153 More Bodies Tied to Ugandan Cult Unearthed

KAMPALA, Uganda — Authorities found a mass burial site Friday beneath a building in southwestern Uganda used by the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, a doomsday cult whose leaders are already believed to have killed more than 500 of their followers.

The grave reportedly contains at least 153 bodies, including 59 children. Police told journalists here in the Ugandan capital that the victims appeared to have been hacked to death or strangled--some still had ropes around their necks--although pathologists have not publicly revealed the causes of death.

The bodies were discovered buried in the dirt floor of an abandoned building once frequented by the cult near the town of Rukungiri. The grave site is said to be about 30 miles from the group’s mother church in Kanungu, where police are blaming the cult’s leaders for a blaze that killed as many as 530 people March 17 in what was first thought to be a mass suicide.

The possibility of finding even more bodies is not being ruled out as authorities continue searching other known meeting places of the cult, which has several branches across the country. At its peak, police say, the cult might have had more than a thousand adherents, although a comprehensive membership list has not been found.

There were conflicting reports Friday as to how long ago the people at the second site died. Estimates range from six weeks to one year.

The grisly discovery adds credence to police suspicions that the cult’s leadership, headed by 68-year-old Joseph Kibwetere, resorted to murder to quell growing opposition within its membership.

There are unconfirmed reports that Kibwetere and his top assistant, Keredonia Mwerinde, 49, are alive and in hiding. The group’s third in command, Dominic Kataribabo, 63, a former Roman Catholic priest, is known to have died in the Kanungu fire, police say. The Ugandan newspaper New Vision reported that cult members in a province east of the two murder sites are preparing a two-day feast for reputed survivors.

Kibwetere and the others had preached that the world would come to an end before Jan. 1, 2000. They later pushed back the forecast until next January, but the ranks of the disaffected had already begun to swell, according to relatives of the dead cultists.

“These leaders had a lot of money from members who sold their properties to join the cult,” police spokesman Assuman Mugenyi said. “There were people wanting their money back, and we think the leaders decided to get rid of them.”

A letter written in January by the cult’s top leaders said that the group had 80 taxpayers and that pilgrimages to its holy site in Kanungu--three each year--attracted as many as 300 people each.

In 1998, the movement registered as an unlimited company in an apparent attempt to transform its compound in Kanungu into an income-generating operation.

Members planted sugar cane and pineapples and started chicken farming, according to a summary of the group’s operations in the letter, which was filed with the Ministry of Internal Affairs. They also opened a bakery and sold wedding bread and special cakes to surrounding villages. There were plans to establish a handicraft shop as well.

The cult, whose membership is drawn mainly from disaffected Roman Catholics, has a set of beliefs based on visions its leaders profess to have received from Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary.

Members are forbidden to speak to one another, except in prayer or song or during religious instruction, because “conversations lead many into telling lies about their neighbors,” according to the movement’s self-declared golden rule. As a result, cultists developed a primitive sign language to communicate.

The movement also forbids smoking or drinking alcohol, preaching that AIDS is God’s punishment for drinking beer, just “as when a mother, after the feeding period of the child, puts pepper on her breasts,” the group’s handbook states.

Cultists believe that Uganda has been chosen by God as the “New Israel”--the nation he loves the most. Other countries, however, do not fare so well. Russia will be invaded by locusts, Mozambique will be destroyed by “its own machinery,” Sweden will suffer the punishment of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Mexico will become a crossroads for heavy armaments that will destroy five countries.

In its vision of doomsday, the cult’s handbook speaks of three days of darkness, during which “those who had repented” will gather in safe houses known as arks. About a quarter of the world’s population will survive the Earth’s cleansing, with the rest being thrown into hell.

The new world, according to the prophecy, will be flat like a pancake and will be connected to heaven. Death will be vanquished, and Satan and his followers “put in fetters.”

“All that is not intended to frighten you but rather to inform you to get prepared for what is coming and to be always in a state of grace,” the handbook states.

The January letter says the prophecy was presented to the pope during his 1993 pilgrimage to Uganda. Despite the Roman Catholic Church’s disassociation with the group, cult members celebrate Catholic feasts and, at least on paper, recognize the pope’s authority.

“We are definitely in full communion with the Vicar of Christ and with the church,” the handbook explains.

There had been suspicions about the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God since it first sought a license to operate as a religious group in 1991. Authorities eventually approved the request in 1993 and renewed the license two times, most recently for a five-year period beginning in 1997.

Separate approval to operate a primary school, however, was rescinded last year by education officials because of allegations of poor nutrition and unsanitary conditions.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said Thursday that the cult had been investigated two times since 1994 and ultimately was determined to pose an unspecified security threat. That finding, however, was allegedly covered up by a regional official who reportedly belonged to the cult.