-Caveat Lector- [radtimes] # 185 An informally produced compendium of vital irregularities. "We're living in rad times!" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Send $$ to RadTimes!! --> (See ** at end.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contents: --Colombia's Youth & Plays of Death --LA To Send Gun-Toting Kids To See Dead Bodies In Morgue --New satellite imaging technology stirs up worries --World's biggest oil rig tilts into sea after blast --With Yankees Absent: FARC Presents its Case to World --As 250,000 Fill Zocalo: Mexico Cheers Chiapas Caravan --Remains of Missing Atheist IDd --Remains Identified as O'Hair's =================================================================== Colombia's Youth & Plays of Death <http://www.consortiumnews.com/031401a.html> By Andres Cala March 14, 2001 In the refugee camps of Colombia, children play act stories from their real-life experiences. These are plays of pursuit and sudden death. "Death is loose, and if it asks one of you where I am, tell it, 'I don't know him,'" says 13-year-old Yorman Antonio Camacho, playing the role of the hero of one play, "Panquemao," which translates as "burnt bread." In this play, "Panquemao" is killed three times, but wins his life back by smartly turning over magic cards. His first death comes when he speaks out of turn and is killed by paramilitaries. "Panquemao" pulls out a lucky card and Death dressed in military fatigues and a white mask relents and lets him live. A second time, the "killer army" returns and threatens to kill everyone, including Panquemao's pregnant wife, unless they leave their land. When they refuse, the gunmen cover the faces of the townspeople with scarves. Panquemao pulls out another card that forces Death angrily to spare the people. Next, the terrified townspeople pack what they can and flee to the nearest city, a place where they find themselves unwelcome and accused of squatting on land that is not their own. Their shantytown on the outskirts of the city is burned to the ground. After being accused of leading "land invasions," Panquemao is killed for a third time. And for the last time, he pulls out a magic card and lives. "Panquemao" is a play the refugee children wrote and performed. But the reality surrounding Yorman Antonio Camacho and the other 12 children in the play is not so magical as their play, norfor manyis the ending as happy. Like hundreds of thousands of other refugees in war-torn Colombia, Yorman lives in a kind of national crossfire that shows little sign of abating. Indeed, most signs point to an escalating conflict with government forces benefiting from the introduction of more advanced weaponry from the United States and a determined leftist guerrilla movement holding large swaths of the Colombian countryside. Complicating the situation more, right-wing paramilitaries have launched a "dirty war," murdering suspected leftist sympathizers and forcing thousands of others to flee their homes. The pervasive role of drug money implicating the government, guerrillas and paramilitaries has boosted the firepower of the civil war by making the purchase of armaments easier. Chapters of this civil war also date back more than half a century to violent clashes between the dominant political parties divided over land reform and other social policies. Now, intervening in Colombia's complex history of politics and violence is the U.S. government with a $1.3 billion aid package, weighted heavily toward military assistance. The U.S. assistance is a key part of what the government of President Andres Pastrana calls "Plan Colombia," a multi-front strategy with the stated goal of fighting narco-trafficking while simultaneously battling leftist guerrillas and the right-wing paramilitaries. Refugees With his three brothers and his parents, Yorman lives in the slums of Soacha, a town about a 30-minute drive south of Bogota, Colombia's capital. Their makeshift housing has no electricity and no running water. The family has barely enough food to survive. Before the spreading political violence, Yorman's family lived on a small farm in the town of Playa de Oro. His father worked as a construction worker. Their lives changed when the right-wing paramilitary forces of Carlos Castano arrived. Castano's armed men ordered all inhabitants to gather in the main square for a demonstration. Then, Castano's soldiers dragged in two men who were accused of aiding leftist guerrillas. As the men's neighbors looked on, they were held down and decapitated. A few days later, Yorman's father received a message threatening him with the same fate unless he left. The family gathered up some possessions and fled to the slums of Bogota, joining the vast population of displaced people. The war, which claims 3,000 lives every year, puts civil society smack in the middle of the power struggle as the various sides seek strategic control over various parts of the country. The Advisory Office for Human Rights and Displacement, a non-government