I lied that Pastor Imelda's prayers cured my AIDS!
http://www.ugandaobserver.com/new/news/news200805011.php
Preacher denies telling 55-year-oldwoman to lie about her HIV status
By Michael Mubangizi
WEEKLY OBSERVER, May 8, 2008
For years Grace Kashemeire, 55, told Christians that Pastor Imelda Namutebi Kula had cured her of HIV/AIDS by praying for her.
Some HIV-positive people believed her and went on their knees in prayer to get healed too. For several, this meant abandoning their life-saving anti-retroviral treatment, resulting in deaths.
Now Kashemeire says it was all a lie! She claims that it was Namutebi who, in 1999, asked her to declare that her (Namutebi’s) prayers had cured her of HIV/AIDS. As a reward, Kashemeire was allegedly promised a monthly stipend of Shs 350,000 and protection.
Namutebi, head of the popular Liberty Worship Centre at Lugala, in Kampala’s Lubaga Division, vehemently denies this allegation.
The claim will nevertheless raise more questions about increasing reports that some pastors exploit their flock in the name of God.
A mother of four, Kashemeire says she has lost three husbands to HIV/AIDS-related illnesses. She is pleading for forgiveness from people who were misled by her story, but says many of them have since died.
She reckons many more people may have been misled as her testimonies used to appear on television.
Since 2003, Namutebi has been running a Liberty Worship Centre Programme on WBS.
It features the service and her sermon every Saturday, 7:05-7:30a.m.
Kashemeire also claims that Namutebi often brought in guests from abroad who photographed and interviewed her about her healing for dissemination to their audiences in Europe and America.
“Twakola nga bukozi diilu ne Pastor Namutebi n’agamba nti ngambe abantu nti yansabira ne mpona siriimu,” Kashemeire said in Luganda, meaning - I just made a deal with Pastor Namutebi; she told me to always testify that she prayed for me and I got healed of HIV/AIDS.
But Namutebi dismisses Kashemeire’s story as a fabrication.
When contacted on her mobile phone, a voice on the other side agreed that it was Namutebi speaking only to claim it was not her, after this writer started asking about Kashemeire.
“She is telling you lies and you will be sued, let me give you her lawyer’s number,” said the voice that was now claiming to be Namutebi’s secretary before hanging up.
When this writer called again, a man answered the call and passed on Kampala lawyer Kituuma Magala’s phone contact.
Magala of Kituuma Magala & Company Advocates told this writer in an interview that Kashemeire was trying to use this newspaper.
“She (Kashemeire) is using you, you are not the first paper she has gone to alleging all sorts of things against the pastor,” he said.
He added that Kashemeire had reported Namutebi to Police and that the case had been dismissed by the Director of the Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID).
He also said that Bukedde newspaper was in court over the same story, while UBC TV and radios; Simba, Sapientia and CBS had all been warned for running Kashemeire’s story.
“When we put a notice [to sue them] they either apologised or stopped running the programmes,” he said.
Commenting on Kashemeire’s testimonies, Magala said that they are voluntary as people give them at their own volition.
The Weekly Observer has also established that two men said to be working at Namutebi’s Church are currently facing assault charges in Mwanga 11 Road Magistrates Court, after they allegedly beat up Kashemeire’s 11-year-old daughter, Christine Mirembe, on December 8, 2006.
Kashemeire alleges that the accused were sent by Namutebi but Magala declined to discuss the case, pointing out that it was before court.
Further attempts to talk to Pastor Namutebi failed as a man who occasionally picked her phone kept telling this writer he was calling a wrong number.
Genesis
Kashemeire, now a campaigner against what she sees as false teachings by some pastors, told The Weekly Observer that she got infected with HIV in 1985 and has since lost three husbands to AIDS-related illnesses.
She met Namutebi at World Trumpet Mission- (formerly on William Street, now on Nabukeera House on Nakivubo Road) where the flamboyant pastor regularly preached in 1999.
During a lunch-hour prayer meeting on December 31, 1999, Kashemeire testified by thanking God for keeping her alive, in good health, despite having HIV/AIDS and losing three husbands.
Three days later, on January 3, 2000, Namutebi reportedly met Kashemeire at California Church on Luwum Street, where she claims they agreed on Kashemeire’s healing testimony. Kashemeire says that she was initially hesitant to lie but was reportedly reassured by Namutebi. Among other conditions, she was to give the testimony only in Namutebi’s church.
Kashemeire’s first testimony that day at California Church during the lunch-hour prayer meeting was terrifying. Nagenda nga ntidde, nga manyi nti bagenda kunzita bussi,” she said, meaning she was scared and afraid as she gave the testimony.
