Today March 17th marks 12 years since members of the Movement of Restoration of Ten Commandments cult entered their prayer place in Kanungu and later burnt themselves to death in what has become the famous Kanungu inferno reference.
More than 500 cult members died in the Kanungu inferno, but deaths linked to the cult swelled to over 1000 with rotten corpses discovered in Kampala and Bushenyi districts.
The Joseph Kibwetere cult as it has come to be known is today believed the second largest cult murder after a similar one that occurred in Guyana in 1978.
The identities of the dead and their origin remains a mystery, following the failure by government to probe into the matter. Equally mysterious is whether the alleged cult leader Joseph Kibwetere is alive or dead.
Details of who actually led the Movement for restoration of Ten Commandments remain unclear. Some circles have claimed the cult was lead by Joseph Kibwetere, while others claim its overall leader was Credonia Mwerinde and two other women believed to have died on the fateful day.
One of Kibwetere’s daughters Mary Ahimbisibwe Kibwetere, who has decided to break the silence in an interview said the cult was lead by Credonia Mwerinde.
/// Cue In : “I know that Credonia did everything….
Cue Out ……all that money went to Kanungu”// //
Mary says that Joseph Kibwetre, a staunch catholic met Credonia Mwerinde, Ursula Komuhangi and Angela Mugisha in 1989 at a ceremony where Arch Bishop of Mbarara His Grace Paul Bakibinga was appointed Bishop Co-adjustors to Bishop John Baptist Kakubi.
Mary says her father Kibwetere was also a personal friend to Bishop John Baptist Kakubi.
Credonia Mwerinde, later moved to Kibwetere’s family home in Ntungamo.The home was turned into prayer place. Mwerinde later took over Kibwetre as her husband disrupting an over thirty year marriage.
Many Ugandans and perhaps people elsewhere in the world believe Joseph Kibwetere is alive living a fugitive life but Mary the fifth born in the family, says her father had died almost a year before 17th March 2000.
She says her father had been found with a mental illness at Butabika Mental hospital but later transferred to one of the cult head quarters in Bunyarugu.
/// Cue In “The reason I’m saying this is….
Cue Out ….. he was buried like a dog”////
Dr. Fred Kigozi, the Director of Butabika hospital once confirmed that Joseph Kibwetere has been treated of mental-related illness not long before the March 17th cult killings. Kibwetre reportedly had a defective disorder.
Godfrey Karabenda, a onetime security operative in Kanungu and later Mayor of Kanungu also believes that Kibwetere did not die on March 17th and was not alive at the time of the killings. Karabenda seems to agree with Mary Kibwetere’s statement that Kibwetere had died at Kataribabo’s home.
To Mary, the mention of Kibwetere cult has been troubling to her and other family members. Apart from the shame associated with it, the killings have made Joseph Kibwetre’s once loved family to be hated.
Mary Kibwetere, is disappointed that some Ugandans still follow –cult like religions twelve years after the Movement for Restoration of Ten Commandments massacre.
//Cue In: “What I tell people ...
Cue Out: ….. Jesus Christ never asked anybody money. He had nothing”///
Mary Kibwetere says failure by government to probe into the death of her father and other members of the Movement for Restoration of Ten Commandments has for twelve years denied Ugandan the truth about what really happened before and on March 17th 2000.
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