Nearly 800 members of a Christian sect in Africa commit suicide and perhaps even genocide of their fellow adherents.

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Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God was a breakaway sect from the Roman Catholic Church founded by Credonia Mwerinde and Joseph Kibweteere in Uganda. It formed in the late 1980s after Mwerinde, a brewer of banana beer, and Kibweteere, a politician, claimed that they had visions of the Virgin Mary. The five primary leaders were Joseph Kibweteere, Joseph Kasapurari, John Kamagara, Dominic Kataribabo, and Credonia Mwerinde. In early 2000, followers of the sect perished in a devastating fire, and a series of poisonings and killings, that were either a cult suicide, or an orchestrated mass murder by sect leaders after their predictions of the apocalypse failed to pass.[1] In their coverage of that event, BBC News and the New York Times referred to the Movement as a Doomsday cult.

Beliefs

The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God's goals were to obey the Ten Commandments and preach the word of Jesus Christ. They taught that to avoid damnation in the apocalypse, one had to strictly follow the Commandments. The emphasis on the Commandments was so strong that the group discouraged talking, for fear of breaking the Ninth Commandment, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor," and on some days communication was only conducted in sign language. Fasts were conducted regularly, and only one meal was eaten on Fridays and Mondays. Sex was forbidden, as was soap.

Movement leaders declared that the apocalypse would occur in the year 2000. The group had a strong emphasis on an apocalyptic end time, highlighted by their booklet A Timely Message from Heaven: The End of the Present Time.[5] New members were required to study it and be trained in its text, reading it as many as six times. They also taught that the Virgin Mary had a special role in the end, and that she also communicated with their leadership. They held themselves akin to Noah's Ark, a ship of righteousness in a sea of depravity.

The Movement developed a hierarchy of visionaries, topped by Mwerinde. Behind them were former priests who served as theologians and explained their messages. Although the group had split from the Catholic Church, had Catholic icons placed prominently and defrocked priests and nuns in its leadership, ties to the Church were only tenuous.

Background

The recent past of Uganda had been marked with political and social turmoil. The rule of Idi Amin, the AIDS pandemic, and the Ugandan Bush War wreaked havoc across the country.[6][2] People became pessimistic and fatalistic, and the established Roman Catholic Church was backsliding, enveloped in scandals and the faithful were becoming dissatisfied.[2] In this void, many post-Catholic groups formed in the late eighties as a confused and traumatized populace turned to charismatic self-declared messiahs who renounced the authority of the government and the Church.[6] An example of this phenomenon was the Christian resistance group, the Holy Spirit Movement, which fought against the government of Yoweri Museveni.[2] A former member of the sect, Paul Ikazire, would explain his motivation to join the Movement, "We joined the movement as a protest against the Catholic Church. We had good intentions. The church was backsliding, the priests were covered in scandals and the AIDS scourge was taking its toll on the faithful. The world seemed poised to end."

History

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Founding

The earliest origins of the movement have been traced back to Credonia Mwerinde's father Paulo Kashaku. In 1960 he claimed to have had a vision of his deceased daughter Evangelista, who told him that he would have visions of heaven. This prediction passed in 1988, when he saw Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, and Saint Joseph. His daughter Credonia also had similar visions and was involved in a Virgin Cult.[7] In 1989 Kashaku instructed her to spread the message across Uganda on the orders of the Virgin Mary. In that year she would meet Joseph Kibweteere and tell him of their communications.

Joseph Kibweteere claimed to have had a vision of the Virgin Mary in 1984. Credonia Mwerinde also had a similar vision in a cavern near Kibweteere's house in Rwashamaire, Uganda.[7] In 1989 the two met and formed the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, with the mission to spread the Virgin's message about the apocalypse. The group grew rapidly and also attracted several defrocked Catholic priests and nuns who worked as theologians, rationalizing messages from the leadership. Two of the arrivals were the excommunicated priests Paul Ikazire and Dominic Kataribabo.

TBC...

Middle years

The sect grew in importance with the arrival of Dominic Kataribabo, a respected and popular priest with a PhD from the United States. In order to obtain more funds for the increasing number of disciples, Kibweteere sold his three other properties, car and milling machines. By the late 1990s, the church had grown into a thriving community, set in pineapple and banana plantations. Members lived communally on land bought by pooling the profits from their property, which they sold when they joined the Movement. Mwerinde claimed to receive messages from the Virgin Mary through a hidden telephone system that communicated through everyday objects. In western Uganda they built houses for recruitment, indoctrination and worship, and a primary school. The year 2000 was settled on as the final, compelling date for the sect's predictions of the apocalypse.

However this time was not uneventful, in 1992 the group was ordered out of Rwashamaire by village elders, and moved to Kanungu District, where Mwerinde's father offered an extensive property for their use.[7] In 1994, Paul Ikazire left the sect, taking with him approximately seventy members. By 1997, according to a filing with the government, the Movement's membership was listed at nearly 5,000 people. In 1998, the Ugandan press reported that the Movement had been shut down for insanitary conditions, use of child labor, and possibly kidnapping children, but the sect was allowed to reopen by the government.

