Section A · Page 7
The University Daily Kansan
Friday, April 28, 2000
Cult suspected in more deaths
Nation/World
The Associated Press
KAMPALA, Uganda — A month after officials dug up hundreds of victims of a Ugandan doomday cult, workers yesterday exhumed the bodies of 55 more people — mostly women and children — from a garage rented by a cult leader.
Grave diggers clad in yellow plastic protective gear removed the bodies of 22 women, 15 men, 10 girls and eight boys from three graves in a garage attached to a small brick house in Ggaba, a residential area just south of Kampala, police representative Assuan Mugenvi said.
He said the bodies bore no external signs of violence and pathologists would determine the cause of death. The remains were wrapped in black polyethylene bags and loaded onto a trailer to be taken to the municipal cemetery for burial.
Mugenyil said police had suspected for some time that there might be bodies at the Ggaba house rented by excommunicated Roman Catholic priest Dominic Kataribabo, a leader of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments — the cult now blamed for 979 deaths.
The deaths of several hundred people reported to have perished in a fire at a cult compound in Kanungu on March 17 were first believed to have been a mass suicide.
Authorities later said 530 people were burned alive.
Officials began to speak of mass murder when six bodies were found in a pit latrine in the same compound, and then 388 more in houses owned or rented by cult leaders in three other villages.
Police issued arrest warrants for Kataribabo, Joseph Kiwetewere, Credonia Mwerinde and three other cult leaders on April 6. They were initially thought to have perished in the Kanungu fire.
Friends and relatives of the victims said cult leaders encouraged their followers to sell their worldly possessions to prepare for the end of the world that they said would occur Dec. 31 because the Ten Commandments were not being properly observed. When the end did not come, some of the members began to ask for their goods back.
Kampala authorities could have waited even longer to dig in the Gaba compound had heavy rain last week not created a sinkhole near the garage. That raised the suspicions of neighbors and police, who sealed off the area after poking around and initially finding nothing, neighbors said.
Mugenyi said the digging at the Ggaba compound was finished, and authorities did not expect to find more bodies there.
Giuliani's Senate run at risk
Clinton's competition slowed by prostate cancer
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Mayor Rudolph Giuliani disclosed yesterday that he has prostate cancer and acknowledged that while the disease was caught early, it could spell the end of his Senate run against Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Appearing upbeat and energetic at a City Hall news conference, Giuliani, 55, confirmed speculation that started Wednesday evening when he was seen entering a hospital and leaving three hours later.
The Republican mayor said he would continue his Senate run for now but would make a more definitive statement in two to three weeks after he decided on a course of treatment. He still plans campaign appearances in Saratoga and Buffalo on Friday and Saturday.
Treatment of the cancer would almost certainly require as much as several weeks away from City Hall and off the campaign trail.
Cancer of the prostate, a gland involved in semen production, is the second most common type of cancer in American men, but early detection greatly increases the chance
of successful treatment. About 179,300 men were diagnosed with the disease in 1999.
Overall, 92 percent of victims survive at least five years. According to the American Cancer Society, two-thirds of men diagnosed with the disease survive at least 10 years and half live at least 15 years.
Treatments include radical prostatectomy removal of the prostate — and radiation
William Catalona, a physician at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, said that with surgery, the patient is typically in the hospital for three days.
Asked whether Giuliani should be able to resume his mayoral schedule after that and also run for Senate, Catalona replied: "Absolutely."
Giuliani said he got regular prostate check-ups because his father died at 73 of prostate cancer in 1981.
"It brings up very painful memories," he said. "And, you know, I miss my father every day of my life. And he's a very, very important reason for why I'm standing here as the mayor of New York City."
Giuliani, who can be testy, also smiled, laughed and joked during his announcement yesterday.
Asked whether he would be nicer, he replied, "No way."
Reno defends seizure of Elian
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Janet Reno said yesterday that agents who seized Elian Gonzalez had to have a "show of force, not a use of force, to show we were in control."
A psychiatrist who examined the 6-year-old
A psychiatrist who exar Cuban boy said it was likewise he suffered no lasting harm from the armed raid
narm from the armed raid. Reno said the pre-dawn hours of Saturday were "the most appropriate time with the least crowd" for immigration agents to conduct the raid.
Elian, she said, "has had a lot of bad luck along the way. He's still resilient; he's still strong; he's still a smiling little boy."
Later, Justice officials
said the Elian Gonzalez case, including the raid, had cost more than $578,000 from Thanksgiving Day, when Elian was found, through Monday. This preliminary estimate does not include the costs of the family's stay at Andrews Air Force
Base from Saturday until Tuesday.
Reno: Says show of force was neces-sar in raid
Reno was firm in defending the Justice Department's decision to seize Elian, saying the relatives gave officials no other choice.
In court papers filed by the government Wednesday, a psychiatrist, Paulina F. Kernberg of Cornell University Medical College, said Elian displays a "sense of wellbeing and happiness with his father."
Psychiatrists aligned with Elian's Miami relatives challenged Kernberg's conclusions and said the two and a half hours she spent with him were not enough to judge his state of mind. They urged the government to permit Florida-based "medical professionals trusted by Elian" to evaluate him.
Juan Miguel Gonzalez, who wants to return to Cuba with his son, asked the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to allow him alone to speak for his son, rather than the Miami relatives. The relatives are appealing a district court's dismissal of the petition they filed to obtain political asylum for Elian in the United States.
Kernberg recommended against allowing the Miami relatives to visit Elian "in their current angry state" in a declaration filed Wednesday with the 11th Circuit by the Justice Department.
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