Waco: What Really Happened?

What America already knows, and what we have not had the chance to hear.

Today, by way of television and of an “information” that has become, generally speaking, ever more superficial and tendentious, many people continue to think that David Koresh, the leader of the Davidian community, is responsible for the death of the 80 men, women and children, 74 of whom died in the terrifying blaze of their residence on 19 April 1993.

This accusation, like others that followed it, is at the very least extremely incomplete, if not outright false.

The origin of the assault and of the 51-day siege of the Mount Carmel residence near Waco, Texas, is an accusation of illegal possession of weapons by certain members of the community. This pretext was fallacious. The weapons were legally held (this reality must be placed in the context of the United States, where millions of citizens own weapons). The sheriff, moreover, had found no illegality after his investigations, and David Koresh had himself officially proposed a new inspection of the weapons six months before the raid. No one had responded to his proposal.

On 28 February 1993, the first day of the raid by the ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms), David Koresh appeared at the front door of the residence, unarmed, to answer the search request and the arrest warrant in his name. And, facing the agents’ weapons pointed at him, he asked: “Let’s talk! There are women and children here!”

The ATF agents, who had been copiously forewarned about the “dangers of the sect”, then panicked (unless they had orders?). They fired at once, wounding David Koresh and mortally wounding his father-in-law — also unarmed — who was standing behind him and who died a little later that day. (Several dogs belonging to the community had been shot moments earlier because they obstructed the shooters’ visibility!)

Thus begins the story of people without a history who, until this assault, had broken no law — even if they saw the world a little differently from the common run of mortals — and who in the end, in the view of many today, were murdered and burned alive by agents under the authority of the United States government.

A 51-day siege began after that tragic ATF shooting of 28 February. The FBI and the American army took over from the ATF after the latter’s failure and “panic”.

As David Koresh refused to come out, along with some hundred members of the community who feared for their lives (six of them had been shot in the gunfire, some by helicopter fire through the roof of the residence), the authorities used all manner of psychological techniques to achieve their ends — such as depriving the residence’s occupants of sleep by the uninterrupted broadcasting of the cries of rabbits having their throats cut, of aircraft noise and of screaming babies. Floodlights lit the building 24 hours a day. The tanks made as if to charge at regular intervals, stopping dead a few metres from the residence, then backing away to begin again later. Helicopters with machine guns mounted on their flanks flew over the site permanently (it was revealed that the ATF had obtained the helicopters’ support by making a false declaration, that kind of equipment being used only in drug-trafficking cases).

The reason the Davidians did not surrender to the authorities may seem strange, but it is also very simple and understandable: knowing that he and all the members of the community might be fired upon again, or that they would be put in prison (the arrest warrant rested on erroneous facts and was extensively criticised afterwards), David Koresh — who was writing a commentary on the biblical meaning of the “seven seals” — had asked for the possibility of finishing this work, begun some years earlier.

David Koresh thus attempted to negotiate for 51 days, affirming that he would surrender to the authorities if they gave him the time to finish his work — which, by his conviction, was his life’s work. In fact, he never finished it.

David Koresh had sent out a video, filmed inside the residence during the siege, showing that no one was being held there against their will and that the children were very well treated. The FBI decided not to show these images to the public, judging that they “would attract public sympathy and that they would be obliged to call off the assault”… The existence of this video was revealed only two months after the catastrophe that was to take place (on the original page it could be downloaded, together with a filmed report on the tragedy; both videos in English and in black and white).

Despite this proposal, the final assault took place at dawn on 19 April 1993, leading to the death of 74 Davidians and the total destruction of their residence. In the eyes of witnesses, the assault resembled a napalm attack like those the American army had carried out in Vietnam (one of the helicopter pilots was a Vietnam veteran).

The assault tanks pierced holes in the buildings and, in the FBI’s own words, “injected massive quantities of CS-type tear gas (highly flammable and fatal to children without gas masks)”. The tanks (including several Bradleys and two enormous M1 Abrams, used in wartime — American law nonetheless forbids the army to supply equipment or to intervene in a police action) demolished parts of the building to create tunnels, allowing draughts of air to form so as to circulate the gas through the residence. Whole sections of the building were knocked over by the tanks, crushing several members of the community, including children, in the very first minutes of the assault.

Toward noon that same day, no one had come out, and fire suddenly broke out. The tanks had evidently knocked over the oil lamps the community had been using night and day since their electricity was cut off. The gas caught fire and the flames spread through the premises at great speed because of the draughts.

The blaze was terrifying. 74 people died in it, burned to death, including 12 children under five — among them two of Koresh’s children. At no point did the law-enforcement officers and firefighters on site attempt to bring the fire under control.

At the end of the blaze, the ATF joyfully celebrated their success by raising their flag over the rubble.