organization known by its Spanish initials Codhes, estimates that 580,000 people have left their homes since 1998 alone. Over the past 15 years, the total number of refugees is estimated at about 2 million, although the government acknowledges only about one fifth that number. Three-quarters of the displaced people come from the 91 counties where the principal conflict is occurring, including the 42,000-square kilometer demilitarized zone that President Pastrana granted as part of his negotiations with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the largest guerrilla group with some 17,000 combatants. Under Colombian law, the government has the responsibility for protecting the displaced people, though the government admits that it doesn't even know the full scope of the problem. "Colombia lacks a system of information on forced displacement that allows figures to be put on the real magnitude of this problem," acknowledged the Office of the Vice President. Based on the government's lower estimates of refugees about 400,000 the amount allotted for their survival is just a little over $8 per person if calculated on the budget of the National Solidarity Network, the agency responsible for helping refugees. The government has promised an additional $120 million a year to tackle the humanitarian crisis, but even that would put the aid levels at only $300 per person per year. Civil War Pastrana has described the Colombian conflict as not a civil war but "war against civil society." His critics, however, accuse him of pushing the country deeper into a real civil war with Plan Colombia that has a total budget of $7.5 billion. The United States is supporting most of the military part of Plan Colombia with 70 percent of the $1.3 billion in U.S. aid earmarked for advanced weaponry, including more than 25 Blackhawk and Huey II helicopters, logistical and intelligence equipment, and training. To counter this government escalation, the FARC has threatened to expand its military capabilities by increasing its arsenal of surface-to-air missiles and other sophisticated weapons. The third element in this growing conflict the paramilitary Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (known by the Spanish acronym, AUC) also is enlarging the scope of its operations. The AUC has grown to 9,000 gunmen financed by drug trafficking and wealthy landowners. The AUC accounts for the largest percentage of human rights violations including the torture and executions of suspected leftists. Of the mass displacements of Colombians, the AUC is held responsible for 71 percent, the leftist guerrillas for 14 percent, government troops for less than 1 percent, and multiple actors 15 percent, according to the office of the vice president. An expanded war will almost certainly create more refugees. Codhes estimates that another 190,000 people will be displaced by the drug eradication program alone. Already, that drug eradication program has driven 3,000 Colombians into neighboring Ecuador. While backed by Washington, the military aspects of Plan Colombia have been opposed by the European Union as well as international human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. These organizations predict that Plan Colombia will only enlarge the war and lead to more suffering. Yet, for youngsters like Yorman, the war and its consequences have become the center of their life experiences. The fear of masked gunmen bringing sudden death is never far from their thoughts. ---------- Andres Cala is a Colombian journalist who has covered the conflict since 1996. In a previous story, Cala examined the history of the war through the biography of a Colombian guerrilla leader. <http://www.consortiumnews.com/072599a1.html> Another story about the Colombian conflict was written for Consortiumnews.com by Stan Goff, a former U.S. Green Beret who turned critical of U.S. policies in Latin America. <http://www.consortiumnews.com/122299a.html> =================================================================== Hey Kids, Chill Out! LA To Send Gun-Toting Kids To See Dead Bodies In Morgue Reuters Los Angeles County lawmakers, responding to last week's shooting rampage by a teenager at a California high school, have passed a law forcing students caught with guns or making threats to view dead bodies and watch autopsies being performed at the coroner's office. "Young people need to see the results of violent acts," Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich said. "Far too many youngsters are desensitized to violence. They need to realize it's not a movie or a video game when someone is shot." http://news.findlaw.com/legalnews/s/20010314/crimeshootingcoroner.html L.A. County Coroner's Gift Shop http://www.lacoroner.com =================================================================== New satellite imaging technology stirs up worries http://www.timesofindia.com/140301/14hlth3.htm SINGAPORE: With close-up satellite pictures of Earth improving dramatically, new laws are needed to