by Ray Black
As the ATF stormed Mount Carmel there was a retaliation, gun shots were heard and soon it became apparent that six Branch Davidians and four ATF officers had been shot dead. Many others on both sides of the battle were injured.
The FBI came in at this point and they were clearly not aware and failed to understand why David Koresh and his followers were refusing to back down and walk out. It appears that as soon as the ATF arrived on the fateful February day, Koresh believed that this was the beginning of the end – as he had foreseen time and time again. Koresh believed that the attack was in some way related to the Fifth Seal of the Revelation – the last major event before the end of the world. The confusing thing to Koresh was that he had not expected the Fifth Seal to arrive until 1995.
The FBI and the ATF did not understand anything to do with the Branch Davidians or the Bible extracts that Koresh was reciting therefore they were totally lacking in the knowledge and understanding needed to diffuse the situation peacefully, without endangering the people within the compound.
Whether or not Koresh was a deluded, mentally unstable person will never be known for sure, but throughout the 51-day siege he believed that he was dealing with acts of God together with overthrowing the godless people of the world in the form of the US government and law enforcement agencies and this belief was to overshadow the initial reason for attacking the compound. There could have been many more than ten deaths on that day if the Davidians had been intent on attack rather than self-defence.
Between March 1 and April 18, around 14 adults and 21 children left the compound by their own choice, but that meant over 100 people stayed with David Koresh, in order to see the situation until the end.
PSYCHOLOGICAL METHODS
When the FBI took over the raid after the shoot out, they were toying with the idea of using what was dubbed as ‘psychological torture’, that they believed would eventually break the Davidians into giving themselves up.
Igor Smirnov from the Moscow Institute of Psycho-correction was the chief advisor in this campaign and he had spent ten years developing a device that could allegedly implant thoughts into a subject’s mind. In this instance the FBI wanted this tool to be used to implant the voice of God into David Koresh’s mind, telling him to surrender. And the voice they were going to use as God’s – none other than that of the actor Charlton Heston.
This method was eventually rejected, but the thought had been there nonetheless. Did the fact that the FBI even considered using such a new and unknown field show the disregard and thoughtlessness they had for the Davidians’, their beliefs and their culture, however brainwashed they may or may not have been?
THE SIEGE CONTINUES
Over the weeks, trained FBI negotiators were brought to the scene with the intention of peacefully ending the stand-off whilst at the same time federal commanders worked opposite tactics. On March 7 a memo went out to the FBI agents listing certain ‘tactical activities that might be used to increase the stress and anxiety inside the compound’ such as flooding the Mount Carmel building in lights throughout the night, cutting off all the Davidians’ communications with the media, and hindering the supply of milk to the children inside.
Surely such acts were never going to get a group of people who thought that the end was upon them any closer to coming round to a new way of thinking?
David Koresh asked to speak to somebody who would understand what he had to say, someone with a learned knowledge of the Bible – this request was denied on a number of occasions even though the FBI had many religious and theological contacts that they had been using for translation purposes whenever they entered biblical conversations with Koresh.
Doctor Michael Haynes, who had a PhD in theology and psychology, even suggested that he be allowed to negotiate directly with Koresh. Dr. Haynes thought he may be able to talk Koresh out of the compound by promising to help him spread the message of God. Again this request was denied.
Negotiations were discussed throughout March and people who had voluntarily left the compound were allowed to return in order to tell the remaining Davidians’s that they were being treated well and they should not fear coming out.
By March 19, Koresh was speaking to negotiators, promising that he was not going to commit suicide and neither were any of the other members within the building. He requested that the FBI did not destroy any more Davidian property and that in time they would come out. But accounts of the siege state that released children who were interviewed by a psychiatrist from the University of Baylor suspected that they had heard talk about suicide from the adults.
Each time negotiations broke down the FBI bull-dozed an area of wall or removed property from the grounds, but again this did not help matters as the Davidians were going ‘beyond this world’.
It then became apparent that another reasoning behind the stand-off was the fear of prosecution. Once the members realised that Kathy Schroeder was being charged with murder it made them all believe even more that there was no reason to leave their safe haven, maybe that the final judgement in this crazed situation would come from God?
The final Davidian to exit the compound came out on March 23, 1993. Three days later on March 26, a negotiator told Steven Schneider, a high ranking Davidian, that ten more people must be released by midday. Schneider reportedly got angry at this and said that the remaining Davidians did not care as they only feared God.
GAS, GUNFIRE & INFERNO
A meeting was held on April 7 for all the agencies involved in the Branch Davidian siege. The FBI reported to the Attorney General that they had concluded from the meeting the possibility of using tear gas as a resolution. By April 12 managing attorneys in the Criminal Division received a briefing from the FBI that CS gas would be released into the compound if the Davidians did not come out by the end of passover. This action had been ordered by the Attorney General herself, Janet Reno. It was believed by the agencies that they were at a stale mate with the Branch Davidians and there was no other alternative. Also, if the children inside the complex were getting physically and mentally abused they needed to be removed as soon as possible. But surely gassing these people out was always going to do more harm than good?