As the new millennium approached preparations for the end mounted. In 1999, the state owned New Vision newspaper ran an interview with a teenage member. He said, "The world ends next year. There is no time to waste. Some of our leaders talk directly to god. Any minute from now, when the end comes, every believer who will be at an as yet undisclosed spot will be saved."[8]

Apocalypse

With the new year looming, activity by Movement members became frenzied, their leaders urged them to confess their sins in preparation for the end. Clothes and cattle were sold cheaply, past members were re-recruited, and all work in the fields ceased. January 1, 2000 passed without the advent of the apocalypse, and the Movement began to unravel. Questions were asked of Mwerinde and Kibweteere,[1] and payments to the Church decreased dramatically. Ugandan police believe that some members, who were required to sell their possessions and turn over the money to the Movement, rebelled and demanded the return of their money.[4] It is believed that events that followed were orchestrated by sect leaders in response to the crisis in the ranks.

Another date was immediately predicted, March 17 was the new end of the world, a doomsday that would come "with ceremony, and finality" according to the New York Times. The Movement held a huge party at Kanungu, and roasted three bulls and drank 70 crates of soft drinks. On the seventeenth, group members arrived at their church in Kanangu to pray and sing, minutes later nearby villagers heard an explosion, and the building was gutted in an intense fire that killed all 530 in attendance, including dozens of children. The windows and doors of the building had been boarded up. The five principal cult leaders, Joseph Kibweteere, Joseph Kasapurari, John Kamagara, Dominic Kataribabo, and Credonia Mwerinde, were assumed to have died in the fire.[3] The fire alerted the Ugandan authorities to what had been occurring in the Movement. Several days before Movement leader Dominic Kataribabo was seen buying 50 liters of sulfuric acid, which may have fueled the fire. Another party was planned for the eighteenth, which officials believe sect leaders had announced in order to mislead authorities as to their plans.

Four days after the church fire police investigated Movement properties and discovered hundreds of bodies at sites across southern Uganda. Six bodies were discovered sealed in the latrine of the Kanungu compound, as well as 153 bodies at a compound in Buhunage, 155 bodies at Dominic Kataribabo's estate at Rugazi, where they had been poisoned and stabbed, and another 81 bodies at lay leader Joseph Nymurinda's farm. Forensics investigations indicated that they had been murdered weeks before the church inferno.

TBC...

Aftermath

Other than the individuals that died in the fire, medical examiners determined that the majority of dead sect members had been poisoned. Early reports had suggested that they had been strangled based on the presence of twisted banana fibers around their necks. After searching all sites, the police concluded that earlier estimates of nearly a thousand dead had been exaggerated, and that the final death toll had settled at 778.

After interviews and an investigation were conducted, the police ruled out a cult suicide, and instead consider it to be a mass murder conducted by Movement leadership. They believe that the failure of the doomsday prophecy led to a revolt in the ranks of the sect, and the leaders set a new date with a plan to eliminate their followers. The discovery of bodies at other sites, the fact the church had been boarded up, the presence of incendiaries, and the possible disappearance of sect leaders all point to this theory. Additionally, witnesses said the Movement leadership had never spoken of mass suicide when preparing members for the end of the world.

The Ugandan government responded with condemnation. President Yoweri Museveni has called the event a "mass murder by these priests for monetary gain." Vice president Dr. Speciosa Wandira Kazibwe said, "These were callously, well-orchestrated mass murders perpetrated by a network of diabolic, malevolent criminals masquerading as religious people."[1] Although it was initially assumed that the five leaders died in the fire, police now believe that Joseph Kibweteere and Credonia Mwerinde may still be alive, and have issued an international warrant for their arrest

I'm sorry...  but why do you bother...  you just keep making yourself look foolish.

You scour the world and history for some odd so-called "Christian" related event and all i have to do is point to a square in Iraq or Iran and we have tens of thousands of screaming howling Muslim lunatics.

I know...  it's so unfair.  :)

Oh BTW...  
Quote:

"These were callously, well-orchestrated mass murders perpetrated by a network of diabolic, malevolent criminals masquerading as religious people."

 You should read what you quote first.

You both seem to have missed the biggest and most obvious explanation for this.


THEY WERE BLACK.

Nah, didn't miss it...  just not racist.

Abu - they banned soap and sex.

hahaha, I guess no soap, sex is not as appealing.

Surely it would be a short lived sect if sex is banned.
Where are the next generation going to come from ???

Wanna see some lunatics?




Here are 20,000 of them, screaming "Death to Israel".

"The ocean of rage of the people of the region will surge and eradicate the Zionist regime."

Farewell Israel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-IwwfeLp4M




++++++++





Isaiah 17:12
Woe to the multitude of many people, which make a noise like the noise of the seas; and to the rushing of nations, that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters!
13  The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters: but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind.
14  And behold at eveningtide trouble; and before the morning he is not. This is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us.


Isaiah 59:19
So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.
20  And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the LORD.
21  As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and for ever.





Nothing can stop God's plan.
....man's own nature is driving it forward.          ;)





Job 12:16
With [God] is strength and wisdom: the deceived and the deceiver are his.


Isaiah 2:11
The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day.
12  For the day of the LORD of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low:


Psalms 52:1
Why boastest thou thyself in mischief, O mighty man? the goodness of God endureth continually.
2  Thy tongue deviseth mischiefs; like a sharp razor, working deceitfully.
3  Thou lovest evil more than good; and lying rather than to speak righteousness. Selah.

Whatever happened to Go forth and multiply?