After her account, Kashemeire says, Namutebi reportedly invited worshippers with other ailments to bring money and be prayed for in return for instant healing.
At the preacher’s request, Kashemeire says, people gave her clothes, blankets and bed sheets, while Namutebi herself gave her Shs 50,000.
Her testimony was to be repeated for seven years during church services and to Namutebi’s foreign guests who often gave Kashemeire money for her upkeep.
But in April last year, Namutebi and Kashemeire parted company.
Broken promises
The Namutebi-Kashemeire divorce was mainly rooted in unfulfilled promises, suspicion and the assault of her daughter, according to Kashemeire.
Besides the Shs 50,000, Kashemeire says she didn’t get the promised Shs 350,000. Yet she was also working at the church as a compound cleaner and motor-vehicle security guard at the church between January 2000 and April 2007.
Kashemeire in fact claims that Namutebi owes her Shs 26,600,000. She says that the pastor regularly gave her between Shs 2,000 and Shs 5,000 whenever she reminded her.
Kashemeire further claims that Pastor Namutebi occasionally sent her to people’s homes to pray for them. But she did more than praying; she observed key things around people’s homes and then briefed Namutebi accordingly.
This information, Kashemeire alleges, would be used by the preacher to ‘prophesy’ about people’s lives during her sermons.
Surprised at the pastor’s accurate description of their lives, Kashemeire says, people would flock to Namutebi’s office for prayer.
One such person was a married woman, Sarah (not real name). Kashemeire says she visited her home in Kashari, Mbarara district.
Sarah’s father, mother and two brothers had died of AIDS-related illnesses and Sarah was HIV-positive too. This made Sarah believe her family was cursed.
After Kashemeire had toured Sarah’s home, she briefed Namutebi.
The woman of God would later describe Sarah’s situation in a sermon that Sarah reportedly offered to buy fuel for Namutebi’s Lexus vehicle for one and half years in appreciation of her prayers.
Sarah, who then worked at Crane Bank, reportedly gave Kashemeire Shs 7.5 million to pay a fuel station for Namutebi’s fuel, although the pastor had reportedly wanted the money in cash.
Sarah later lost her newly born baby and she herself passed away last year.
Kashemeire says that when she could not get more money from Sarah, the relationship with Namutebi began to crumble. She claims that Namutebi suspected her of having got the money and stolen it, resulting in the alleged assault on Kashemeire’s daughter.
In the end, Kashemeire turned to Pastor Solomon Male, head of Arising for Christ, a religious group fighting against false teachings. With Male’s help, Kashemeire started telling her story to the media
“I was fed up of being used,” Kashemeire says.
When The Weekly Observer visited Namutebi’s church to get a sense of what people there know about Kashemeire, the results were mixed.
“I don’t know where Kashemeire went, she left after some misunderstandings but her son is with us,” one usher told this writer in confidence.
Another staff at the church accused Kashemeire of double standards: “It’s difficult to get information about her here, Bukedde gave her money forcing her to disown the testimony she used to give…she is now with false prophets.”
Namutebi vs media
The Weekly Observer has established that the said case against Bukedde relates to its July 24, 2007 lead story, ‘Anzibye: Nagenze ewa Namutebi ansabire n’anzigyako emmotoka yange.’
The article was a narration by David Nsubuga alleging that Namutebi had advised him to “sow” his Toyota Hilux 209 UAN so that God could “release” him for a more expensive vehicle, money to build a beautiful home, pay school fees for his children and remarry.
Formerly, a special hire driver at Nakasero, Nsubuga said in the article that the vehicle was his only source of income and he was finding it difficult to pay his children’s school fees.
The day the article was published, Namutebi’s lawyers Kituuma-Magala & Co. Advocates wrote to Bukedde newspaper, demanding that the paper retracts the story and apologise to Namutebi or be sued for defamation.
But New Vision’s Legal Officer, Rita Kabatunzi, replied the next day that the article was simply “a narration of facts by one David Nsubuga who stands by his claims” and therefore didn’t amount to defamation.
That case has not yet taken off.
The Weekly Observer has also learnt that Namutebi’s lawyers complained to the Broadcasting Council against Radio Sapientia’s programme that hosted Pastor Solomon Male and Kashemeire during which the pastor was accused of using the latter for false testimony.
Radio Sapientia Manager, Sister Maria Ssanyu, told The Weekly Observer that the complaint was dismissed. “There was no defamation. The Broadcasting Council saw no case for us to answer,” she said.