As armoured vehicles cleared cars from the front of the property on April 18, Davidian members were reportedly seen holding children up at windows in a tower with a sign saying: ‘Flames await’.
At around 6.00 a.m. on April 19, 1993 the gassing began. A negotiator telephoned the compound and told Schneider what was about to happen. He was informed that the gas was not deadly and they should come out peacefully. Schneider responded by ripping the phone out of the wall. The message was announced again over loud speaker but as the gassing vehicles approached Mount Carmel, gun-shots were fired towards them. The gassing continued for several hours, and at the same time the armoured vehicles began smashing holes in the building to weaken it for entrance and exit purposes. Three hours into the demolition and the main entrance had been broken down.
At noon, several fires started around the compound and shortly after the Davidians fled the building. They were the lucky ones, as rapidly the wooden structure of the building became engulfed in flames and even though openings had been made in the building no one else survived the fire. David Koresh and 76 of his avid followers, including 20 children, died on that grim afternoon.
MYSTERY
To this day so many things related to the Waco disaster remain questionable. It will never be known for certain who fired the first shot on February 28. ATF agents who were part of the raid testified in court that the Branch Davidians had fired first. Immediately after the raid (and off the record) however, one of the ATF agents told an investigator that a fellow agent may have fired the first shot when he killed a dog that was roaming around just outside the compound. The agent later withdrew his statement. Surviving Davidians still maintain that they did not shoot their guns until they were fired at.
It can also be questioned whether negotiations should have cont
inued for longer before resorting to a gas attack. Were Koresh and his followers given the freedom of speech and belief that is meant to be part of the American Dream? Many lives may have been saved if people with more theological and biblical knowledge had been allowed to talk directly to the Davidians as opposed to going through an agency that are more renowned for shooting first and asking questions later. Was it right to use the FBI as a peace-making tool?
It seems more factual and fair-minded to spread the blame between the government agencies and the Branch Davidians, as, with a bit more rationality, maybe events would have turned out differently.
As to who started the fire that was to end the siege, and many lives, again remains to be seen. Independent arson experts concluded that the fire was deliberately set from within the compound and a Texas jury ruled that the US Government were not to blame for the deaths of the 80 Branch Davidians. Jurors heard audio tapes made inside the compound which contained conversations between unidentified Davidians asking incriminating evidence such as ‘Start the fire?’ and ‘Should we light the fire?’.
Even if the Branch Davidians can be seen as responsible for the act of starting the fire maybe the government should be held responsible for not dealing with such a complex situation in a more discerning manner.
The Branch Davidians may not have become aggressive if they had not had a provoking aggressor such as the FBI or the ATF on hand to persecute them but then again it may have become worse if the situation had been left any longer. Only the people who were inside with Koresh really know what went on and if abuse to children really happened.
Maybe if religious groups such as the Branch Davidians were not so taboo and demonized within everyday life then it would have been easier to understand how things had got to this stage and the situation could have been diffused silently and carefully.
David Koresh may have known exactly what he was doing form the beginning, he may not have believed anything that he was saying and if this is the case he was an evil criminal with innocent hostages. On the flip side if he believed he was the Messiah then he was a religious fanatic with fanatical followers. Either way innocent people, however they had got themselves in the situation, could have been saved.
Just how much the Branch Davidians brought their end on themselves is hard to say, and will never really be known but it was definitely a situation that could have been handled in a more humane manner by the authorities. David Koresh went out of the compound most days so therefore could have been picked up at anytime by the ATF in a peaceful manner.
All we can definitely say is that this was a mass tragedy and although a certain amount of brain-washing may have taken place, the lives of these men, women and children could have been saved.
One question that nobody seems to have thought of though is, maybe he really was the Messiah? . . .
The Order Of The Solar Temple
Jo Di Mambro & Luc Jouret
When the fire service was called out to a blazing property in the well-known ski resort of Morin Heights in Quebec, they treated the call as they would any other emergency. Unfortunately though, on reaching the scene, it appeared that they had arrived too late to save the former occupants, and two charred bodies were recovered from the burned-out wreck of the building. The property was owned by Jo Di Mambro, so it was assumed that one of the bodies must be his. The other, they thought, would be that of his friend, Luc Jouret. But an autopsy revealed this not to be the case.
Di Mambro had leased the property out to the Dutoit family – a couple and their young son – and as the autopsy proved that one of the bodies was female, this seemed to provide the answers to the identity of the corpses. It did not explain however, where their three-month old child was at the time of the blaze.
With the fire out and the site deemed safe for further inspection, a team of forensics went into the property. A more thorough search discovered another three bodies crammed in a cupboard – that of a man, a woman, and a small baby. This was the family to whom Di Mambro had rented his property. They, however, had not died in the fire. The bodies were punctured with multiple stab wounds and covered in blood. Experts estimated they had all been dead for a couple of days before their bodies burned in the fire.
This gruesome discovery solved the mystery of the boy’s absence, but it opened a completely new enquiry as to why this family had been killed, and whose were the two bodies originally discovered?
