Kampala — RAKAI residents are scared of the bodies preserved by the Serulanda Sesamirembe sect which the Government is probing.
It is said six bodies have been preserved by the sect, which has also made attempts to start development projects in the district.
The district community officer, Alex Bagarukayo, recently told a probe committee instituted by President Yoweri Museveni that children and some residents were scared by the presence of the bodies. He wondered why the sect had kept them at its premises.
The commission, headed by Prof. Nelson Ssewankambo, was set up in April. Other commissioners who attended the hearing are Richard Tushemerirwe of the President's office, Prof. Peter Mugyenyi, Harriet Tukamushaba, George Kalemera and Grace Nambatya.
Bagarukayo said the practice was not only strange to other religious groups, but is also against the culture of the residents who are not their members.
He said he did not know of any other religious body that preserved bodies in villages, a practice that makes the sect strange.
Bagarukayo said in 1992, he rescued two children from the sect with the help of the Police and has since decided to distance himself from investigating the group that has connections with influential government officials.
He said he had turned away several invitations from the sect leaders and feared to eat their food. He caused laughter when he said the only contribution it had made was the research on preserving bodies.
Bagarukayo said the district LC5 chairperson, Herman Sssetongo, who is currently on a trip to China, is rumoured to have been sponsored by the sect.
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THE contents of this wild unfounded article is yet another example of why Africa continues in her woes of poverty, under-development and the attendant dangers of poverty and backwardness. For a Community Development Officer like Alex Bagarukayo to give wrong and unfounded allegations to a commission of inquiry set up to investigate whether or not the activities, plans and programs of the Seerulanda Group are beneficial to the people, is absurd and unfortunate.
The only time I know Mr. Bagarukayo ever visited Sserulanda was when a member, Ssebutaka Bazira Kafuuma had died. He was survived by two sons whom he wished to remain in the care of the Sserulanda Community trustees as per his personal Last Will and Testament. The father of the deceased wanted to take away the children and so he contacted the District Probation Officer who I recall was Mr. Alex Bagarukayo and other government officials who came along with him to Sseesamirembe.
Negotiations were held between Sserulanda officials and the government officials and Kafuuma's father. The Sserulanda officials agreed to let the children go with their grandfather. Now this is what Alex Bagarukayo is posing about as a hero rescuing two children from Sserulanda- an organization where they were born and where their father had raised them for years. By the time they were taken away by their grandfather, the oldest boy was about five or six years old...and so Bagarukayo was rescuing them as if from a dangerous "cult" which is the way he views Sserulanda.
What Mr. Bagarukayo does not seem to know is the fact Mzee Amos Kaguta, Uganda's incumbent Preisdent Yoweri Museveni's father was saved from Dr. Obote's NASA killing squards by members of the Sserulanda Foundation where he was kept safe for over six or seven months under the direct care and attention of the Living Saint, HIG Bambi Baaba Baabuwee, the founder of Sserulanda. Mzee Amos Kaguta was just one of more than three thousand Ugandans who took refuge at Sseesamirembe under the care of Sserulanda Foundation members for years until The NRM/NRA government brought peace and security to their home districts whence they had ran away for dear life.
The fact is that even the Uganda Red Cross brought in people from the Luweero Triangle to Sserulanda for safety. This is the organization that Bagarukayo rescued two children from. This is absurd! Where was Bagarukayo when thousands of Ugandans sought refuge at Sseesamirembe? Why did not he go to Luweero Triangle to rescue people from violent deaths but is here now posing as a hero rescuing people from Sserulanda which is by the way, the safest place in Uganda since the times of Idi through Obote II to the present.
What the world needs to know regarding Sserulanda Foundation is that since 1986, our companies spearheaded the importation of 5,000 heads of exotic frezien cattle from Germany in exchange for coffee to rehabilitate the diary industry of Uganda; imported agricultural implements to rehabilitate Namulonge Research Center; we built a police post and equipped it with furniture, a bike, a typewrite and staff quarters for four police officers. This police post was the first in Kabira Sub-County. We have build a health centre planned for a fully fledged hospital.
This is the Health Centre that the current Rakai District Medical Officer Robert Mayanja is now trashing; a center where thousands and thousands of Ugandans have received medical treatemnt since 1981 todate; where hundreds of babies have been delivered and brought into life. What a bogus medical officer who now claims the center is so dirty but never found reason to close it down! But because he is giving testimony to a commission of inquiry he wants to use his official position to justify his religious prejudice against the Sserulanda Foundation inthe hope that the commission will recomment it abolishment.
We initiated the first postal office with 100 boxes in Ndolo Parish. We build the first free academic education kindergarten and primary school in Rakai and Masaka Districts (Kirabo Memorial Schools). We built the first roofing tiles and engineering bricks industry in Kabira Sub-county along with the first fully equipped steel and wood workshop. We offered more than 300 job opportunities to the locals and trained many youths in the varous on-job training opportunities over the years. We have educated or offered academic education to many young men and women a number of them now in Universities and Higher Education schools in Uganda and others in England and American universities.