The Secretary of the Broadcasting Council, Kagole Kivumbi, agrees:
“There was no case to answer. Radio Sapientia in our view didn’t breach any of the minimum broadcasting standards,” he said.
He added: “She (Kashemeire) was there, she had scientific information to prove her case (that she had AIDS).”
Threats
For his dealings with Kashemeire, Pastor Solomon Male has been threatened with jail by people posing as operatives of the Internal Security Organisation (ISO).
In a statement recorded at the Central Police Station on November 7, 2007, Male reported being threatened by one Moses Masagala who claimed to be from ISO. Masagala reportedly warned Male to back off Kashemeire’s allegation or face jail. But when he was later arrested, Masagala was allegedly found with an envelope marked “777 Liberty Worship Centre,”
Pastor Namutebi’s church.
mcmubs@ugandaobserver.com
Can prayers replace ARVs?
http://www.ugandaobserver.com/new/news/news200805013.php
Dying in God’s name
By Michael Mubangizi
WEEKLY OBSERVER, 8th May, 2008
Scientists insist that HIV/AIDS has no cure, but some people believe prayers can heal the deadly virus and are busy spreading their belief.
The results have been fatal as some patients have abandoned their life-prolonging anti-retroviral therapy (ARVs) believing that prayers alone will do the job. In these not-so-few cases, the result has been inevitable death.
Fingers have been pointed at mostly Pentecostal preachers. Some pastors are understood to have advised the patients among their flock to burn the drugs, arguing that taking them after prayers equals lack of faith in God’s healing power.
Medics, counsellors and activists in Uganda’s top HIV/AIDS facilities have confirmed this practice.
“We have heard of those cases (people quitting ARVs because of prayer) and we are taking action,” said Uganda AIDS Commission spokesman, James Kigozi.
Kigozi added: “We have a problem with a few Pentecostal churches, they tell people with HIV to leave drugs after praying for them which is criminal.”
He however declined to name the pastors or their churches.
“Even if its one, it’s harmful; if ignored with time the spiral effect will be high because pastors have access to many people,” Kigozi explained
He, however, confirmed that the Uganda AIDS Commission had written to all pastors involved, cautioning them against the practice.
“We have met others physically,” Kigozi said, adding that the practice is not unique to Uganda.
“It’s in the Great Lakes Region; recently we had a meeting with our counterparts, agencies fighting HIV/AIDS from the Great Lakes Region, and they said they have a similar problem.”
Kigozi warned that the effects of abandoning ARVs are awful.
“We usually get to know when one is much weaker, almost on the death bed,” he said, adding that some patients have died in the process.
Formed in 1992 and working under the President’s Office, the UAC oversees and coordinates AIDS prevention and control activities in Uganda.
Dr. Victor Musiime, head of the Paediatrics Department at the Joint Clinical Research Centre, told The Weekly Observer that he had not come across anyone who turned HIV-negative after being prayed for.
“All the people we have re-tested [after the claims] are still HIV-positive,” he said. Musiime explained that he had dealt with 10 to 20 people who stopped taking ARVS because they had been prayed for.
“Some don’t tell you, you get to know after too much probing or personal interaction with them,” he said.
Burning ARVs
Musiime remembers a girl who went away, never to return, after he advised her to resume drugs.
Like Kigozi, he cautioned that abandoning ARVs is dangerous. “Some develop terrible ailments, get new infections, the disease grows and their health worsens,” he said.
Musiime also spoke of a girl who told him one day, that her pastor had withdrawn her ARVs and burnt them, after praying for her.
“She came one year later, in a terrible state and later died at the Cancer Institute at Mulago.”
The JCRC Paediatrics section has 2,000 children and Dr. Musiime says they have devised ways of shielding them “from unscrupulous people who use God’s name to lie about HIV/AIDS cure.”
This includes regular interactions with them, advising them on the need to adhere to their medications, among other things.
Deborah Masiira, the Chief Nursing Officer at the JCRC, concurred that some patients had quit drugs in the belief that prayer had healed them. She said such patients often say that their pastors told them, “When Jesus heals you, you don’t even need drugs.”
Saying the practice was commonest among born-again churches, Masiira blamed it on some pastors who don’t know what they are talking about.
“There are genuine pastors and others who don’t know even what they talk about,” she said.
Masiira also noted that most of the patients who quit ARVs because of prayer don’t easily reveal it.
“They never tell us, we usually get to know when their situation has deteriorated,” she said, adding that it’s normally friends, caretakers and neighbours who pass on this information.
“They look at us as people who don’t believe in God or who doubt that God can heal them,” she said.
