Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2003, Page 50
classes or other attendance requirements. His resume says his degree is in ―medical
anthropology‖ or ―clinical anthropology,‖ and that he is a ―board certified ...medical
psychotherapist,‖ which he says is a ―peer certification.‖
Elberg states that he decided not to use the term ―cult‖ for Newton‘s organization ―because
that could have turned the trial into one about the meaning of a cult, rather than about this
girl who was yanked out of school and forced to go through what she went through.‖ (Tim
O‘Brien, New Jersey Law Journal, Internet, 7/7/03)
Lord’s Resistance Army
Former Child Rebels “Haunted”
It has been difficult for former child members of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) to
adjust to normal society since they escaped to freedom after being indoctrinated to kill or
be killed by the anti-government rebel group in Northern Uganda. Charles Ojok, now
training to be an auto mechanic, says: ―I feel frightened, I feel very afraid. I have returned
only once to my real home [in the district where the LRA raids for recruits].‖
The newly freed are assisted at special government centers, but they distrust aid workers
and give false names. They find healing, however, in contact with others who were also
forced to kill and abduct. Some even meet their own abductors at the centers. Many
returnees have nightmares and flashbacks while some are aggressive. But these symptoms
subside by the time they return home, where some are nonetheless stigmatized and
discriminated against.
Psycho-social program manager Michael Oruni says: ―A child that has been abducted needs
to be taken away from the situation of war. But the guns are still being shot, and that
complicates the situation.‖ (Orla Ryan, BBC Monday, Internet, 1/5/04)
Rebels Reportedly Withdrawing
Uganda security forces report that the majority of Lord’s Resistance Army rebels, led by
Vice-chairman Brig. Vincent Otti, have fled to Sudan to join leader Joseph Kony. They say
the LRA has suffered major defeats in recent months. Sudan has been working with Uganda
to defeat the rebels, and the impending peace between the Sudan government and its own
rebels ―will mark the death of the LRA,‖ according to a Ugandan source. (Emmy Allio, New
Vision, Internet, 1/14/04)
Spirit Beliefs Aid “Brainwashing”
According to aid workers counseling children freed from the Lord’s Resistance Army,
leader Joseph Kony uses ―brainwashing‖ and [the traditional] belief in spirits to enhance his
power over individuals. Within hours of a kidnapping, LRA leaders select for death a child
who has tried to escape and order the others to kill him or her, on pain of death for not
following the order.
Aid worker Els de Temmerman, from Belgium, says Kony ―sees himself as the Acholi [ethnic
group‘s] savior. ..He [Kony] says: ‗We have to cleanse out people so only the good,
faithful ones remain. So we are not killing our people, we are cleansing them.‘ It‘s a cult
pure and simple,‖ Temmerman concludes.
Even after they have escaped, according to Temmerman, the children believe that Kony can
read their minds and will track them down and kill them. They continue to believe that Kony
has the Holy Spirit and supernatural powers. Many former fighters, especially those who
spent years with him, think he is good but misunderstood. ―He is nice to children,‖ said one,
adding: ―His only problem is the hard orders he gives to his commanders to kill. It‘s them
who kill and torture children. They do it behind his back.‖ (William McLean, Reuters,
Internet, 1/15/04)

Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2003, Page 51
Captives Freed
The Ugandan army reports it liberated in December 374 people being held by the Lords
Resistance Army (LRA), killed 46 of the rebels, and took the surrender of eight more. [The
anti-government LRA rebels, with bases in nearby Sudan, kidnap children from their home
villages in the north of the country and turn them into soldiers, meanwhile sexually abusing
and mutilating many of them.] (New Vision, Internet, 12/31/03)
Child Victims of Cult-like Group
The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), an anti-government group in Northern Uganda,
kidnaps children from villages in the region, virtually enslaves them, and then throws out
the badly damaged who do not die in the service of leader Joseph Kony. He is a former
altar boy who reportedly has 60 wives, wears women‘s dresses, proclaims a connection with
the angels, and believes that God has chosen him to overthrow the Ugandan government
and make the Ten Commandments the law of the land.
A 14-year-old in a hospital in Gulu that cares for LRA victims told how he was ordered to
join others in killing, with clubs, another child who had disobeyed a random order not to eat
at 4pm. The children were told the order was a message from the angels.
Hospital patients injured by the LRA included a girl with a steel pin in her leg, one with
spinal damage who may not walk again, and a girl terribly disfigured when other children
were ordered to cut off her nose, ears, and lips as a warning to the Ugandan community not
to fight the rebels. One result of the LRA terror is that thousands of Ugandan children are
flooding into the towns to avoid kidnapping. (Hilary Andersson, BBC News, Internet, 7/5/03)
LRA forces in mid-June attacked Adjumani Catholic Parish and abducted 15 children from
the Redeemer Orphanage Centre. A previous attack on Adjumani took place in 1991.
(Patrick Alioni and Dennis Ojwee, New Vision, Internet, 6/19/03)
Children Rescued
Following hard fighting, government forces freed over 100 children who had been abducted
by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda. (Ali Mao, New Vision, Internet,
7/15/03)
LaRouche
Recruit’s “Suicide” Questioned
German police are reviewing their investigation of the death in March of Jeremiah Duggan, a
British student, and Jew, who had traveled to Germany for what he thought was an anti-war
conference run by the publication Nouveau Solidarité, only to discover that he had actually
joined the Schiller Institute, led by the anti-Semitic Lyndon LaRouche. The LaRouche
political organization is alleged to pressure young people to believe in a Jewish-American
conspiracy to take over the world.
Duggan died after reportedly running into the path of two vehicles. The police assumed it
was suicide, but a report requested by British authorities indicates that no autopsy was
performed and police took no official signed statements from witnesses, which were in any
case contradictory.
Duggan‘s family says that the 22-year-old was studying at the Sorbonne, in Paris, and that
when he learned of LaRouche‘s anti-Semitic background he declared he was Jewish and fled
the place he was staying with the group. But first, they say, he called his girlfriend in Paris
saying he was ―under too much pressure.‖ Then he called his mother, again expressing his
acute anxiety and wish to go home. As he was giving his location, the phone line was cut
off.