Some of the development projects were destroyed by persons whose ill-will is similar to that of Mr. Bagarukayo and Robert Mayanja who support rural development saboteurs simply because they have a different religious philosophy than theirs.
The fact that people like Bagarukayo wonder why the Sserulanda Foundation has embalmed and preserved bodies of their prominent members well kept in a Mausoleum explains why he is backward in awareness and consciousness. Such people would marvel at Egyptian mummies when they find them in developed countries like England and American museums but to find them in Rural Rakai embalmed by private citizens and housed in a pristinely clean mauseoleum is but a crime! Isnt it surprising that persons like these two with university degress can reason the way they do? When he says that the Sserulanda embalmed bodies scare away residents (of Rakai or Kabira) from Sserulanda what exactly does he mean?
The mausoleum in which they are kept is a private building not opene to the general public in the first place. Have we invited anyone to see these bodies? No! There are even many members of Ssrulanda who have never bothered to see the embalmed bodies. We are not inviting every one to take a look at them because they are not for public display at all.
The fact is that we feel people who come and demand to see them are disecrating the honor and dignity of our dead! Government officials who have seen them down three decades have never had a problem with what they saw. We have three different cemeteries where we bury the dead but only embalm and preserve the very few who have served the Foundation outstandingly!
For how many years was Bishop Kiwanuka's body embalmed and preserved and kept in the Catholic Chruch at Lubaga? There are four or five embalmed and preserved bodies of Buganda Kings at Kasubi tombs? Do they show them to every one who goes there? How many preserved bodies are to be found in the Vatican catacombs? Simply because the Sserulanda Foundation is a private organization makes it criminal and abominable for us to preserve our honored dead members? I wonder.
Let Africans understand why President-elect Barack Obama may find much difficult in dealing with Africans because some African government officials like Bagarukayo and journalists are still backward and primitive in their way of thinking and responding to things they do not know know or have never seen. Whether it is jealous, envy or religious bigotry that stands between right judgment and discernment boggles my mind. How will Africa develop when we still have community development officers such as Alex Bagarukayo? He does not seen any meaning in the developmental projects and plans Sserulanda has because when he caomes there his sense of reason is veiled by his religious narrowmindedness.
Religious bigotry and tribal and ethnic differences still remain vital hindrances to Africa's meaningful growth and development as Africans hate, kill and murder other Africans based on such petty differences. I am sure bagarukayo and others like him would sentence Sserulanda members to immediate death if they had the reigns of power to do so. Fortunately the Good Destiny will never place such people in public power they way they would cherish it. No wonder that many of those who today profess Lord Jesus the Christ as their personal Lord and Savior would be the very first ones to stone him to death if he were to return wearing a black body and declare himself before them that he was Lord Jesus the Christ! Because they would never imagine that He has the power and the ability to return into the world as a Balck man- like them!
Barack Obama and Agents of Intolerance in Uganda: A View From America
I write to strongly object to the scurrilous characterizations of the Sserulanda Spiritual Fraternal Order that have been made by enemies of economic development (particularly when it is not their personal initiative), and by some religious bigots with hidden agendas to discredit and destroy anything that differs. I also object to slanted presentations by newspaper journalists who seem to intentionally provide a negative, bizarre, and extreme picture of Sserulanda and our humanitarian economic development plan, the Sseesamirembe Eco-City Lake Victoria Free Trade Zone. Millions of people will benefit from this massive development of 200 square miles with Africas first solar airport, lake port, educational facilities, hospital services, and commercial centers that will rival Dubai. Such people seem to want to sensationalize intolerance and fear and omit presenting the opinions of those who know and support Sserulanda non-members and members alike. Articles are written and are imbalanced to enhance suspicions and sell newspapers yet the commission of inquiry was established to determine if the organization has or has not engaged in activities which benefited the people of Rakai. The labels cult scary weird incorrectly placed upon this organization are not the findings of the commission (since the investigations findings have not yet been made). Unproven personal opinions and statements of negativity, religious intolerance, and bias are being issued and printed with little concern for balance. There is little attention to also print the positive supportive views and statements from the silent masses in Rakai or the factual track record of accomplishments and beneficial humanitarian activities that have taken place over the past thirty years.