Risky strategy
Halting ARVs, Masiira says, worsens the condition of the HIV patient, making him or her resistant to the drugs. It also makes one prone to opportunistic infections such as Crypotococcal Meningitis, TB and Pneumonia.
Taken consistently, she advises, ARVs keep the virus dormant, in the process strengthening one’s immunity against diseases.
Until February 2008 when he was made Coordinator of the Faith Based Organisations at the Mildmay Centre, Dr. Stephen Watiti was a Clinical Manager.
Himself HIV-positive, Watiti says: “There are many people who have left drugs, and we have lost some as a result…some are still alive and we encourage them to resume drugs.”
A God-fearing man, Dr. Watiti says taking ARVs is not disbelieving God. “I am a Christian, I believe in miracles but I haven’t seen anyone who had been positive and turned negative because of prayer.”
The medic says prayer and drugs compliment each other and that he prays and takes his ARVS everyday.
“I have seen many HIV-positive persons who were badly off, were prayed for, started taking drugs and are doing well, and I am one of them,” he said. Dr. Watiti says that at some point he was too bedridden, unable to walk.
“I was 45kgs, now I am 75, I am not sick but I still have evidence of disease because I am still positive,” he said.
The Mildmay Centre started the Faith Based Organisation section to use Watiti’s experience to counter false teachings about HIV cure.
“I have been saved for over 30 years, I have been a doctor and lived with HIV for over 20 years,” he says.
Dr. Watiti’s role now involves talking to religious leaders in all denominations about their role in fighting HIV/AIDS, particularly emphasising that prayer and drugs compliment each other.
He says pastors should be taught and not condemned.
“Some do it out of ignorance and they have admitted it to us,” he says.
Besides prayer, Watiti told The Weekly Observer that some patients quit ARVs after taking on drugs promoted by controversial Iranian Professor, Elahi Allagholi. Elahi was in March 2006 arrested for selling his ‘Khomeini’ drugs that he claimed were a cure for HIV/AIDS.
Healed without test
Watiti says some preachers, like a pastor he declined to name, tell people that prayers healed them of AIDS when they have never tested positive.
“He told me God had healed him, that he had been prayed for; fasted for 40 days. But I later discovered that he had never tested HIV-positive,” Watiti says.
Similarly, Pastor Solomon Male of the Arising for Christ ministry said:
“When you ask them, they say they had signs of AIDS.”
Male, whose ministry campaigns against false teachings, claimed that some pastors connive with doctors to get HIV-positive results for people who are actually HIV-negative.
They then pray for them and later tell them to check their status anywhere, whereupon they find themselves HIV-negative which they attribute to the ‘healing’ power of prayer.
Male further says that some pastors pray for HIV-positive persons and then conspire with doctors to produce HIV-negative results to justify ‘healing’ before telling them to quit ARVs.
Dorothy Nakkazi, a Counsellor with the Mildmay Centre, says the number of people quitting drugs because of prayer is declining.
“Yes, people say I went to pastor so and so who prayed for me and I got healed, but they later come back to us very sick,” she said.
Nakazzi advised two patients she came across to re-test to confirm their healing, but they refused, insisting that they had been healed.
“They usually have strong belief that they were healed. When you insist they say you are testing God.”
Nakkazi has also dealt with a witchdoctor who shunned ARVs. “He said his gods had told him to throw away the ARVs because they (ARVs) would kill him.”
Life-long treatment
TASO Public Relations Officer, Robert Nakibumba, said his organisation had not encountered this phenomenon, attributing it to the counseling TASO subjects to its clients before enrolling them on ARVs.
“We tell them that it is life-long treatment,” he said.
However, Molly Rwankole, a counsellor with TASO, tells a different story. While she says it is not common at TASO, she nevertheless admits it exists.
“It’s not common but it happens and it’s big challenge…we have lost some people in the process,” she says.
Rwankole also revealed that some of her clients had reported on churches where pastors tell their flock to bring the drugs to be burnt, arguing that taking them after prayer was lack of faith.
While admitting that the vice is commonest among a few Balokole churches, she said they have many clients who are born-again and have not stopped taking ARVs.
She mentioned a woman at Pastor Samuel Kakande’s church (The Synagogue Church of All Nations) who died shortly after quitting ARV drugs.
Although all the people interviewed declined to name pastors and churches involved in ‘curing’ AIDS through prayer, Pastor Kakande’s website, www.thekakandeministeries.org carries testimonies of people who got ‘healed’.
The site carries pictures and medical receipts of people who tested positive, and later negative, after they had been prayed for.
