Salvation and terror in western Uganda: the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God

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Periodical article

Title:	Salvation and terror in western Uganda: the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God
Author:	Behrend, Heike
Year:	2001
Periodical:	Bulletin des séances = Mededelingen der zittingen
Volume:	47
Issue:	1
Pages:	77-96
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Uganda
Subjects:	millenarianism African Independent Churches homicide
Abstract:	This contribution gives a preliminary view of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God (MRTCG) in western Uganda, which achieved a dubious fame in the international mass media, when on 17 March 2000 about 500 members, most of them women and children, perished in their main church in Kanungu. When more and more graves with followers were found, what had at first seemed to be a mass suicide was suspected of being a mass murder as well. The paper positions the MRTCG as a continuation of precolonial and colonial 'traditions of renewal', as part of a global network of apocalyptic movements and in the context of a situation of 'internal terror'. In addition, it describes the MRTCG's regime of dominance and disciplinary technology, since these furthered a process of distancing between leaders and followers that may have been a precondition for the mass murder. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English, French and Dutch. [Journal abstract]