The Reverend Fernando Kuthino promised everything from a place in heaven to a cure for Aids, but he was no match for President Mobutu Sese Seko. Chris McGreal reports
FOR Israel Ciswaka, his pastor’s arrest, torture and dispatch to a Zairean military prison for 12 months’ hard labour was confirmation that there is a God after all.
“He warned us in a sermon that God had told him the army was coming for him, and one hour later what he preached happened. We are joyous to see that the word of God came true,” Ciswaka said.
Others consider it less than a miracle that the Reverend Fernando Kuthino, pastor of the Army of Victory Church, was jailed by a military tribunal last month for allegedly stockpiling weapons. He was becoming a powerful and controversial voice in the competitive world of Zairean religion.
Evangelical churches have flourished since Zaire began its laboured transition to democracy in 1990. Crowds are drawn to ministries popping up in garages and abandoned shops. And some are discovering that religion is a good way to make money.
The model is America. United States evangelist Jimmy Swaggart, disgraced on home turf after being caught with a prostitute, frequently graces Zairean television screens. The Reverend Pat Robertson, an American who blends fiery preaching and right-wing politics, pays regular visits to Zaire.
Robertson has proven himself a loyal ally of President Mobutu Sese Seko in the US, in return for a free hand to pursue business interests in Zaire, including diamond mining.
Most of the new churches are Protestant, encouraged by Mobutu to counter Roman Catholic criticism of his reign. Moonies and Jehovah’s Witnesses have found growing audiences, while Baptists and Pentecostals have recently latched on to the pygmy population as a source of recruits.
Even one of Mobutu’s most prominent supporters has taken to evangelism with a passion. Honore Ngbanda is popularly known as “The Terminator” because of those said to have died at the hands of the intelligence service he once led. Today he runs a Christian cafe, insists on being called Brother Ngbanda, and regularly appears on television to preach the virtues of strict adherence to biblical teachings.
Kuthino is one of Zaire’s best known preachers. He appeared on television each Sunday and launched his own radio station. A photograph on a wall of his Miracle Centre offers a clue to his style. Fitted out in a white stetson, aviator sunglasses and faded denim jacket with his thumbs stuck in his belt, Kuthino looks more like a country music singer than a pastor. But to the envy of his competitors, he proved adept at fund-raising from foreign churches.
Kuthino’s followers believe that his influence — and his message — was his downfall. After a stint with Robertson’s Assemblies of God ministry in Virginia, he returned to Zaire six years ago and launched the Army of Victory. It promised everything from a place in heaven to a cure for Aids.
Its Miracle Centre is packed for services, with throbbing Zairean music carrying way beyond its walls.
“People come here to get healed from Aids and any kind of illness, or just to escape life outside these walls. We give them hope,” said Egide Bompere, one of the ministry’s officials.
Old-style evangelists, such as Jacques Vernand, dismiss the likes of Kuthino as akin to devil-worshippers. “These people are dangerous because Zaireans swallow anything. These preachers are blending fetish worship with Christianity.”
But the Army of Victory challenges the traditional view that the downtrodden should accept their lot in this life, in expectation of relief in the next.
“We say people do not have to accept hardship, that they do not just have to suffer, that they can fight back against those who make their lives miserable,” Bompere said.
Kuthino’s supporters said he had been warned off sermons encouraging the poor to challenge exploitation and oppression. A banner hangs across the Miracle Centre, reading: “We use all ways and means possible.” But the ministry insists Kuthino encouraged only non-violent resistance.
In February, just before his radio station was to go on air, soldiers burst into the Miracle Centre, claiming to have discovered a weapons cache, and took Kuthino away.
“We never saw any weapons here. They didn’t like his popularity and what he had to say,” Bompere said.
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