Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God
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The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God was a religious movement founded by Credonia Mwerinde and Joseph Kibweteere in southwestern Uganda. It was formed in the late 1980s after Mwerinde and Kibweteere claimed that they had seen 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 religious movement died in a fire and a series of poisonings and killings that were initially considered a group suicide. It was later determined to be a mass murder by the group's leaders after their predictions of the apocalypse failed to come about. In their coverage of that event, BBC News and The New York Times referred to the Movement as a doomsday cult.
History edit
Creation of the movement edit
The movement was founded by Credonia Mwerinde after she had visions of the Virgin Mary near Kibweteere's house in Rwashamaire, Uganda. In 1984, even the other founder of the movement, Joseph Kibweteere, also had visions of the Virgin Mary. So, the two met and founded the movement in 1989. The group grew rapidly and also attracted several defrocked Catholic priests and nuns who worked as theologians, rationalizing messages from the leadership.
Subsequent years edit
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 their assets, which they sold when they joined the Movement. 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.
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. 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 unsanitary conditions, use of child labor, and possibly kidnapping children, but the sect was allowed to reopen by the government.
Preparation for the Doomsday edit
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. On the 1st January 2000, passed without the advent of the apocalypse, and the Movement began to unravel. Questions were asked of Mwerinde and Kibweteere, and payments to the Church decreased dramatically. Ugandan police believe that some members, who had been required to sell their possessions and turn over the money to the Movement, rebelled and demanded the return of their money. It is believed that events that followed were orchestrated by sect leaders in response to the crisis in the ranks.
The mass suicide edit
On the 17th March 2001, the Movement held a huge party at Kanungu, where they roasted three bulls and drank 70 crates of soft drinks. Minutes after the members arrived at the party, nearby villagers heard an explosion, and the building was gutted in an intense fire that killed all 530 in attendance. The windows and doors of the building had been boarded up to prevent people from leaving. 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 lay at leader Joseph Nymurinda's farm. Police stated that they had been murdered about three weeks before the church inferno. After the autopsy of the bodies, a theory stating that all of the members died in a mass suicide was changed to mass murder, when decomposing bodies were discovered in pits with signs of strangulation, while others had stab wounds.
Structure edit
At the top of the hierarchy there was the two founders of the Movement, under there was visionares and at the bottom there was former priests that predicated the belief of the Movement.
Ideology edit
The Movement believed that the Apocalypse as described in the Book of Revelation of Saint. John the Evangelist was imminent and that they were there to ensure that those who entered the Movement could be purified by obeying the Ten Commandments sothat couldn't to be condemned during the Apocalypse. Also, they 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.