Ugandan police say they have arrested twelve leaders of a doomsday cult who preached the end of the world, for unlawful assembly. As reported in the REAL NEWSPAPER #11, May 27, 2007 edition, Uganda has a long history with apocalyptic cults.

A self-proclaimed prophet and leader of an apocalyptic sect called the New Jerusalem Church, claims to have received divine message revealing that five things would happen before the end of the world. Floods and hailstones are the last two signs. The sect believes the country's recent floods, ravaging northern and eastern parts, foreshadow the apocalypse. Cult members claim to have been sent by God to preach with 18 commandments.

Doomsday sects are nothing new to east Africa, where a similar group slaughtered nearly 800 followers in massacres and a mass suicide after its prediction for the 2000 apocalypse turned out false. "The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God", burnt members alive in a church in Kanungu, near the Congolese border. Author Robert Bwire provided a detailed account of this largely underreported disaster in "Ashes of Faith".

The country has suffered nearly 20 years of civil war between the government and rebels who claim divine inspiration for their massacres and human rights crimes such as child abuse. Mass graves discovered across the country, including recovered bodies of 59 children in three graves in Buhunga, has prompted police to suspect cult leaders of systematically murdering more followers.

Gulu Police Community Liaison Officer Johnson Kilama, who commanded the operation, told the press that "We got information from the locals that some people are conducting prayers in a big house at Kati-kati Village, Lacor Parish near Alokolum Major Seminary. We sent our investigation team who found the cult members praying and claiming that they are prophets sent by God with 18 commandments to preach the end of the world."
Among those arrested were: the cult leaders Francis Opwonya, 37, (alias Prophet), Bishop Samuel Mwaka DC, 32, (alias Chief Prophet Eliza), Grace Acan, 23, (alias Holy Mary), Grace Amony, 17, a pupil of Paminyai Primary School, who was given a new name of Holy Esther, Lucy Aol, 25, (alias Holy Alice Lalwena II) and Tom Denis Olobo, 21, the chief priest/archbishop.

"They were sprinkling water on people like former Holy Spirit Movement Rebel leader Alice Auma Lakwena and her father Severino Lukoya used to do and they were using shear butter oil to smear people, especially the sick," Kilama said. He said the police rescued three ill women who were in the care of the cult. The Police also recovered many objects, like a bamboo stick, that the cult was worshipping.
"We use the water to cleanse and purify people, while the shear butter is given to us by God the Creator to cure the sick and also cast demons out of the world. The bamboo sick was given to us by God. It symbolises the key God will use to close the main gate of Jerusalem," Olobo claimed.

Opwonya 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 end of the world before the last judgment is passed on to people." The 18th commandment says: "There should be no secret between men and women. Sex is a holy gift and should be shared and enjoyed by all."
Opwonya, who says he is bishop of the cult, claimed that God had revealed to him that he would send five punishments starting from epidemics (HIV/AIDS), followed by famine, earthquakes, heavy rains with hailstones weighing 100kgs and angels to burn selected parts of the world where people have been sinning. Uganda has been among the hardest hit of 17 African countries ravaged by floods in recent weeks. Some 300,000 Ugandans, many already uprooted by conflict, have been affected.

As mentioned, for most Ugandans, word of doomsday cults brings bitter memories of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments, which burnt hundreds of members alive in a church in Kanungu, near the Congolese border, in March 2000. Arrest warrants were issued for six cult leaders, but police admit they still do not know if they died in the Kanungu blaze.