UGANDA: THOU SHALT NOT KILL
April 2000 - 16’55’’
| Ugandan landscape | Singing Wilson: South western Uganda could be Africa’s own Garden of Eden. In these valleys the people rely on the land to fill their stomachs and the church to nourish their souls. Faith in god is one of life’s few certainties. | 00’00 |
| Burned bodies in church | Music/singing | 01’30 |
| | Wilson: It’s is also the scene of a crime as old as the bible itself – the collision of faith and murder. The slaughter of hundreds of followers of a devout religious cult, led by Joseph Kibwetere, who preached the restoration of the ten commandments of god and a millennium Armageddon. But no one knows how so many people could have been killed, with not a single person raising the alarm. | 01’45 |
| Eric interview Super: Eric Naigambi Police Spokesman | Naigambi: How do you systematically exterminate a thousand people unnoticed, unless your are organised? | 01’15 |
| Archbishop interview Super: Archbishop Paul Bakyenga | Archbishop: They were frightening people. This was a religion of fear and people can confuse fear with faith. | |
| Theresa interview Super: Theresa Kibwetere Wife of cult leader | Theresa: And they used to call themselves holy people, keeping the ten commandments. What about the fifth one, thou shalt not kill. | 01’27 |
| Map Africa/Uganda | Music | |
| Deserted compound | Wilson: Joseph Kibwetere’s compound is abandoned now to the ghosts of his victims, the 330 people who perished here when they were herded into the church and incinerated. Inside the classrooms, the lists of children who studied here, and died here. | 01’47 |
| | He told his followers this place would be their ark of salvation. And used radio broadcasts to attract converts, drawn by his promises of heaven, but only for those faithful to god’s commandments. | 02’02 |
| Super: Words of Joseph Kibwetere Radio broadcast, March 7, 2000 | Kibwetere: …bearing in mind that in the new land there is no religion other than the Ten Commandments… there are no tribes, no clans, or friends because it is only those who follow the Ten Commandments that will become brothers and sisters to Jesus… they are the only ones permitted in heaven | 02’20 |
| Photo Joseph Kibwetere | Wilson: A devout Catholic, Joseph Kibwetere was a respected leader, until he was drawn away from the church and into the cult. | 02’45 |
| Wilson walks with Father Narcissus | Father Narcissus: People were all like charcoals, they were all black, all burnt. | 02’55 |
| | Wilson: Father Narcissus Begumisa is a shepherd who has lost his flock. The parish priest in the little village of Kunungu. Two years ago he came to the compound to tell the cult leaders to stop what they were doing. | |
| Interview with Father Narcissus | Wilson: Did you speak to Joesph Kibwetere? Father Narcissus: And what did you say to him? | 03’15 |
| | Father Narcissus: I said he got the vision from Our Lady, it was he said Our Lady wanted him to come this way with his companions to stay at this place, they regarded this place as a holy place chosen by Our Lady. | |
| Deserted compound | Wilson: That was in 1998, and after that, the cult was left alone, until recently when strange things started happening. | 03’42 |
| Naigambi interview | Naigambi: On the 14th, all members of that cult who were present, paid their taxes, even arrears. They even paid any debts they had with anybody, and made good all mishaps that had happened with them and the local community. | 03’50 |
| Flowers at deserted compound | Wilson: It seems certain by then the deception was complete, and the cult leaders were ready to execute the final phase of their tragic plan. Joseph Kibwetere and his followers lived an orderly, but isolated lifestyle here in this compound, | 04’10 |
| Wilson to camera Super: Ben Wilson | Wilson: so it was easy to believe the inferno was an act of religious fanaticism. But when police came here and found six bodies stuffed inside this deep hole, they began to suspect something far more sinister. | |
| | Music | 04’44 |
| Exhuming mass graves | Wilson: The six corpses found buried under a building in the compound was just the beginning. A week later, another 150 in a mass grave nearby, then another 81, then 130. By the end of it all, 720 bodies had been recovered. With more properties belonging to the cult still to be excavated, no one knows how many more there may be. | |
| Wilson walking Father Narcissus | Wilson: It’s quite isolated father. | 05’10 |
