WORLD
Page 14
THE BATTALION
Mondav.
Parents in Uganda cult led children to deal
BUNYARICI, Uganda (AP) — After
her young grandchildren’s abrupt depar
ture, after the gas-fueled flames and the
chan'ed remains, 74-year-old Margaret Ki-
betenga wonders if there’s something she
could have done.
On Dec. 28, her daughter-in-law came
to her mud-walled home to fetch two chil
dren she had left in Kibetenga’s care. Say
ing she needed to take them to visit a sick
relative, Jane Ayebare began packing her
youngsters’ belongings.
When Ayebare muttered something
about the end of the world being near,
Kibetanga thought little of it. Ayebare
had joined a strange religious group, but
as far as Kibetenga was concerned, she
was still Catholic.
Of course, the world didn't end Dec. 31,
as the sect had predicted. But for Ayebare
and her four children, life ended 10 weeks
later in the flames of a sealed chapel be
longing to Uganda’s doomsday cult.
They were not alone. Terrified, trust
ing or willingly marching off to glory, chil
dren of the cult streamed out of hill vil
lages by the hundreds to die trapped in the
flames of the sealed church or by ropes
and knives in the hands of grown-ups.
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 Cod. Authorities now
are pursuing the sect’s leaders, who they
believe masterminded the murders of at
least 924 people.
“I never took it seriously,” Kibetenga
now says, her eyes dropping to the ground.
For the movement, childhood was an
occasion of sin. “These days... the major
ity 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.
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
“These days ... the majority of the
youths go to hell; only very few go to
heaven in a day”
Ugandan cult handbook
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 Rugamb-
wa, son of sect leader Joseph Kibwetere.
He said the shed's windows were
placed in separate living quarters when
they joined the sect, Rugambwa and for
mer sect members said. Parents also
were forced to withdraw their children
from school.
Rev. Paolino Tomaino, w ho became
acquainted with the sect w hen he worked
in Kabumba from 1976 to 1989, says it
was inevitable that the children would fol
low their parents, even to their deaths.
“You would expect a Uganda child to
follow his parent,” Tomaino said. “They
were with their parents. I’m sure they
couldn't leave.”
John Katebalirwe sold his mud hut for
$30, then forced his wife, 27-year-old mar
ried daughter and her seven younger
brothers and sisters away to attend a gath
ering at sect headquarters in Kanungu.
Neighbors say the wife and eight children
went with him unw illingly.
“1 le told us he was going to pray in Ka
nungu,” said Aida Kaguze, who bought
the hut from Katebalirwe. “They had
heard from God, and they were going to
meet Jesus.”
On March 8, Katarina Tumuhimbise’s
daughters, aged 8 and 14, left the remote
western foothill village of Sweswe w ith
adults who were leadingota
the March 18 dedication ofai
at the sect’s home in Kanungi
Residents in Sweswe said
cuts couldn’t afford to go tofe
stead, they stayed behind ml
younger children at their mudki
bv a shrine with straw praentt
tures of Jesus, the Virgin Man
Tumuhimbse, rosaries di
her neck as she spoke to a rep?
membership as well and saida
the sect had taken herchildrai! dent (io\ ernmc
father chased after them, butu
Their daughters were
election Comn
dinners of yel
sect members on March 17»k trompted Jeff
the chapel on the sect’smair
in Kanungu to pray.
they were enveloped by wkl; ;enioryell lead
was a gas-fueled tire!;
an explosive combination oft he Texas A A M
sulphuric acid.
Congolese rebels accuse Elian’s father prepares
government of attacks to travel to U.S. for son
KIGALI, Rwanda (AP) —As Congo slides back into
war, Congolese rebels on Sunday said they had killed at least
20 government troops in fresh attacks by President Laurent
Kabila’s army.