It turned out that the family had once belonged to ‘The Order of the Solar Temple’, a sect run by Jo Di Mambro which was believed to have in the region of 600 members. News spread to the police that Di Mambro had believed the young boy to be the anti-Christ and had therefore sent his henchmen to the property to murder him. A warrant for Di Mambro’s arrest was immediately issued.
CHEIRY, SWITZERLAND
The following day in Switzerland, the Cheiry fire department was called to an equally gruesome scene at a farmhouse owned by the elderly Albert Giacobino. Having extinguished the fire, they entered the building and discovered a man’s body lying on a bed. He had been shot in the head and a plastic bag had been tied over his face. They also found a collection of explosives around the farmhouse.
A police team was called, and they made a search of what they thought was Giacobino’s garage. It appeared to be more like a meeting hall, and inside were the belongings of several different people but no evidence of any further bodies.
There were no internal doors in the garage, but the space inside the hall did not fit the perceived size of the building from the outside so inspectors began to test the walls. One wall appeared to be hollow, and so the team opened it up.
A very strange sight met their eyes. Around a triangular altar, with their feet at the centre and their heads outward, lay 18 bodies. They were all dressed in identical robes, and bottles of champagne littered the floor around them. Similarly to Albert Giacobino, most had plastic bags tied around their heads, where they had been shot. Some had been suffocated, and some also beaten. Another three bodies were found in a second secret room. Bags of petrol were discovered in a chapel situated next to this building. From the explosives in the house, and these rigged devices, it seemed that an attempt to set fire to the whole place had failed.
GRANGES-SUR-SALVAN, SWITZERLAND
The same night, again in Switzerland, another fire was reported. Three ski chalets in the resort of Granges-sur-Salvan were alight. The fact that all three houses were burning suggested that it was no accident. Indeed, it wasn’t. Numerous petrol bombs had been suspended and exploded, and in total 25 bodies were recovered. Again, most had been shot in the head.
A link began to emerge between the two Swiss fires. After the difficult process of identification, it transpired that all the victims had belonged to the Order of the Solar Temple. The buildings were in fact the property of the sect. Autopsies proved that overall, 15 of the deaths had been suicide. The rest were murder.
Meanwhile in Canada, the two bodies found in the rented home of the Dutoit family were identified as Gerry and Collette Genoud, a Swiss couple who also belonged to Di Mambro’s Order of the Solar Temple. The incidents were clearly related.
JO DI MAMBRO
Born in France in 1924, Jo Di Mambro originally trained as a horologist, but his real interest was in religion and spirituality. He was a member of the ‘Rosicrucian Order’ (Ancient and Mystic Order of the Rosy Cross) for 13 years, but during this time he developed his own religious ideas and beliefs and decided to move east, close to the Swiss border, to set up his own school, the ‘Centre for the Preparation of the New Age’. Charges of fraud and swindling may have precipitated this departure. Followers whom he had met and influenced while in the Rosicrucians went with him.
Di Mambro had radical ideas. He claimed to be reincarnated, but the identity of his former self changed frequently – sometimes religious, sometimes political. He also named the members of his group as reincarnations of famous people. He organised marriages between his followers and
dictated who amongst them was permitted to produce children. His own children, he claimed were exceptional. His son would shape the world, and his daughter was one of only nine ‘cosmic children’, a Messiah who would bring about his much-prophesised New Age. He took money and personal possessions from his followers in order to care for the needs of the community. With donations from some of the more wealthy families, Di Mambro purchased a mansion in Geneva. He was even attracting devotees from outside the community who had heard of his teachings and generously donated cash sums to his cause.
LUC JOURET
‘The Foundation of the Golden Way’, which Di Mambro founded in 1978, became the Order of the Solar Temple (officially known as the International Chivalric Organization of the Solar Tradition) in 1984 after Di Mambro had recruited the charismatic Luc Jouret. Jouret was a Belgian doctor and obstetrician, and his entry into the group was a turning point for Di Mambro. He was a charming and compelling man and worked ceaselessly for Di Mambro in recruiting new members and acting as guide and prophet. A medical doctor by training, he had also embraced spiritual healing and homeopathic medicine while travelling in India, and many people came to the Order of the Solar Temple, attracted by him.
Jouret believed himself to be both the third reincarnation of Christ, and also a former member of the Knight’s Templar, a secret, 14th century Christian order founded by French crusaders in Jerusalem. It was therefore rumoured that he was in possession of a deeper spiritual knowledge and guarded deep religious secrets. He preached that when death came and the spiritual body departed from the physical body, only the members of the Order of the Solar Temple would ascend and meet again on the star Sirius where a better life would continue for them. He warned though that they may have to make this transition before their physical body had died naturally. The earth was slowly being destroyed by war, pollution and human neglect, and the end was nigh. He told the members that they would have to leave before the world self-destructed, and the only way to make the journey to Sirius was through fire. Fire, although destructive, had the ability to transform and it was therefore the only medium through which to pass.
