NATION/WORLD
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Monday, February 27, 1994
7
A year later, mother still defends Koresh
Acquittal of AFT murders finally justice, she says
The Associated Press
CHANDLER, Texas — A year ago, on a misty Monday morning, the mother of doomsday prophet David Koresh returned to her East Texas home and found a chilling message.
"They shot me and I'm dying," Koresh said in a call recorded on his mother's answering machine. "But I'll be back real soon, OK?"
Koresh, born Vernon Howell, did in fact die at Mount Carmel, the Branch Davidian compound outside Waco, but not until fire engulfed the compound, 51 days after the Feb. 28 gun battle that left him wounded and 10 others dead
A year after the shootout, Bonnie Haldeman still defends her son.
She insists the raid on the cult compound was a travesty rivaled only by the murder trial of 11 cult members.
"Justice prevailed, in one sense," she said, after a jury acquitted them of murder and murder conspiracy charges Saturday in San Antonio.
The charges, she said, were a joke.
And, she maintains, the April 19 inferno that destroyed Mount Carmel could have been averted. Koresh and 78 of his followers died in the blaze, some by gunshots.
"I think if they had waited, two weeks at the most, every one of them would have come out of there," Haldeman said.
She said she was still upset that the FBI denied her requests to see her grandchildren or speak with her son during the standoff.
Could Haldeman have prevented the tragedy?
"I don't think I could have prevented it," she said after a long pause. "I do wish I had been given an opportunity to try."
Koresh, 33 when he died, proclaimed himself the son of God. Haldeman said his message was not all that unusual.
"Sure, he taught that the world was going to come to an end, that they would have a confrontation with the authorities some day," she said. "But anybody that belongs to the church and studies Revelations knows that's what is in the prophesy.
"He did not teach that the ATF was coming on Feb. 28, and we're going to have a shootout, and we're all going to die. He didn't say that."
Before the jury's verdict Saturday, Haldeman insisted none of the Davidians were conspirators.
"The conspirators were the FBI and the ATF, or whomever, that spent eight months — eight months — planning on going in there and killing those people," she said. "Why should these 11 people pay? These people lost their families and everything they have, and they're still having to sit in jail and go through this."
She said she felt sorry for the families of the slain agents.
"The officers were just doing their job," she conceded. "But I think it was wrong what they did, what our government did to us."
Haldeman was at home alone and watching television on April 19 when Mount Carmel went up in flames after the FBI used armored vehicles to punch holes in the walls.
She realized that her son, her daughter-in-law, Rachel, her three grandchildren and some of her dearest friends were dying or dead.
Arafat: Israel not tough enough
TUNIS, Tunisia — Seeking to capitalize on the worldwide outcry over the Hebron mosque massacre, Yasser Arafat said yesterday that Israel's pledge to crack down on Jewish extremists was not enough and demanded international protection for the Palestinians.
The Associated Press
The Palestine Liberation Organization leader left the door open for resuming peace talks with Israel, despite pressures to quit in protest over the slaying of 39 worshipers on Friday.
But he and top aides said that if the talks resumed, the focus would shift to the need for removing 144 Jewish settlements before the implementation of the Sept. 13 Palestinian self-rule accord.
Friday's bloodbath plunged Israel and the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip into chaos. By yesterday, the death toll from the massacre and subsequent rioting had climbed to 65, with about 360 wounded.
The Israeli Cabinet yesterday ordered the arrest of Jewish extremist leaders and pledged to disarm hard-core settlers in a crackdown designed to lure the Palestinians back to the negotiating table.
But Arafat said the measures were "hollow and superficial."
"These are empty decisions which have no relation with the seriousness of the crime or with the
He renewed his rejection of Israeli claims that a lone, mentally unstable extremist was responsible for the massacre. He said a "gang of settlers" carried out the shooting and army soldiers later opened fire on the worshippers.
basis of resolving it" Arafat said.