Rebel spokesperson Kin-Kiey Mulumba said the Rwandan-
backed rebels had fought off government attacks at Maloba
and Kisele in southern, diamond-rich Kasai Province, killing
17 soldiers and capturing one. The lighting last week also left
live rebels wounded, two ofthem in critical condition in a hos
pital in the eastern rebel stronghold of Goma.
“We’re lighting every' day. There is no cease-fire,” Mu
lumba said on telephone from Goma.
Despite a peace accord last August between Kabila and the
rebels, fighting has resumed in Congo, frustrating efforts by
the United Nations to deploy 5,500 U.N. cease-fire observers
and troops to protect them.
So far. more than 100 U.N. observers have been deployed
in both govemment-and rebel-controlled Congo. But U.N. of
ficials have warned that additional deployment will not be pos
sible unless fighting ends.
The peace accord was signed by rebel supporters Rwanda
and Uganda, as well as Zimbabwe Angola and Namibia, who
back Kabila. According to the deal, a cease-fire is supposed to
be followed by the withdrawal of foreign troops from Congo
and the disarmament of Rwandan and Burundian Hutu militia
fighting alongside Kabila’s army.
Meanwhile, the government set May 10 as the date for elec
tions, the first since Kabila took power by force in 1997. He
currently rules without a legislature.
Interior MinisterGaetan Kakudji announced the date at a cer
emony Saturday launching a five-member government office
that w ill organize the vote. Kabila has said the 300-member body
will involve the Congolese people in running the country and its
defense, but he has not specified its powers and functions.
Hie major opposition parties, however, have said they want
nothing to do w ith the new assembly. They say the move is an at
tempt to bypass a national dialogue on Congo’s political future.
Kabila was expected Monday at an African-European
summit in Cairo, together with Zimbabwe’s President Robert
Mugabe and Angola’s Jose Eduardo dos Santos. African and
European foreign ministers meeting before the summit
agreed that there would be no specific mention of Africa’s
various conflicts, although they did agree to promote con
flict resolution.
HAVANA (AP) — President Fidel Castro said Elian Gon
zalez’s father was w illing to travel alone to the United Slates
Monday morning if U.S. officials promise to turn over the
boy to him and let them return to Cuba right away.
Failing that, visas would be sought for father Juan
Miguel Gonzalez and an entourage of more than 30 people
to leave for the United States as early as Tuesday to try to
get Elian back, Castro said Sunday during a live appear
ance on national television.
The announcement was made in a letter signed by Gon
zalez, which Castro read. Gonzalez sat in the television au
dience, looking distraught and exhausted.
“1 am willing to leave tomorrow, absolutely alone and
transport myself to where the child is,” Castro read from the
letter. After picking up the child, the letter said, father and son
would “return immediately to Cuba,” said Castro.
Last week, Castro said Gonzalez was willing to travel to
the United States and wait out the results of an appeal for cus
tody by their Miami relatives in federal appellate court, if the
U.S. government gave him custody of Elian in the meantime.
Castro announced Sunday that the chief of the Cuban In
terests Section in Washington was willing to give up diplo
matic immunity over his residence in Washington. :
communist government has proposed Gonzalez
at the residence with I lian during the appeal.Thais
peared aimed at reassuring U.S. officials that lA.!
thority in the case would be accepted regardlesso!
come of the appeal.
The Justice Department has given the boy’sgra
Lazaro Gonzalez, until Tuesday to sign a promise:
der Elian if he and his family lose their court batik
lez has so far refused to sign such a pledge.
Before the announcement, Castro was shofu:
al television playing the aff ectionate grandfather:
first-grade classmates w ho plan to travel with the;
ther to keep 1 lian company while waiting for thee
tie to run its course.
The box s and girls, wearing their red and whites
forms, stared up from their blue plastic seats inthett
studio at the tall uniformed man with the grayingk
Patting some of the kids on the head, Castro a»
that they formed a powerful “commando.”
“Not even the Pentagon can handle these kids.’
“We are hoping that they get their visas.”
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