Leader Kibwetere appears to have planned the tragedy in advance. Traditional belief also very strongly forbids suicide. Finally, local belief is that if a person dies in a fire, that not only their body is killed but their soul is as well. It is very unlikely that if a person in this area wanted to commit suicide that they would choose death by fire. Yet media reports and even this AP article still refer to the tragedy as a mass suicide.
Some beliefs die hard.
Increasingly, police are calling this an organized slaughter. There is a growing belief that the deaths were precipitated by failed prophecy. This, in turn, may have triggered the mass murders. Apocalyptic movements in Uganda expect justice from the end of the world, not from politics. Many hundreds of believers died in suicidal attacks, convinced that magic oil would protect them from bullets of government troops.