Surprisingly, they all tested at two centres - Bwaise Clinic and Ebenezer
Limited Clinical Laboratory (ELCL.)
According to information on this website, one Sarah Mwebaza 23, tested HIV-positive at Bwaise Clinic on August 13, 2004. She later tested negative on October 8, 2004 at Bwaise Clinic and confirmed her new status at the Ebenezer Limited Clinical Laboratory.
Also, Michael Ninsiima, 22, tested positive on May 6, 2004 at Bwaise Clinic and later tested negative on September 9, 2004 at the same clinic. She was reportedly confirmed negative at Ebenezer.
In The Weekly Observer story, Pastors robbing in Jesus’s name? (April 5-11, 2007), Pastor Male was quoted as saying that while serving as Kakande’s deputy for four years, “I used to handle HIV-positive status results and burn them at their instructions. Then they would tell the victims that they are healed.”
mcmubs@ugandaobserver.com
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Pastor arrested over stolen car
http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/12/627735
Pastor Muwanguzi, popularly known as Kiwedde, is whisked away by the Police after they arrested him at the US embassy
By Herbert Ssempogo & Eddie Ssejjoba
A city pastor, William Muwanguzi of the Holy Fire Ministries was arrested by the Police yesterday noon for allegedly stealing a car. The controversial preacher was netted outside the US embassy, where he had gone to obtain a visa.
The embassy public affairs officer, Lisa Heilbronn, hurried to explain that the arrest did not take place inside the embassy.
“He had an appointment at the embassy,” she said, adding that he was picked by the Police outside the embassy premises.
Dressed in white African garb, Muwanguzi, who says he has healing powers, was led onto a waiting Police pick-up truck, which whisked him to Katwe Police Station in Kampala.
He was interrogated over a sh24m Land Cruiser he had reportedly ordered from a car dealer but failed to pay for.
The dealer, Mustafa Ssemanda, earlier this week lodged a complaint with the Police alleging that the Pastor had vanished with the car.
The flamboyant pastor was interrogated for about three hours and released on bond after recording a statement.
He was ordered by the Police to deliver the vehicle to the station today.
“He told us that the vehicle is in the garage for repair. He claimed that his wife used it to travel to Fort Portal,” the Katwe CID chief, George Kirya, explained.
Pastor Muwanguzi is no stranger to controversy. Last year, he was arrested over running an unregistered church. He was released after he completed the registration.
He also hit the news for driving an expensive Hummer with a personal registration number, ‘Kiwedde’ (It is accomplished). He at the time claimed he had paid sh600m for it.
Muwanguzi, who runs a church at Namulanda on the Kampala-Entebbe highway, says he can exorcise demons from those ‘possessed’.
But his style of preaching, which is said to condone revenge by ‘cursing’, has been of concern to other Born-Again pastors, who accuse his church of being a cult.
Pastor Muwanguzi arrested at US Embassy
http://www.monitor.co.ug/artman/publish/news/Pastor_Muwanguzi_arrested_at_US_Embassy.shtml
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Zurah Nakabugo & Alfred Nyongesa Wandera
Kampala
The Police yesterday netted a city pastor over the disappearance of a reconditioned 4-wheel drive vehicle, one detectives claim he stole.
DETAINED: Pastor Muwanguzi speaks on phone at Katwe Police Station yesterday. PHOTO BY EPHRAIM KASOZI
Pastor William Muwanguzi of the Entebbe Road-based Holy Fire Church in Namulanda, was arrested by Police detectives at the U.S Embassy in Kampala yesterday morning.
“He was arrested at the American Embassy at 10 am by our security personnel that had been alerted and deployed in every place searching for him over theft of the vehicle,” said Kampala Extra Region Police Spokesman Simeo Nsubuga.
The police publicist added that Mr Muwanguzi, commonly known as Pastor Kiwedde, was locked up at Katwe Police Station, where he is still detained on case file reference number CRB 2808/08/Katwe Police Station.
The pastor is alleged to have disappeared with a Toyota Land Cruiser vehicle worth Shs24 million belonging to one Mr Michael Sango alias Dai, of the East African Disco in Nyendo, Masaka District.
“He was arrested over theft of the motor vehicle registration number UAH 419T which belongs to a businessman Mr Sango,” said Mr Nsubuga.
He said although the police had not yet recovered the vehicle, investigations had revealed that the beleaguered pastor’s wife apparently took the vehicle to the Democratic Republic of Congo last month with the intention of selling it.
According to a detective who preferred anonymity, Mr Muwanguzi was trying to get an American visa to “flee the country after we declared him a wanted man.” The American Embassy said Muwanguzi was going for a visa interview.