| | Wilson: The search for answers began, in the bush, about 20 minutes walk from the cult’s compound in Kunungu, at the home of Conclio Bananga and his 17 year-old son Peter. Conclio’s family is both blessed and cursed, Peter is the sole survivor of the cult fire – his wife and six relatives perished. That Peter is alive - a twist of fate – or perhaps as he believes, the hand of god. | |
| Peter interview | Peter: They used to tell us that those who do not love God -- God will kill them with hot water… or fire will come out of the ground and burn them. | 05’50 |
| | On the Thursday, the day before the fire we were told to clean the premises, to wash our clothes and fetch a lot of water because they told us people were coming to visit us and they wanted the place to be tidy. | |
| Peter and father walk towards house | Wilson: The cult members had been fasting, and Peter was hungry – so on the morning of the fire he returned to his father’s house to get something to eat – a decision that would save his life. | 06’30 |
| Peter interview | Peter: Before I went back to the camp, I was told they were all on fire so I went to see how they were burning. | 06’40 |
| | Wilson: And what did you see when you went back there? | |
| | Peter: I was wearing the group’s uniform, by the time I arrived the police were there and people told me to take off the uniform or I’d be questioned. I threw the uniform into the bush, and left it there. | |
| Compound | Wilson: Still, it didn’t take long for the police to catch up with Peter, he was quickly arrested and taken away for questioning. His eyewitness testimony has placed two cult leaders at the compound on the night before the fire – but not Joseph Kibwetere. That’s the key to solving the case. Police don’t even know if they should be searching for him, because they’re unsure if he’s dead or alive. | 07’15 |
| Eric interview Super: Eric Naigambi Police Spokesman | Naigambi: We believe there was a systematic extermination of followers, and we believe this was after the prophesy failed to materialise, because according to them the world was supposed to end on the 31st of December 1999. It did not happen. But before that they had told the members to sell their property and hand the proceeds to the head. | 07’39 |
| Archbishop interview Super: Archbishop Paul Bakyenga | Archbishop: I think the people started dying because they started asking questions about their property when the end of the world didn’t come on the 31st of December, 1999. | 08’10 |
| Naigambi interview | Naigambi: So they continued extending the deadline, saying no, the world will end tomorrow because there was an error somewhere in the counting of the days. They said, no the world will end in March. Until when they agreed it would end on the 17th of March. | |
| | Wilson: Eric Naigambi is the public face of the Ugandan police which is confronting an investigation that would stretch the resources of the FBI or Scotland Yard. It’s a case that’s filled with blind alleys and false leads. | 08’30 |
| | Naigambi : This is a list of people which was found in the ruins after the fire. Those people who feel their people may have perished in the fire and appeared on this list can move forward and inform the police. | |
| | Wilson: How much do the police really know about Joseph Kibwetere, his cult and the killings they committed? | 09’05 |
| | Naigambi: There was some intelligence reports about that sect, but they didn’t have inside information as to what was going on. They were simply watching it as a community of worshippers, they didn’t know it as a criminal gang as it has turned out to be. | |
| Mass murder site | Wilson: But how did elderly priests manage to slaughter so many people and bury them in graves 20 feet deep? No-one seems to know. | 09’30 |
| | Naigambi: I don’t think it’s easy to kill a person, it should be hard work, because the person is fighting for his life, there should be screams, there should be calls for help. We are finding these people with smashed heads. How was it being done, were they being exterminated from some point and then being brought to be buried. | |
| Kibwetere church/Theresa | Wilson: Three times a week -- twice on a Sunday -- Theresa Kibwetere comes to the church that she built with her husband as a monument to their faith and their god. But Joseph stopped coming to church with her in 1995. Now she prays alone, and wonders how the man she married could have become a monster. | 10’10 |
| Wilson and Theresa look at photos | Wilson: So this is Joseph here? Theresa: Yes. Wilson: What sort of life did you think you were going to live together on your wedding day? | |
