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81 more bodies of sect victims found (03/30/2001)
RUGAZI, Uganda: On Monday, authorities uncovered a mass grave in
the backyard of a home owned by Dominic Kataribabo, the Christian
doomsday sect leader. The pit contained the strangled, mutilated
bodies of 74 people.
On Tuesday, they discovered 28 corpses in a room adjoining the
foyer of Kitaribabo's spacious brick home. Many of the victims also
appeared to have been strangled - knotted cloths still ringed their
necks as their bodies were pulled from a dank hole in the floor.
The death toll was certain to climb. Yesterday police exhumed a
further 81 bodies from the foundations of the cult leader's former
home.
Over 180 bodies have been found since Saturday at the property
of Dominic Kataribabo in the southwestern town of Rugazi, officials
said.
Yesterday's gruesome discovery brought the number of dead to at
least 630 in three compounds in southwestern Uganda that once belonged
to the sect, known as the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten
Commandments of God. Authorities believe the sect's leaders are
responsible for one of the largest mass murders in recent history.
The sect had up to 1,000 members, and officials believe they account
for most of the dead, though the identities of most of the victims
remain unknown. Five other compounds in southwestern Uganda belonging
to the sect have not yet been examined, police spokesman Assuman
Mugenyi said.
Scenes of horror linked to the apocalyptic sect have emerged since
March 17, when fire engulfed the chapel of a sect compound in nearby
Kahunga.
At least 330 people burned to death. Kataribabo, a defrocked Roman
Catholic priest, is believed to have been among the dead - a body
thought to be the 64-year-old's was found in the ruins, still wearing
a clerical collar.
Authorities initially called the conflagration a mass suicide.
But within days, investigators discovered six strangled, mutilated
corpses in the latrine of the compound, triggering a murder investigation.
Days after the fire, 153 more bodies were found buried in a Buhunga
village compound belonging to the sect. Police discovered the first
Rugazi mass grave on Friday, when they came to inspect Kataribabo's
compound.
On Tuesday, investigators including a pathologist arrived from
the capital, Kampala, to unearth 74 bodies local officials exhumed
from a trench in Kataribabo's backyard and quickly reburied.
While tissue and blood samples were drawn, investigators questioned
Kataribabo's neighbours and relatives. His nephew, Bart Bainomukama,
led them to the foyer, where there were signs of freshly poured
concrete. Bainomukama told police that his uncle had said he was
digging a pit to install a refrigerator. A hole driven through the
floor quickly revealed the sight of a human leg.
Authorities are pursuing the two main leaders of the movement -
Cledonia Mwerinde and Joseph Kibwetere, an excommunicated Roman
Catholic. The pair had predicted that the world would end on December
31. When that failed to happen, authorities believe, sect members
demanded the return of possessions they surrendered to join the
sect and became an insurgent force that was put down with brutal
force.
Most of the victims have been dead for "about a month,"
police official Geoffrey Bangirana said.
Kataribabo was drawn to the sect soon after its inception in 1990.
From a parish pulpit in the valley below his hilltop compound in
Rugazi, 260 kilometres southwest of Kampala, he urged the church
to adhere more strictly to the Ten Commandments.
The Rev. John Baptist Kabuki, then-bishop of the Mbarara diocese,
did not tolerate Kataribabo's criticism, says Michael Karyango,
one of his nephews. The two also clashed over an offer of money
for development projects Kataribabo had received from friends he
made in California, where he studied theology in the mid-1980s.
Kabuki barred him from receiving the funds, Karyango says. Soon,
Kabuki stripped the priest of his duties and Kataribabo joined the
sect full-time, later leading seminars at his compound on the movement's
secretive, often harshly regimented brand of Christianity.
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