Epilogue

Summary

It is now more than eight years since the Kanungu Fire. But, in that time, no one has yet been brought to account for the events which took place in early 2000, in this small corner of the African Great Lakes. In the weeks and months following the fire – and especially in the period following the widespread adoption of the ‘mass murder’ hypothesis – both the national and international media reported a number of apparent ‘sightings’ of the sect's leaders (especially Ceredonia and Kibweteere) in locations as far apart as Eastern Congo, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania and elsewhere. However, although at least some of these leads were followed up – for example, in early 2001 a police team was sent to Rwanda to investigate one particularly credible sighting of Joseph Kibweteere – on no occasion did they amount to anything concrete. In addition, a number of rumours soon began to circulate in the urban centres of Rukungiri, Mbarara and Kampala, in particular, as to what might have become of the sect's leadership, and as to the reasons why nothing more had been heard publicly about them.

For example, one particularly good rumour I was told – by a very high ranking official in Kampala – was that Ceredonia had in fact survived the inferno, and had flown to Belgium, on Sabena Airlines, just a couple of weeks after the fire.