by Ray Black
This obsession with fire may have come from Jouret’s belief in his own reincarnation from a member of the Knight’s Templar. Members of this group were known to have been burned to death at the stake by the ruling monarchy who feared the power and secrecy of the order. The spirits of these persecuted and holy men lived on, he proclaimed, in the elders of the Order of the Solar Temple.
By the end of the 1980s, membership was international and spread mainly across France, Switzerland and French Canada where Jouret had led lecture tours. There were also a few followers in the US, Spain and French Caribbean. The sect had amassed a fortune of 93 million dollars through donations and sales of property offered to it by its members.
CONCERN AND SUSPICION
But Jouret’s radical prophecies of an ecological apocalypse caused concern and suspicion amongst the group and membership began to dwindle. Rumours also crept in that the Order was a hoax and that the members had been swindled out of their savings and possessions.
Perhaps under pressure from these accusations and the creeping group discontent, Di Mambro was fast losing patience with his partner too. He was aware of the commune’s displeasure at the controlling way in which Jouret conducted his lessons and preachings. Despite his magnetism and inspirational style, Jouret had previously been voted out of another group, ‘The Renewed Order of the Temple’, as Grand Master by his followers. This displayed a severe lack of confidence, and Di Mambro feared that the same could happen within the Solar Temple.
The disillusion spread amongst the group, when a couple of members left and began to denounce the group in Quebec. They claimed that the Order was dangerous, demanded their money back and encouraged others to do the same. They did, and Di Mambro was faced with numerous lawsuits and financial demands.
Di Mambro was also coming under scrutiny from the banks and financial institutions who were beginning investigations, suspicious of money-laundering, into the vast sums of cash which he’d been investing in his accounts. His health was also suffering. He was diagnosed with diabetes and kidney failure, and believed that he had also developed cancer.
Neither were his family supportive. His daughter, whom he had heralded as one of the ‘cosmic children’, no longer wanted to be involved in her father’s premonition of the New Age and instead wanted to be with the other children of her own age, doing the things they were doing. His son condemned him as a fraud, which led to many more of the Order’s followers demanding their money back.
The police also became involved when, through Jouret’s association with illegal arms dealers, two members of the Quebec group were arrested for the possession of handguns with silencers. Jouret was also charged. The suicides at Waco and Jonestown did not help Di Mambro’s cause either as unorthodox groups were now regarded as dangerous and viewed in a very negative light.
With the world seemingly bearing down on Di Mambro, the only explanation he could offer his confused followers was that the end of the world was nearing and that this negativity was intended to encourage them to seek out a better life, and to push them towards their salvation. They had to depart together. Consequently Di Mambro and Jouret began to expedite their plans to take their followers to Sirius.
VITAL EVIDENCE
In the aftermath and investigation into the Swiss and Canadian suicide fires, letters were offered to the police from relatives of those who had died, written in advance of the events, and as a means of explanation for what was to come. They told of how some ‘traitors’ would have to be executed, but that mostly they were going to carry out the killings as a way of helping the members of the group who were not strong enough to make the journey themselves. Those who were prepared to kill themselves were the more spiritually developed and superior. They believed that they would transcend to a higher spiritual level by taking their own lives and those of others, and would reach a state which they could not achieve on earth. Earth, they claimed, was heading for destruction anyway and soon no one would live there at all.
These notes however, albeit written before the events, were mailed afterwards. Therefore some of the members of the Order of the Solar Temple were still alive.
It was originally believed that Di Mambro and Jouret had planned these murders with no intention of taking their own lives, but instead lying low and then emerging when the dust had settled to spend the money their followers had donated to their cause. It was therefore surprising when their bodies were discovered amongst the dead in Switzerland. They died separately, Jouret first at Chiery, and Di Mambro afterwards at Granges-sur-Salvan. It appears that they had genuinely believed their own prophecies and predictions.
DUTOIT MURDERS
The reasons for the first murder, that of the Dutoit couple and their son in Quebec, soon became known. Tony Dutoit used to help Di Mambro with one of his greatest ‘tricks’ – creating the illusion of conjuring up the elders of the Order to materialise before the assembled followers in their communal enlightenment rituals. This was all achieved with the use of lasers, and it was not long before Dutoit became disillusioned with this fraudulent practice and the false claims which Di Mambro was making. He disclosed the secret of this ‘phenomenon’ to other members of the group and then tried to claim back some of the money which he’d donated to the Order. Nicki Dutoit, Tony’s wife, also displeased Di Mambro by becoming pregnant. Di Mambro had forbidden this as he did not want any children to threaten his daughter’s prophesised place as the new messiah. They therefore left for Quebec, where they had their son. Di Mambro heard of the birth of their baby, and declared him to be the anti-Christ. The child, and their parents who were clearly trying to stand in the way of spiritual progression with their disobedience, had to be disposed of.
With the damage Dutoit did in exposing Di Mambro and having the audacity to defect, it was clear to see why he became Di Mambro’s first victim.
