Warnings on Ngcobo cult went unheeded
New call to regulate churches after police massacre and death of suspects
IT was a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. This is how a state and church body described an Eastern Cape cult at the centre of a bloody police massacre last week as calls intensified at the weekend for the government to regulate churches.
The deadly attack on police in Ngcobo on Wednesday and the subsequent mowing down of seven of the suspects on Friday has gripped the country, while also shining a spotlight on the strength of crime intelligence.
The cult was on the government’s radar following the rescue of 18 children from its Mancoba Angel Ministries Church in Ngcobo in February last year.
Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities chairwoman Thoko Mkhwanazi-Xaluva said after last year’s incident an investigation had been carried out, but nothing was ever done.
The commission declared the church a cult after the investigation. “We are not shocked by the latest developments,” she said.
“We have said it over and over that it is a cult and it is going to explode at some point.”
Mkhwanazi-Xaluva also warned parliament last year that the cult was a disaster waiting to happen.
The commission has pleaded with MPs for years to draft a legislative framework to regulate churches, including the more charismatic ones.
“The longer it takes to do the legislative framework, the more Christianity is plunged into disrepute,” she said.
The seven people linked to the Ngcobo police station massacre were killed when police raided the church on Friday night.
A further 10 people were arrested, while others managed to escape.
At the church on Saturday, an emotionless Thabisa Mkokeli, 33, originally from Komani, told how she and other congregants had remained calm while a heavy exchange of gunfire erupted in the churchyard.
“They are our kings, looking after us, healing us, feeding us and doing everything for us after getting instructions from God,” she said of the men shot dead by police.
Asked whether she was aware that the church leaders had been killed, Mkokeli said: “They are not dead – they speak to me, they are angels.”
In a bizarre outburst another congregant, Nobulawu Lusafeni, 48, of Centane, claimed church founder Loyiso Mancoba, who died in 2015, had made a prophecy about the churchyard turning into a battlefield.
“I don’t even feel anything,” Lusafeni said. “I’m not hurt about what happened here. “I knew this day would come.” Parliament’s portfolio committee on police will meet with national police commissioner General Khehla John Sitole in the next two weeks to be briefed on the Ngcobo police station killings.
Committee chairman Frans Beukman‚ who will be attending tomorrow’s memorial service for the victims‚ said critical matters had come to the fore in relation to crime intelligence‚ technology‚ tactical training and security measures at police stations.
He said the committee also welcomed the special debate on the incident scheduled to take place this Wednesday in the National Assembly.
“We believe that the police minister [Fikile Mbalula] should use the opportunity on Wednesday to spell out practical steps that SAPS national management will implement on an urgent and immediate basis to improve security at all police stations.”
Institute for Security Studies researcher Johan Burger said there was clearly a lack of informants used by the police.
“If the police’s crime intelligence had good ground coverage they should have been aware of what was happening at that church,” he said.
Parliament’s portfolio committee on cooperative governance and traditional affairs chairman Mzameni Richard Mdakane said churches should be governed by some form of code of conduct.
“Criminals are criminals, whether they call themselves priests or not,” he said.
“Regardless, they must be dealt with through the laws of the country.”
He said a self-regulatory or state body should be established to monitor churches.
“We must, however, respect the separation of state and religion,” he said.
African Christian Democratic Party president the Rev Kenneth Meshoe also called for churches
to be regulated, so that leaders could be held accountable.
On Saturday church and religious leaders, including South African Council of Churches Chris Hani regional deputy chairman Bishop Zamindawo Gqira, rushed to Ngcobo.
Gqira said the council was talking to municipal and traditional leaders to ensure a similar thing never happened again.
“If someone wants to open a church, we have to scrutinise them,” he said.
“This goes even for those who come from outside and erect tents where they preach the gospel of God.”
Gqira said when he came across the seven men who ran the church last year, he discovered it had nothing to do with Christianity but was in fact a cult.
Mbalula told a large crowd on Saturday: “There is no Christianity in that church. The only thing that is there is satanism. We found a place of witchcraft that is too advanced.
Provincial Social Development Department spokesman Mzukisi Solani said 35 young women and 15 older women had been rescued and taken to places of safety.
He said the church members needed advanced counselling before being integrated back into society.
Asked what had been done after Social Development MEC Nancy Sihlwayi had promised a probe into the church in 2016, Solani said they had done their part.
“We don’t regulate churches and, as such, our intervention is not to close down churches but is necessitated by the presence of the children.”
Safety MEC Weziwe Tikana said the church premises would be demolished by the state.
On a shortage of informants and problems with crime intelligence, police spokesman Brigadier Vishnu Naidoo said: “We have informants.”
He said it was the work of informers that had led police to the church on Friday.
The 10 people arrested are expected to appear in the Ngcobo Magistrate’s Court today.