Monday, April 18, 1994
The Battalion
Page 3
Branch Davidians
gather to remember
dead members, siege
The Associated Press
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WACO — Several Branch Davidians who survived the siege and fire
that destroyed their rural compound nearly a year ago gathered with
supporters and strangers Sunday to remember those who died and sell
their side of the standoff.
About a hundred yards from the site that was once a sprawling rural
compound, people hawked videos, T-shirts, hats, books and other items
as speakers blamed the federal government for the deaths of religious
leader David Koresh and dozens of his followers.
“They murdered those people. The government came in here and
burned them to death,” said a crying John Borgman, a Denton County
resident who came to the Davidians’ HDay of Information.”
Borgman — who didn’t know about the group until the siege began
on Feb. 28, 1993 — and about 200 other people attended the one-day
outdoor event near Waco.
Booths, tables, refreshment stands and a stage were erected near the
remains of Mount Carmel, which was once the Davidians’ home.
After a 51-day standoff between the Davidians and FBI agents, the
compound was devoured by an inferno last April 19. Koresh and 78 fol
lowers died that day.
The government has said the Davidians set the fire and that those who
died chose to remain inside the burning compound. But the survivors
have repeatedly and adamantly denied such claims.
Several members of the group, including at least two who escaped the
burning complex, were on hand Sunday to tell their story to an over
whelmingly pro-Davidian crowd.
“This is the first time I’ve been back out at this place since I left on
the 19th,” said survivor Clive Doyle. “I’m kind of numb. ... I miss it.”
“Basically, we’re trying to keep this alive in the minds of America,” he
said, explaining why the survivors and their supporters held the event.
“I don’t believe the facts got out.”
Survivors have maintained that the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco
and Firearms unlawfully attacked the compound last Feb. 28 and that
those inside were only trying to protect themselves when they fired
back, killing four agents and wounding several others.
ATF officials have said they were attacked when they tried to serve
search warrants that day at the compound and arrest Koresh, who
preached of the Apocalypse.
“I don’t want people to forget what happened here,” Doyle said. “The
See Davidians/Page 8
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I CHONGQING, China — When the skies
above this hilly metropolis opened that night
a lew weeks back, down poured a wicked
rbin, inky black with grime and nearly as
acidic as vinegar.
J The cloudburst of “black rain” seemed a
warning that the heavens could hold no more
of the prodigious filth belched forth from the
smokestacks scarring the Chongqing region.
1 It|turner^ once-white buildings dark gray
Ivem^ht'and left the-City’s 4 million people to
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"It can only get worse, not better,” groans
ang Zejia, the former president of Chongqing
iiiversity, built on a bluff overlooking the dial
ing River.
"There are a lot of factories along the river,
his one’s the most poisonous,” he adds, point-
ig to a pharmaceutical plant just below. “You
ee, it’s lower than our windows. If the wind is
lowing this way . . .” He left the obvious unsaid.
The fouled environment is exacting a heavy
1 on Jiang, who for several years underwent
nnual penicillin treatment for bronchitis he
believes was brought on by the dirty air.
But the pollution is also threatening the en
tire nation, where a fragile environment that
must sustain more than one-frfth of the Earth’s
population is falling victim to a pell-mell rush
for economic development.
Much of the Chinese landscape has taken on
a decidedly Dickensian look as the country goes
through its own double-step Industrial Revolu
tion to catch up with the developed world. Fac
tories crowd cities and surrounding country
side, ruining the air, the water and the land. •
The government is drafting action plans, fin
ing polluters and scrounging for funds to clean
up the environment.
“But the quality of our country’s environ
ment still hasn’t improved much,” the state-run
Legal Daily said recently. "The environmental
quality is worsening in a lot of places.”
Among the problems are toothless anti-pol
lution laws, inadequate enforcement and a
widespread belief that environmental concerns
stand in the way of economic development.
That has got to change fast if China is to
avoid ecological disaster. The state media, once
silent on the topic, in the past year has been
filled with frank accounts of the nation’s envi
ronmental mess.
First, look at the air.
Two of the world’s seven cities with the
worst air pollution are in China: Beijing and
Shenyang. Benxi, an industrial center in the
north, actually disappeared from satellite view
for a period because its skies were so dirty.
Air pollution has become the leading cause
of respiratory disease in the nation, according
to official media.
In Chongqing, a longtime center of heavy
industry where climate and geography work to
gether to keep the grime hanging low over the
city, one of every three city residents has
breathing difficulties.
Data from the Public Health Ministry indi
cates chronic obstructive pulmonary disease,
linked to exposure to fine suspended particles
and sulfur dioxide, was responsible for one of
every four Chinese deaths in 1988, according
to a confidential World Bank report.
The death rate from such disease was 162.6
per 100,000 that year, or more than five times
the rate in the United States, thq report said.
Much of China’s air pollution is from coal,
which accounts for nearly three-fourths of the
non-renewable energy used in China.
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bntinued from Page 1
^250,0 0 0 bond.
Moore hasn’t been charged
yfith writing the letters, but Dis-
rict Attorney Sandy Gately told
he Waco Tribune-Herald that
he has information leading her
obelieve that he did write them.
Copperas Cove police say five
[ambling, sometime rhyming
hreatening letters written to
ugh school cheerleaders were
eported Nov. 15 through 18.
'olice say they believe other un
reported letters also were writ
ten.
“It (the letter) said that he
knew my father and that he loved
me, and he wanted to rape me,
and that I was beautiful,” Cop
peras Cove cheerleader Chalei
Thiim told the Tribune-Herald.
“I was really afraid and scared,
and when I went out at night, I
felt like someone was watching
me,” said Thiim, 1 7. She says the
letter warned that she would be
watched.
Thiim says she and the other
cheerleaders feel safer with
Moore behind bars, but that her
hometown of 25,000 has been
shaken by the recent events.
Despite Moore’s confession,
the fact that he doesn’t have a vi
olent background should mean
he won’t get the death penalty,
Hunt said.
For Gately, the case promises
to be a big one.
The last time a capital murder
sentence was carried out in the
county was in the 1800s, she
said. Copperas Cove is about 130
miles southwest of Dallas.
“When the ultimate penalty is
death — that’s as big as it gets,”
she said. “At this point we can
prove what he did and that’s suf
ficient.”
tor
ns editor
valeta
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Chilifest '94
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Featuring:
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April 23rd 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Starlight Ballroom • Snook, Texas
Ticket Locations: Student Government Office, Cavender's Boot City,
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