 74 from a field nearby. Police are unsure whether Kataribabo
died in the church fire. Still, there is the question: how could
so many killings have been carried out without drawing attention Villagers were
aware of Kibwetere’s sect, whose followers communicated mainly through sign
language and apparently were apprehensive about violating any of the cult’s
commandments. There were suspicions. Ugandan president Yoweri Mseveni told the
BBC that intelligence reports about the dangerous nature of the group had been
suppressed by some government officials. On Thursday, police arrested an
assistant district commissioner, the Rev. Amooti Mutazindwa, for allegedly
holding back a report suggesting the cult posed a security threat.
Now, there are calls for African governments to monitor cults more
closely. Says Gilbert Ogutu, a professor of religious studies at the University
of Nairobi: "When cult leaders lose support, they become dangerous." The main reason of people’s joining the cults is ______.