The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 17

A19 Tests show cultists were alive when fire at chapel was started OUR MID-SEASON SALE is in full bloom. THE COURIER-JOURNAL WORLD WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 2000 l-' By HENRY WASSWA Associated Press KAMPALA, Uganda The 530 people who died in a doomsday cult's chapel burned alive, consumed by gasoline-fueled flames and trapped behind doors and windows bolted from the outside, forensic tests showed yesterday. A.B.M. Lugudo, deputy commissioner of Uganda's forensics agency, said investigators are trying to learn what role may have been played by three people whose bodies were in a separate room of the chapel. "We are still'looking to see if these people started the fire and tried to run away, but got caught up in the fire," he said.

The explosive fire destroyed the Christian doomsday proper equipment including rubber gloves. "We will be meeting with police to assess where we are and where the areas of need are before making a formal appeal for international help," said Edward Rugamya, minister of Internal Affairs. Uganda has repeatedly complained it lacks proper resources to investigate the deaths, the worst cult tragedy of modern times. "When you have opened 1,000 people you don't make a report in a day," police spokesman Eric Nai-gambi said, referring to autopsies on some of the dead. "In Uganda, we have not experienced any such disaster before, so maybe we are not doing it properly." sect's chapel at Kanungu on March 17 and killed everyone inside.

The blaze prompted a search that uncovered 394 bodies at compounds connected to the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God. The key suspects have always been the cult leaders, although investigators have yet to determine whether they too died in their sect's cataclysmic end. "It's possible they are still at large," said Richard Buteera, director of Public Prosecutions. Uganda suspended digging for any more victims Friday, stung by press criticism for putting bare-handed inmates to work exhuming corpses. Investigators say they will resume the exhumations when they have the But just like spring it won't last long.

Come in today. Final reductions have just been taken. Sect's handbook had seductive and deadly message original prices Associated Press KANUNGA, Uganda In a 163- Cage handbook distributed across 'ganda, a doomsday sect offered a seductive message of heavenly salvation to villagers struggling with poverty and AIDS. For the unconvinced there was a different fate a fiery torment where they would burn for eternity. The paperbound tract, "A Timely Message from Heaven: The End of the Present Times," was distributed by the thousands.

It offers little but stark choices and homespun advice for righteous living. For hundreds who adhered to its tenets, the reward was a vicious death. Authorities say leaders of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God masterminded the killings of at least 924 followers between late February and mid-March. According to survivors of the movement, sect members demanded the return of possessions they had surrendered to the cult after the world failed to end on Dec. 31, as the leaders had predicted a demand said to have triggered the killings.

The tract focuses on Uganda's afflictions, casting them as Satanic, with obedience to the Ten Commandments the only cure. The booklet strives to buttress the legitimacy of the sect's leaders. Jo- seph Kibwetere, Credonia Mwerinde and her sister Angelina Migisha each receive a chapter devoted to the visions they claimed to have received from Jesus and the Virgin Mary. The visions are used to give divine sanction to the sect's bans on conversation, sex, cosmetics and short skirts, and support for its regimen of fasting, prayer and work. Yet it gives little attention to the sect's end-of-the-world prophecy.

What it does mention is haunting. "The Lord told me that hurricanes of fire would rain forth from heaven and spread over those who would not have repented. This fire will also reach inside the buildings; there is no way one can escape." (inn; NEW USED PIANOS Baldwin Wurlitzer Chickering Technics Factory Direct Discounts Open This Sunday Get Two Free Gifts from Estee Lauder Baldwin 4544TaylorsvilleRd. 502-491-4420 www.pianosonsale.com Win $500 Worth of Free Dry Cleaning Your first free gift with any Estee Lauder purchase of $20 or more. We'll Come to You! 1 PP i ft T7 I 1 Register at Store for Spring Cleaning Worth $55.

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