GRENOBLE, FRANCE
One year passed without incident before another mass suicide was committed. This time, 16 people were found dead near Grenoble in France. Not all of them had departed willingly it seemed, as one woman had suffered a broken jaw, indicating a struggle. Fourteen of the bodies, lay together in the same circular arrangement as the bodies in Switzerland, but two bodies lay separately. These, it is believed, were the bodies of two people whose responsibility it had been to shoot the weak and to start the fire. All the deceased had been members of the Solar Temple, and the incident was therefore immediately linked to the preceding three mass suicides.
But the families of the victims of Grenoble were not satisfied that the perpetrators had all died. They believed that some of the group were still at large.
Police monitored the behaviour of the remaining members of the group carefully the following year, especially during the solstice and equinox seasons, but nothing aroused their suspicion, and there were no reported fires or suicides. They believed that the practice of the Solar Temple had finally come to an end.
It hadn’t. One last journey to Sirius was made on March 22, 1997, from St. Casimir, Quebec. It was almost a failed attempt as the fire-starting devices did not go off. Having been given this reprieve though, the children in the group begged for their lives and were allowed to leave. They were released on the condition that they took sleeping pills and went to stay in a neighbouring workshop. They knew that their parents would be dead when they awoke. A second attempt was made, and this time it was successful. This took the total number of followers who had taken their lives to 74.
MICHAEL TABACHNIK
With continued pressure from the families of the Grenoble victims, the police led a search for the remaining members of the Order of the Solar Temple and uncovered several of the leaders. One of whom was the Swiss musician, Michael Tabachnik. He went to trial for his involvement in what was now being termed a criminal organization and for his alleged knowledge of the murders before they occurred. Apparently lined up to be Di Mambro’s successor, Tabachnik had written quite a lot of the group’s literature and had declare
d the final mission of the group just before the first deaths happened. This, the prosecutors claimed, meant that he was conditioning people to die. Tabachnik’s own wife had died in the Cheiry suicide.
Tabachnik, it was asserted, had travelled with Di Mambro to Egypt and it was there that they had taken the decision together to found the Golden Way. The principles of this sect were the same – members would achieve peace only in death. When they recruited Luc Jouret, the Golden Way became the Order of the Solar Temple.
Tabachnik pleaded not guilty to all charges. He said that he had not been a member of the Order for over five years, and claimed to have had no knowledge of the intended mass suicides. A lack of hard evidence to prove otherwise meant that Tabachnik was found not guilty.
With no high-profile arrests the commotion surrounding the sect died down, and it is now believed to be more or less dissolved. If there are any members still practising the beliefs of Jo Di Mambro, they are certainly not considered a threat, and are of no concern to the authorities. The ritual of mass suicide and murder perpetrated by the Order of the Solar Temple is believed to be defunct.
Movement For The Restoration Of The Ten Commandments
A mass suicide in the Ugandan jungle
In the late 1980s Credonia Mwerinde was in a cave just outside the Ugandan town of Kanungu when another vision of the Virgin Mary seemingly came to her.
Mwerinde, who was born on July 30, 1952, was a daughter of a Roman Catholic catechist. She was a school drop out who had had a number of unsuccessful and unhappy marriages and ended up as a prostitute in the Kanungu trading centre.
It was while being involved in this age-old profession that she met a local man who wished to take her on as his seventh wife. Again, her marriage turned sour, this time due to her inability to conceive, even though she had three children from previous relationships. It was during this time that Mwerinde started to get blinding visions from the Virgin Mary. Her current barrenness the Virgin said, was caused by a decision of Mary herself to ‘withhold’ the unborn child.
VIRGIN MARY
The Virgin Mary started to appear regularly to Mwerinde, in her bedroom, on the sides of rocks and in the caves – which she returned to time and time again.
Credonia tried to convince the Vatican of these miracles that had so unselfishly appeared to her, but there was not enough evidence or credibility for the Vatican to take it any further. Luckily for Ms Mwerinde a failed politician by the name of Joseph Kibwetere was on hand to listen and believe every word that she said.
LOVING FATHER?
Joseph Kibwetere had lived peacefully within the luscious green countryside of southern Uganda. He was a loving father and husband who rarely argued with his family and was known by many Ugandans for ‘his piety, his prayer and his good works’. He was active in Ugandan politics and was a devout Roman Catholic from which he founded a Catholic school and became a supervisor for other schools in the region.
It is reported that from as early as 1984, Kibwetere was having visions and frequently hearing conversations, between Jesus and the Virgin Mary. In these conversations, the Virgin Mary complained about the world’s lack of regard for the Ten Commandments and prophesied that the world would end on December 31, 1999.
MEETING OF MINDS
Kibwetere joined his ideas and prophecies together with similar-thinking excommunicated Roman Catholic priests Joseph Kasapurari, John Kamagara, Dominic Kataribabo and two excommunicated nuns. There are conflicting stories as to when exactly their group was founded but in 1994 they registered as a non-governmental organisation.
