Bury My Heart at Waco

Bury My Heart at Waco
by Diane Alden

It's a windswept place on the Texas plains. Perhaps it is the winds that caused the fires to rage so ferociously and destroyed what remained of a millennial religious group known as the Branch Davidians. Led by an oddball messiah who considered himself a proto-typical Christ, which means "the annointed one," David Koresh and his followers became the focus of intense scrutiny by certain segments of mainstream society, the media and a central government who wanted him and his bizarre kind suppressed.

The reasons given for suppression were reasonable. David Koresh was a child molester, he had guns which some thought illegal, he might have been producing drugs on the property, he could have been a Jim Jones megalomaniac leading his blind sheep to a miserable end. He was the leader of what some called a cult, different in many ways from the mainstream society and religion -- therefore suspect.

Yet James Wood, a professor of religion at Baylor University and resident of Waco since 1955, said that before February he hadn't heard of them referred to as a "cult." The librarian at the Waco Tribune-Herald confirmed that until their seven-part series on the Branch Davidians -- the first installment of which began one day before the initial assault on February 28, 1993 -- the Tribune-Herald referred to them as a "religious group," not a "cult. Child protective services had looked into allegations of abuse and found none. One by one the rest of the reasons given for the final governmental assault on the Mt. Carmel compound evaporated like fog in early morning.

The federal agents embarrassed and angry by what it considered Koresh's stubbornness, began to approach the standoff as soldiers at war with a foreign enemy rather than police investigating a crime in order to get at the truth. The presence of the military and its weaponry finished the war zone scenario.

Koresh and his followers maintained their defiance even in the face of incessant psychological warfare used against them. A constant barrage of noise at high decibels 24 hours a day, the killing of pets, turning off utilities and the demonization of his group were a few of the tactics used by the FBI in the final days.

The final result was 4 BATF agents dead, 50 on both sides wounded. Eventually almost the entire group of more than 80 Davidians, including 25 children under 17 died in the inferno. Most were horribly burned, gassed and twisted grotesquely due to the enormity of their experience. The property was bulldozed and the federal alphabet agencies planted a flag on the rubble.

The media swallowed the government rationale for the catastrophe hook, line and sinker and went home. President Clinton added, "some religious fanatics murdered themselves."

End of story? Not quite. There were those who knew what really happened that day and would not let the story die. Reports and documentaries were produced. Dan Gifford's "Waco: Rules of Engagement" won an academy award nomination and several important international film awards.

Congress investigated with no real results. Nevertheless, the stories and rumors continued in the alternative press and on the net. After Ruby Ridge the Waco debacle added fuel to the fire for those seeing government excess as a pattern rather than an isolated incident. Eventually even prestigious liberal print media like the New York Times and the New Yorker asked hard questions about the siege at Waco.

When the family and friends of the Branch Davidians filed suit and demanded to see the withheld evidence, a series of fortunate accidents began to open the dark secrets of Waco. Federal Judge Walter Smith took up the cause of an honest federal prosecutor named Bill Johnston, who helped to uncover evidence in the case, but eventually suffered the fate of all whistleblowers and was shunned by his own. Additionally, another documentary filmmaker named McNulty went through the debris stored by the Texas Rangers and discovered startling evidence that showed the government had lied when they said no pyrotechnic devices had been used at Waco.

Judge Smith called for the evidence and took it out of the hands of the Justice Department. The Justice Department had gotten around releasing the information to the Davidian lawyers by deputizing the Rangers as Federal Marshals.

As Waco evidence made its way to the lawyer for the Branch Davidians Michael Caddell, a new investigation was called for and AG Janet Reno put former Missouri Senator John Danforth in charge.

After being caught in numerous lies that screamed cover-up, did the government finally come clean? Did the media apologize for being incompetent and lazy and blind? Did Bill Clinton express his shock and sorrow and atone for his part in it by firing Attorney General Janet Reno who oversaw the entire horror?

Journalist Alexander Cockburn sums up the press response by pointing to late night pundit Ted Koppel:

"Here's Ted Koppel, the night of Sept. 1, discussing the seizure by federal marshals of tapes of FBI hostage "negotiators" discussing the use of pyrotechnic grenades the morning of the Waco raid: ". . . The credibility of the FBI, which probably did tell the truth about most of what happened, that credibility is badly damaged, while the credibility of conspiracy theorists, who tend to be wrong about most of what they've spun together about Waco, their credibility is newly enhanced. It is on these two fronts that the greatest damage has been done." In this repellent passage, Koppel defines his career role as flack for state power."

Dan Gifford producer of "Waco:Rules of Engagement" recently stated: "My microphone goes dead on a network talk show as the host rants that the terrible facts I've just presented about Waco are irresponsible and conspiratorial -- before tag-teaming a former FBI agent/ guest who continues in the same vein.

But in the most abominable example I've yet seen, the Sept. 2 CBS Evening News cleverly sought to demonize news -- using our own film clips -- of the growing number of admitted ATF and FBI lies about Waco with the lead-in, "Waco feeds conspiracies. New evidence in the Branch Davidian case proves to be fodder for anti-government theorists." The story text delivers more of the same: "This is just fodder for the conspiracy theorists," said psychologist Margaret Singer. She says this is just what the militia movement needs to say we told you so. "The anti-government movement, the militia, hate groups are absolutely going to get a boost out of this and I think it's really a tragedy for that reason," said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center."

