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Religious Sects Preying On Africa's Misery
By Adnane Zaka
PARIS (AFP) - Thousands of religious sects have sprung up in Africa in the last 10 years, exploiting the misery caused by dire poverty, AIDS and broken families, French-based experts said.
The sect that killed at least 800 people in Uganda is just one example of a wave of cults that have emerged to prey on the world's poorest continent, said Jean Pierre Dozon, Director of the African Studies Centre at the Social Science Institute.
"For some time, North American and Brazilian pentecostal groups have been arriving in Africa. They are extremely radical, fundamentalist groups who interpret the Bible to the letter," said Dozon.
“Sect leaders tell their victims that their sufferings come from the devil, knowing that in many African countries social services like health and education are practically non-existent,” he added.
"People are lost. Families break down. The sects tell these vulnerable people that all the awful things they are suffering are produced by the devil, and then propose to exorcise the devil.
"Then they take what little money these people have. And the poorer people are, the more the end up giving, because they are told it is the only way to get out of their misery," Dozon explained.
Dozon gave the example of the “Universal Church,” from Brazil, which buys up cinemas in the Ivory Coast and Nigeria to make prayer rooms.
"These groups are feeding on Africa's AIDS epidemic: according to the World Health Organization, in 1998 out of a global number of 2.5 million deaths from aids, 1.8 million were in Africa," Dozon said.
"They disapprove of condoms and believe AIDS is a demon. People fall for their preaching, because they think they will be exorcised of AIDS," the expert said.
“The sects have not so far had much influence in Islamic parts of Africa, although some of them do try to convert Muslims, which can disrupt the peace in certain countries,” Dozon said.
For example, at the end of 1999 the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) ordered the arrest of the head of one of the "Awakening Churches," Fernando Kutino, who had his own television channel.
During a public sermon, he had called on his followers to burn the Qur’an, creating an outcry in the Muslim community. The DRC officially suspended all recognition of this type of church in 1999.
In Kenya, where the groups are very active, President Daniel Arap Moi has set up an inquiry commission, which is investigating several evangelist groups.
"Illness and unemployment are the main two reasons people are drawn to the sects," said Comi Toulbor at the Bordeaux Center for Sub-Saharan Africa Studies, who has focused his research on sects in Togo and Ghana.
"In Ghana, it's not just the poor who are following these sects. There are doctors and lawyers too. These people have to give up their original religions ... and even Catholicism is not allowed because the sects consider it is too archaic.
"Catholicism doesn't have a lively enough liturgy: with the sects, you dance, you sing, there's a convivial feeling. God is no longer a cold mask," Toulbor explained.
"In general, the founders of these sects, even if they make the Bible a central part of their act, are basically motivated by money and material gain. They promise to cure people; they promise rain and fine weather. They say all the right things, but it's all invented to make money," he said.
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