When Joseph Kibwetere met the self-styled visionary Credonia Mwerinde he believed wholeheartedly about her revelations and asked her to come and live with him and his wife. Mwerinde continued to have visions of the Virgin Mary and word started to spread about these amazing apparitions. Many people, mostly those suffering from infertility started to arrive at Kibwetere’s house with the hope of reaching the Virgin Mary through the human form of Mwerinde. Over the months, more and more people seeking retribution and answers, started to stay at the Kibweteres’ home and the group began to call themselves ‘The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God’. The group kept growing and at one time had increased to several thousand members with followers even in the neighbouring country of Rwanda. This caused Kibwetere’s relationship with his own wife and children to become strained and although his family had initially joined the movement they soon fell out with other members who called them ‘sinners’ and burned their clothes. Things at the commune got so bad that Kibwetere’s own family, including five of his own sons and daughters ran away. The last time the family were to see Kibwetere was in 1995 when he came to the funeral of one of his children who died of natural causes.
The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God placed themselves within a remote farming community in the unstable south-west corner of Uganda and led a relatively uneventful existence as far as the media and the police were concerned until the horrid events that were to unfold in the year 2000.
LIFE WITHIN THE CULT
As with many African countries Uganda has a whole range of religious movements and groups, spreading a variety of messages and ideologies. The Ten Commandments of God had been fairly inconspicuous and was a registered charity that portrayed itself as being intent on spreading the word of Jesus with the aim to make as many people as possible adhere to the Ten Commandments. The link with the Roman Catholic religion was apparent, with small statues of Jesus and a crucifix decorating their modest headquarters. The headquarters interestingly enough, had one time been the family home of Mwerinde. She became the sole owner of the property after her three brothers mysteriously died one by one.
In 1992 the group moved from Kibwetere’s home, in the countryside, and by 1998 the group had become a flourishing natural community who lived together on land bought by combining the money gained from individual sales of their properties. They built churches in amongst the plantations and had their own primary school. The followers all lived together in dormitory style accommodation and local villagers described the members as being completely disciplined and very polite but with some strange habits, such as on certain days speaking entirely through hand signals. The reason for this was so as not to break the ninth commandment (eighth commandment for Roman Catholics and some Lutherans):
‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.’ (Exodus 20:16; KJV).
It was in this year that the group had some problems. The local authorities took away its charity licence because the school was breaking public health requirements and there were rumours that children were being poorly treated.
During this time Joseph Kibwetere merged his leadership with Credonia Mwerinde who had increasingly become a dominant force within the group. She was often referred to by other members as the ‘programmer’ as all of the Virgin Mary’s ‘orders’ were channelled through Mwerinde’s body and voice.
Some people say that Mwerinde ultimately took over and shadowed all of the other leaders. Kibwetere was just a figure-head for her to use as a pawn in her quest for fame and money. She was seen by many as a violent, vindictive, unstable woman who was a pyromaniac and had killed before. Her ex-husband was quoted as saying: ‘She was only happy when she was making money.’
With these views circulating does it bring us any closer to the events that were soon to take place?
WELCOME
Kibwetere and Mwerinde kept their followers isolated. Any contact with people from outside the group was strictly monitored and mostly forbidden. People outside the group were deemed ‘sinners’ but new members were warmly welcomed and always had the nicest food and warmest beds, until they became so reliant on the group that there was no chance of them leaving. When that time came they were treated just like all other members, they were encouraged to be celibate, unable to speak unless in prayer, worked long hours in the fields and lived on a nutrition lacking dish of beans. I
n order to become a fully fledged member of the movement newcomers were required to read a book entitled A Timely Message from Heaven: The End of the Present Time even though the Bible was the group’s sacred text much of the governance came from this book. It was was written by Kibwetere and foretold the destructions that would come to Earth and wipe out the majority of the human race, due to their evil, disrespectful ways.
STRUCTURE OF THE MOVEMENT
The Movement consisted of separate groups. The first group was made up of new members who had read A Timely Message From Heaven. These were the novices and they were required to wear black. The next group were the people who had sworn to follow the commandments, they wore green. The fully fledged members were those who were ‘willing to die in the arc’ and they wore white and green. Although this vow was referring to burial requirements of members, it may have had an ulterior motive for occurrences to come.
The whole community was based around the ‘second generation’ apostles. It was second generation as the movement believed that at the second coming, both the Virgin Mary and Jesus would return. For this reason six men and six women made up the leaders.
Members grew increasingly tired and hungry and due to the lack of contact with the outside world started to rely on the group for all of the emotions that as humans we rely on to survive.
Even though the majority of the group’s members were Roman Catholics, they were taught that the Catholic Church was an enemy, badly in need of reform. Their own rules as well as those from the handbook, came direct from the Virgin Mary so they must be the right rules to follow – surely?