It seems that some are going out of their way to depict Sserulanda as a weird and strange group to be frightened of. Should people view the honored universal, cross-cultural, cross-religious, ancient, global practice of respectfully honoring the dead by placing their preserved bodies in tombs and mausoleums as weird, frightening, or bizarre? Our House of the Embalmed is such a private mausoleum, a tomb for those we deem to be worthy of great respect and honor, as are all those who depart from physical life. Have the prejudices of people gotten to be so blinding that they have lost the ancient decent manners of remembering to respect those who pass from this life, leaving their bodies behind? Those in ancient Egypt and in other places around the world knew. The august leaders of kingdoms, whether enshrined in tombs, shrines and mausoleums as practiced by the venerable kings of Buganda in the Kasube Tombs or the kings and queens of England who lie in Westminster Abby are all to be respected. The enshrined bodies lying in tombs in the ancient city of Jerusalem, whether Christian, Jewish, or Muslim are worthy of great respect as well. The bodies of great Saints and Popes laying in honored shrines and mausoleums in the Vatican are they scary and strange? When a wealthy family erects a private mausoleum a house-like structure seen in many cemeteries to place their family members in, is that strange and suspicious? When a human body is cremated and the ashes are kept in a beautiful urn in a respected place of veneration, is that diabolical or indicative of negative magic. Practices of burial, cremation, embalming, and funeral rites differ all over the world. Is one better or worse than another and who decides? They are simply different. None are better or worse but all are expressions of respect for life and respect for the transitioning of the immortal soul from life to afterlife. They are neither weird, scary, nor bizarre, yet the blind prejudice of some who write about the Sserulanda mausoleum, which is a private entombed shrine, want to portray us over and over again in a negative light always with a negative sensational headline.
What are the differences? Is it because we respect the sanctity of life as the living energy of the Supreme Lord so much that as practicing vegetarians, we refuse to kill to eat? Is that weird? Is that sorcery? Is it that we recognize the divinity of all souls regardless of tribe, religion, nationality, or color? Is that negative or un-Godly? Or, is it that some people only accept those who see the world, religion, service, ethnicity or herbal medicine as only having value if it corresponds to their own beliefs and practices and that if anything or anyone differs, they are to be automatically demonized, called bizarre and painted as negative. That is bigotry! That is ignorance and that is what the next President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama fought against and won in order to bring people to a higher consciousness of non-judgmental respect for diversity.
Now, it is Ugandas time to win that battle against prejudice and negative judgments based upon, unfounded rumor, ignorance, and biased thinking that is encouraged by sensationalized slanted and biased cult reporting and other unfounded labels. Barack Obama was no more a terrorist or one who associated with terrorist because of his middle name than HIG Bambi Baaba Baabuwee is a sorcerer because of a lifetime of seeking to end poverty for ALL Ugandans irrespective of religion and tribe. He is one who believes in the natural healing power of herbal medicines, a power that originates from the Divine Source, which infused life saving benefit in plant life in service to benefit human beings. All across the world respect for the value of human life, planet life, and sacred service to all is increasing. Why is such praiseworthy merit portrayed with suspicious negative unbalanced reporting? Let it not be forgotten that a lifetime of service by an unassuming humble native son of Uganda is responsible for 1.5 BILLION dollars being invested in Raiki District within the next few months through a joint venture partnership between Chinese investors and Kagera Eco-Cities Ltd. (a company established by two members of Sserulanda). It is happening because of the efforts of Sserulandas founder, a Ugandan Born Saint, HIG Bambi Baaba Baabuwee and those who join him with belief in universal selfless service and sharing as a key to the elimination of poverty.
As an African American who is among many who are aware of the unbreakable connections to the land of our ancestors birth and to our obligations to work toward development on our ancestral continent, we have made irrevocable commitments to join with others to work toward creating positive change in the world. The bodies of the children of Africa who were born in Uganda, in America, and in the Caribbean lay in rest within their final resting place inside Sserulandas mausoleum. Do you reject our return? Do you reject our service? Do you not understand that we return to bring back the energy of our ancestors and to serve Africa? We see a son of Africa, one born in America, poised to enter the office of the President of America. America has changed and Africa too must change. We can no longer be caught up in narrow-minded prejudiced suspicions and name calling because of evangelical religious crusades, ethnic, political or racial differences whether we live in Uganda or the USA.
The spiritual fraternal order of Sserulanda Nsulo Yobulamu believes in the fundamental universality of all spiritual belief whether that is Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, or others. We support each persons right to worship, as they desire and we do not force or promote anyone to believe as we do. Belief in the goodness within humanity and the supreme universal goodness of the Divine Source is not limited to one location, group, or creed. We value selfless service to humanity as a core principle, a fundamental truth that our ancient Ugandan ancestors practiced as "Kyenkola bannange saagala bakinkole, nga kibi. Do Unto Others As You Would Have Others Do Unto You. We do not believe in devaluing anyone because they practice something different than ourselves. Yet, Ugandan newspapers continue to highlight inflammatory sentiments frightening people about cults or strange burial practices rather than highlight the principles, practices and precepts of Sserulanda that are like any others that honor the departed, preach selfless service, encourage economic development to address poverty, and practice total non-violence and peace which is what Sseesamirembe means.
President-elect Barack Obama has taught America to remember the principles of tolerance and respect for differences among those who may be different, look different or practice love of the All-Good, All Mighty and Supreme Lord in different ways. They tried to paint him as different therefore unsafe and treacherous. However, he has taught us to remember that different does not automatically mean dangerous, diabolical, or devalued. That is something that Ugandas newspapers and some who support religious persecution should re-visit concerning the work and intensions of Sserulanda and the Sseesamirembe Eco-City economic development plan.
Ensikire K. Nemigero Fairfax, VA November 7, 2008