| | Theresa: We thought ?? a very happy one. And it was ?? those people. It was a happy one, a very ? ??? our children. ?? | 10’40 |
| Theresa praying | Wilson: Things went wrong when they met a former prostitute, Credonia Mwerinde, who claimed to have had a vision of Mary, who told her to move in with Joseph and help spread his message. Theresa: They stayed with me for about two years. | |
| Theresa interview | I found they were not good to live with them. Credonia was always cruel. She was always cruel, she never smiled even, she was cruel. Wilson: How did your husband change from the man you married ? Theresa: You see, by that time he disliked me somehow, because whatever Credonia would say, like I am a bad woman, he agreed. | 11’16 |
| | Wilson: Besides her devotion, there are some things Theresa is sure of. That her husband is dead, that what happened was not his fault and judgement is coming. | |
| | Theresa: I am not the judge, but for the action they did I am sure he is not in heaven. But only God knows, God is the only judge for what they did. | 12’05 |
| | Wilson: But where do you think he would be? Theresa: Maybe in hell. The fifth commandment says thou shalt not kill, even one person, imagine so many people whose lives have been destroyed because of Credonia, my husband and those people. As a person, I think he can’t go to heaven. I don’t know, but only God knows. | |
| Girls singing | Music/singing | 12’50 |
| | Wilson: The best explanation for the phenomenal growth of cults and fringe religions in Uganda comes from the church itself. Prophets, healers, cults and other religious splinter groups have proliferated throughout Uganda’s hard years. | |
| | Archbishop: They want to have a god who would answer their prayers immediately, and they would like someone who can give a straight answer, and they want a god who can give a straight answer. | |
| Prophet | Wilson: And this man claims to be just the person to give straight answers, a real live prophet. | 13’18 |
| | Prophet: I heard a voice telling me to pray for the people and to try to lead the people to Him -- to God -- through prayer and giving myself to Him… and to give other people strength in whatever they are doing… to give people strength before God. | |
| | Wilson: Do you communicate directly with god? Prophet: No, I do not speak directly to God, but it is a power that takes my message to Him and then brings it back to me. | 13’50 |
| Prophet’s church/ Scolastica | Wilson: The prophet Ssemedu’s church is located in a back street of Kampala. He stays here with a small band of followers, his self-proclaimed ability to communicate with saints ensures that his waiting room is always occupied, with people like Scolastica Nabukera [?]. | |
| | Scolastica is a believer, held by an unshakeable faith in the prophet’s powers. She still goes to church – but says she doesn’t get the results that she gets when she comes here. | 14’30 |
| Scolastica interview | Scolastica: And when you go there, they don’t pray for you, I’m a Catholic, even by now, but they don’t pray for you, you go there all together, you pray the mass and then you go back. You attend the mass then you go back home, even the problem is still there. | |
| Archbishop | Archbishop: So if somebody comes along and says, well, this is God’s will, you do this and this is what will come out. That kind of thinking is very dangerous, especially the faith. | 15’00 |
| Jemilla with prophet | Wilson: The story of Jemilla Nansisi is typical of the influence of people like Prophet Ssemedu. She was brought to him when she was ill, but through prayer, Jemilla says the prophet has cured her. Now she lives in the compound – cooking the prophet’s meals and washing his robes. | |
| Jemilla interview | Jemilla: I gave up school and I left my parents, I was with my parents but I left them and decided to come and serve god. | 15’36 |
| | My father is worried, he thinks I am in bad things, things which are not in god. But I told him that I am a person of god and I should serve god. | |
| Congregation singing | Singing | 16’05 |
| | Wilson: In Uganda, people will always believe that there is a god. Be it the god of Father Narcissus, the god of Joseph Kibwetere, or the god of the prophet Ssemedu. The destruction of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, was not a mass suicide of believers but murder most foul. Joseph Kibwetere’s followers were led there because they believed in his message. They did not go to their deaths willingly and for their devotion have paid the highest possible price. | |
| | END | 16’56 |