The Israeli Cabinet decisions, which also included a pledge to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, were designed to absolve the government of any responsibility, Arafat said.
"Why didn't the Cabinet say anything about the involvement of some elements of the Israeli army in the killing?" he asked.
"These elements not only let the criminals flee the scene, but they opened fire on our people who were trying to take the injured to the hospitals or came to see their dead," Arafat said.
Unless the U.N. Security Council "takes concrete decisions to provide international protection for the Palestinians, the whole peace process will be in jeopardy," he said.
Israel has vehemently rejected stationing peacekeepers in the territories.
Asked if he accepted President Bill Clinton's call for resuming the peace negotiations in Washington, Arafat said the PLO leadership would meet yesterday and today to decide on the issue. Arafat has recalled his chief delegates from peace forums in Cairo, Paris and Washington to discuss Clinton's call.
Arafat's credibility among his own people has been on the decline because of delays in implementing the Israel-PLO accord on self-rule, which was to take effect Dec. 13, 1993. Many Arabs are opposed to the peace process entirely.
Faisal Hussein, a leading PLO official in the West Bank, complained that despite Palestinian warnings that the settlements were a potential powder keg, Israel had been looking for ways to keep the settlers in the occupied territories.
"If anyone would like to talk about the continuation of the peace talks, first he must know that the matter of the settlements must be the priority and on the agenda immediately," Husseini said.
The Hebron massacre "proved there is no way to have peace and settlements together," he said.
But, he said, "There are extremist elements within the Israeli army and within the government, especially in Hebron, that try to abort the peace process."
Jibril al-Rejeib, Arafat's security adviser for the West Bank and Gaza Strip, said in Tunis that the PLO leadership would "commit a grave mistake if it ignores the national mood of outrage" and returned to the peace talks.
Bomb rips through Lebanese church as worshipers line up for Communion
The Associated Press
JOUNIEH, Lebanon — A bomb exploded beneath the altar of a Maronite Catholic Church yesterday as hundreds of worshippers lined up to take Communion. At least nine people were killed and more than 30 were wounded, police and witnesses said.
Four more unexploded bombs were found in the church organ after the blast, Interior Minister Bishara Merhejsaid.
off the walls, benches broke into pieces and shredded bible pages flew through the air.
Pools of blood covered the floor of the Notre Dame de la Deliverance church in the port city of Jounieh, survivors said.
A 4-year-old girl was among the dead. The priest leading prayers, Father Antoine Sfeir, was wounded. Ambulances rushed the victims to hospitals, and troops sealed the area.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, and investigators have not established the motive or identified the culprits, district police chief Brig. Gen. Rafik Hassan said.
An Associated Press reporter who saw the explosion said the bomb went off as worshippers lined up before the altar table to take Communion during morning Mass. Churchgoers screamed as icons fell
"I think the aim is to disrupt government efforts to improve security conditions in Lebanon." he said.
Lebanese Information Minister Michel Samaha, a Greek Catholic, claimed the attack was part of an Israeli "plot whose execution began with the massacre at the Ibrahim mosque in Hebron." Thirty-nine Muslims were killed in the attack Friday by a Jewish settler.
"It is not a coincidence that whenever Israel finds itself isolated it resorts to such harsh actions," Samaha said, but he gave no details to support his claim.
The explosion took place in the Zoqu Mikael neighborhood of Jounieh, 12 miles north of Beirut. Jounieh is the key stronghold of the Maronite community, Lebanon's largest Christian denomination.
The blast came as Lebanon prepares for a visit from Pope Paul John II in May, the first ever to Lebanon by a Roman Catholic pontiff.
Lebanon's 1 million Maronites, who had dominated the country since its 1943 independence from France, were the main losers in the Arab League-brokered peace treaty that ended the civil war in 1898. The act forced them to share power equally with the Muslims, who make up a 55 percent majority of Lebanon's population of 4 million.
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