A November 1, 1999 New Yorker article on Waco reports: "Allard, a former physics professor, ran a bit of the video for Danforth, stopped to explain the basics of thermal imagery, and then returned to the scene of what he believes is a pitched gun battle between Davidians and F.B.I. agents firing automatic weapons. "I can look at students, and I can tell you if they're paying attention," Allard says. "The Danforth people were totally absorbed." Of one scene in the video, he says, "There's no question that's a full gun battle." As he recalls it, "What I did with the Danforth people is, I said to them, 'Look, why don't you count the fire your-self? I played the tapes, frame by frame. And as you play them frame by frame the people say, 'I see one, two, three, four. . . I see five! No, I think there's four, run it back? And pretty soon they say, 'Yeah, there's five shots from there, and there's one shot from the other side." It is probably not good news for the F.B.I. that Danforth and his staff have been counting the F.B.I.'s putative automatic-gunfire shots at Waco... However, an independent specialist in thermal imaging, Carlos Ghigliotti, viewed the F.B.I.'s FUR tapes at F.B.I. headquarters, and concluded that shots had been fired. If the government is forced to confess another prevarication, the conspiracy fires will certainly flame higher."

Then what? Who will take the blame for Waco - whether for incompetence or a downright evil abuse of power? Or will Waco merely become another footnote for historians to hash over.

The Nation's Hoop is Broken and Scattered

The more detached media and government are from those who live in fly over country, the more likely they are to abuse power. As in the days of our ancestors some things don't change:

Mainstream Press

November 20, 1890, Chicago Daily Tribune: In a state of terror - great excitement at the Pine Ridge Agency - Indians dancing with guns, women and children fleeing to points of safety - fighting expected at any moment.

New York Times - The Messiah expected at the Pine Ridge Agency today, when the savages will fight.

New York Times Nov. 28,1890 "… Couriers who have just reported to Gen. Brooke say that the redskins are dancing in circles ... and their village has been so changed that the lodges form a circle ... When the couriers were before Gen. Brooke, the latter asked the significance of the circling Indians. One of the couriers, who is a half-breed, smiled and said: "The Sioux never dance that dance except for one purpose, and that is for war."

And the Local Press

Pierre (South Dakota) Free Press Nov. 1890 "If ever a stupendous fake was better faked ... than this latest Sioux Indian hostility racket, please tell us about it ! ... it is when one approaches the alleged scenes of hostility that he begins to comprehend the dimensions of the grand [farce]. After getting into hostile country the visitor becomes so disgusted with the utter lack of signs of hostility that he becomes ugly himself, and a disposition to shoot something is almost irresistible."

Rapid City (S.D.) Journal Nov. 27,1890 "Everything was quiet today at the [Pine Ridge] agency and no trouble was expected.

Charles Moody, Editor (S.D.) Weekly Record Nov. 28,1890 " Isn't it about time some of these wild and wooly newspaper liars ... be spanked and sent out of harm's way?... There never was any danger of an Indian outbreak, and none exists now, unless these silly sensational reports have seared people into acts that might property be construed by and Indian into a desire to fight..."

Omaha World Herald Dec. 1, 1890 "Mr. Royer seemed determined to believe that there would not be carnage. After a time it became apparent to me and to every Army officer in the post - and most are Old Indian fighters - that Mr. Royer was trying to substantiate the fright which had caused him to call upon the troops. To hold his job Mr. Royer may succeed in aggravating these Indians into some sort of warlike demonstration, but it will be fighting against their will."

The Ghosts of Wounded Knee

A messiah arose at the end of the last century and his name was Wovoka. His reputation grew as the tribes in the West saw their world falling apart. Some representatives of the Sioux in South Dakota traveled to Nevada where Wovoka lived. This great medicine man preached and prophesied that the dead would soon join the living in a world in which the old ways would be lived again. A new earth would be formed and the prairie restored.

To hurry this millennial event the Indians were to dance the Ghost Dance. The dancers were to wear brightly colored shirts with images of eagles and buffaloes. These "ghost shirts" believed they would be protected from the bullets of the federal troops sent to quell this new unfamiliar religion. During the fall of 1890 the Ghost Dance spread like wildfire which brought fear to the whites and the powers that be. The order went out to arrest the most highly placed of the medicine men, Chief Sitting Bull. In fact the directives between the officials in Washington and the military sent to do the job indicated that it would be best if Sitting Bull were dispatched to the happy hunting ground using whatever force necessary.. Sitting Bull was killed. His followers gathered at the Pine Ridge Reservation to await what would happen next. Expecting the second-coming of their ancestors and a new earth they spoke of things to come.

Led by a chief named Big Foot, federal troops rounded up the band and brought them to a place called Wounded Knee. Chief Big Foot, dying of pneumonia, sat with army officers talking. Shots rang out as Indian braves and troopers fired at each other. No one knew where the first shots were fired. From the ridge line above the camp the army's Hotchkiss gins raked Indian teepees as men, women and children fled for their lives. When the fighting was over 300 Sioux were dead or dying in the freezing December cold. Twenty-five soldiers lost their lives. Later several were given Congressional Medals of Honor for their part in the massacre.

The historians say that Wounded Knee ended the rebellion of the Indian nations against the white man. Other historians say it was one more despicable episode in government suppression of a people and a religion they did not understand.

The words of Chief Black Elk are worth pondering because they might apply to both Waco and Wounded Knee:

"I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream... The nation's hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead."

Apparently some things never change and authority very seldom learns from the past. The powerful in every generation have no memory or understanding of the terrible suffering they can inflict on the powerless.

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