It appears the FBI did everything to ensure that the negotiations would not succeed and to prevent the Davidians from leaving the residence. Their goal was to destroy the premises and everything they contained (after the assault, the residence was razed entirely on 12 May 1993 by the ATF — an action criticised on all sides, but which in any case served to erase every trace of their misdeeds), even if that meant the massacre of dozens of men, women and children.

According to Linda Thompson (excerpts from The Big Lie):

“The media were kept at a distance of 5 kilometres from the site of the assault and could only regurgitate to the public the information given by the FBI on the spot. They spread in particular those horrible lies about beaten children, about plans for a collective suicide, and about the ‘whackos in Waco’. But what does it matter, right? Sensational events sell! It wouldn’t be a good story if the truth were told. The FCC can shut down a channel or two or cancel a licence, or can kill 74 people — anything rather than expose the depravity of this country’s leaders!”

Here is the true story at the origin of the Waco catastrophe:

In 1992, Sheri Jewel and her ex-husband were fighting in court over custody of their daughter, Keri. Sheri was a member of the Davidian community. She was one of the victims of the assault of 19 April 1993. Her ex-husband was a radio host; his wife, a television personality. They had a great deal of money.

A man named Mark Breault, an Australian and a former Davidian, had one day proclaimed himself a “prophet”. He had many times attempted to take over the leadership of the Davidians at Mount Carmel, but had ended up being expelled by David Koresh. Breault had promised revenge. He regularly telephoned the members of Mount Carmel to harass them.

The Jewels invited Mark Breault to testify in the course of their custody suit over Keri. On that occasion, Breault declared that the children were beaten and that the members of the religious movement that had expelled him were “all very strange” (Mark Breault, “eyewitness”… was blind! That did not stop him explaining what he had “seen”, and even asserting that he had served as a sentry at the residence, with firearms). Following these assertions, senators were nonetheless contacted for an inquiry, as was CAN, the “Cult Awareness Network” (an American equivalent of the ADFI — editor’s note).

The investigations conducted on two occasions over two years by the Texas social services demonstrated that these allegations were false. The same was true regarding the possession of weapons. All these inquiries were conducted peacefully. There was no trouble for anyone.

Mark Breault, however, continued his crusade against the Davidians. And CAN turned up the pressure. The newspapers began to call Breault “a private detective who had been watching the Davidians for two and a half years”. The community had lived peacefully since 1935 without anything being held against it — and here is a frustrated “prophet” with a score to settle with Koresh, and the media verify nothing!

All those who took part in this horror are murderers! The ATF agents who died in the assault were killed during the assault by stray bullets coming from their own colleagues (it was revealed that the ATF had sought to “restore their image”, previously tarnished by cases of sexual harassment within their ranks, and were counting on this “sect” affair to give them back their status as heroes of the nation)! And all this slaughter while the community’s neighbours spoke of the Davidians as “good Samaritans”, gentle and kind, who took part in the life of the village.

To call a religion a “sect” and to describe its members as child-abusers or holders of illegal weapons is a technique the Nazis used against the Jews in order to be able to massacre them afterwards. These are practices that come from totalitarian governments.

David Koresh said he had a message for the world. He had no intention of committing suicide. No one was being held hostage in the residence. He wanted to offer what he believed to be “a gift for the world”. The autopsy revealed that David Koresh had died of a bullet to the back of the skull.

Excerpt from “The Davidian Massacre” by Carol Moore:

”(…) Films and books have continually been presented to the public, demonstrating unambiguously that the ATF agents fired first on David Koresh when he came out of the residence, and that helicopters also opened fire, killing four of their own by mistake (these deaths were blamed on the Davidians). From then on, the Davidians demanded that this be revealed before they surrendered, so that the ATF would be brought to justice and they themselves could regain their freedom. Fearing this, and mad with rage at the death of their four agents, the members of the ATF attempted to eliminate every trace of their catastrophic assault. They saw to it that the negotiations failed and pushed for a final assault which was, in the end, to destroy every other proof of what had really happened (all the more so as it was later shown that the ATF had seized on this affair to restore their image, recently tarnished by sexual-harassment cases in their services, revealed on CBS’s 60 Minutes — editor’s note).”

According to Jacob Sullum, journalist: “It is the propaganda developed since the massacre in Guyana that lies at the origin of the tragedy of Waco (…)”

James R. Lewis, another journalist: ”(…) The failure of a usually broad-minded people to accept religious diversity has led to the contemporary witch-hunt against spiritual minorities.”

The documentation on this tragedy is enormous. A good part of it can be found at http://www.serendipity.li/waco.html.

In the light of these reports, President Clinton’s summary — declaring ”… religious fanatics took their own lives!” — is truly odious.

The original page also offered the film “Waco, a New Revelation” and pointed to accounts of similar events in France: “L’incroyable affaire de l’Essentiel”, “L’assaut sur la communauté Horus”, and the “Assauts” page.