Kampala
  26/09/07
 
UGANDA POLICE MADE ARRESTS AGAINST NEW RELIGIOUS CULT THAT PREACHES THE END OF THE WORLD.

By Leo Odera Omolo

Uganda is a land of contrast, Religious antics and gimmicks and all sorts of fanatics.

A group calling itself the New Jerusalem Church has emerged in the northern part of the country. Its prophets are saying that the current flooding in the region and part of the eastern region is God’s fulfillment of his plan to end the world.

But for now it appears the only world ending is theirs, as the police in Gulu moved much faster and clamped down on what appears to be not just another dangerous religion, but a very dangerous cult.

Last week, the police arrested 12 members of the New Jerusalem Church, accused them of worshiping idols and preaching their gospels based on 18 commandments.

A police source in Gulu said over the phone that the police got information and were tipped by the locals that some strange looking people were conducting prayers in a big house located at Kadi Kadi village, Lacor parish near Alokolum major seminary.

"The police immediately dispatched a team of investigators who found the cult members praying and claiming that they are prophets sent by God with 18 commandments to preach about the end of the world. Most of the cult members were rounded up, but few fled and escaped the police dragnet", Gulu police community liaison officer Mr. Johnson Kilama who commanded the operation told newsmen.

Among those arrested were: the cult leaders Francis Opwonyo 37 (alias Prophet), Bishop Samuel Mwoka D.C. 32 (alias chief prophet Elisha), Grace Acan 23 (alias Holy Mary), Grace Amony 17 a pupil at Paminyai Primary School who was given a new name of Holy Esther, Lucy Aol 25 (alias Holy Alice Lakwena II) and Tom Denis Olobozi (the chief priest / Archbishop).

The group was surprised by the police while they were sprinkling water on people inside the building like former Holy Spirit movement Rebel leader the late Alice Lakwena, and her father severino Lukoya used to do and they were using shear butter oil to smear people, especially the ‘’sick ones’’ Kilama said.

He said the police also rescued three seriously ill women who were in the care of the cult leaders.

The police also recovered many objects like a bamboo stick, which the cult worships. "We use the water to cleanse and purify people, while the sheer butter is given to us by God the creator to cure the sick and also cast demons out of the world. The bamboo stick was also given to us by God. It symbolizes the key God will use to close the main gate of Jerusalem", Olobo is quoted to have told the police.

Opwonyo said, "God sent me as his prophet to tell his people to follow the new 18 commandments which have replaced the old 10 commandments for the New Jerusalem. The creator told me five things will happen as a sign of the world before the last judgement is passed on the people."

One of the 18 commandments says "There should be no secret between men and women. Sex is a holy gift and should be shared and enjoyed by all."

Opwonyo who says he is the Bishop of the new cult, claimed that God has revealed to him that he (God) would send five punishment starting from epidemics (HIV / AIDS), followed by famine, earthquakes, heavy rains with hailstones weighing up to 100 kgs and angels to burn selected parts of the world where people have been sinning.

The police confirmed that those arrested would be charged with unlawful assembly and being idle and disorderly.

Alice Lakwena, who had since died in exile in Northern Kenya led the first Lord Resistance Army (LRA), whose forces fought bloody battles with UPDF before being overrun. She fled to Kenya, where she remained for close to a decade, then later succumbed to illness and died last year.

She turned down the amnesty offered to her to return home by President Yoweri Museveni.

When Lakwena fled the country, her former commander Gen Joseph Kony continued fighting the Uganda security forces from a safe basis located inside South Sudan.

Kony has rejected amnesty and other reconciliation efforts by the government. His forces are notorious for kidnapping school children both female and male and conscripting them into the poorly equipped LRA forces.

In 1992, another religious cult burnt to ashes close to 400 followers in Western Uganda after pronouncing to them that the end of the world was just around the corner.

Ends.
leooderaomolo@yahoo.com