protect the rights of those on the ground, experts at an international space conference in Singapore said on Tuesday. Commercial satellite images can now zero in on a single square meter (10 square feet), up from 30 square metres (300 square feet) in 1972 and 10 square metres (100 square feet) in 1986, said Emmanuel Nabet, managing director of satellite imaging company Spot Asia. "In 2001, we'll see fractions of 1 square meter (10 square feet)," Nabet said at the Space Law Conference 2001, a forum on international laws governing outer space. Satellite images with a resolution of 1 square meter (10 square feet) can show individual vehicles and people, Nabet said. General guidelines for the commercial use of outer space are set out in United Nations treaties passed mostly between 1965 and 1976 and declarations passed before 1988. Lawyers, academics and other experts at the Singapore conference said new international laws are urgently needed to address political, economic and privacy concerns brought on by new advances in technology. Less-developed countries should be protected from espionage by nations that can deploy their own satellites or can afford expensive satellite images from commercial companies, said K R Sridhara Murthi of the Indian Space Research Organisation. "Today we know that there is no way to stop somebody from imaging any part of the world," Murthi said. "If a government is concerned about security, it should have recourse," he said, arguing that private satellite companies should be required to at least reveal what they have photographed. Satellite images can map mineral deposits and other natural resources - and poorer countries should not be taken advantage of by foreign commercial interests that can afford the technology, conference delegates said. Commercial companies "are interested in doing business - you cannot just rely on their good will," said Tanja Masson-Zwaan, secretary of the Paris-based International Institute of Space Law. "You have to rely on international laws to safeguard the interests of the developing countries," Masson-Zwaan said. Several hundred delegates from around the world attended the two-day Singapore conference on space law, which ended on Tuesday. (AP) =================================================================== World's biggest oil rig tilts into sea after blast By Luiz Andre Ferreira MACAE, Brazil, March 16 (Reuters) - The world's biggest offshore oil rig, owned by Brazil's state oil giant Petrobras, threatened to sink into the ocean spilling crude oil on Friday, a day after an explosion that apparently killed 10 people. Three powerful blasts rocked the 40-story rig off the coast of Rio de Janeiro state on Thursday, causing a fire that killed at least one of the 175 workers aboard. Nine workers were listed as missing, and Petrobras said on Thursday that there was little chance they had survived. Another worker was hospitalized with severe burns. On Friday, public outrage mounted against accident-prone Petrobras as its biggest platform tilted into the sea. If the rig sinks it could dump crude and diesel into the open ocean, causing yet another environmental disaster. Tense families of the workers also waited to see if the official death toll would rise when search and rescue operations resume later in the day. "Petrobras is much more worried about cutting costs than ensuring the safety of its workers and of the environment," said Jandira Segalli, a federal deputy who met with officials after the explosion. Union leaders called a nationwide protest on Friday to demand safer working conditions. They accused Petrobras of outsourcing work to inexperienced workers in order to cut costs, thus putting its employees at risk. More than 80 oil workers have died in accidents over the last three years, according to the United Oil Workers Federation (FUP). It was still not clear what caused the blasts at the platform, located in the Roncador oil field 78 miles (125 km) offshore in the Campos Basin, where 80 percent of Brazil's oil is produced. But damage to one of the rig's hulls threatened to send the rig sinking into the ocean. "If the degree of listing increases we are going to lose the platform," Petrobras President Henri Philippe Reichstul said in a videoconference on Thursday. "It will only be clear by tomorrow (Friday) morning." The immense structure was listing three times more than the Leaning Tower of Pisa, according to engineers, and appeared on the verge of lurching into the sea. If it did, at least half of the 1,200 cubic meters of diesel and 300 cubic meters of crude stored on the rig could spill. Five boats are standing by to collect the oil, but they can only hold half of the total amount stored there. The P-36 rig can produce up to 180,000 barrels of crude oil per day, making it the world's biggest platform, but after starting operations last year, it was only pumping out 80,000 bpd, or 5 percent of Brazil's total daily output. All production was halted and Petrobras said it could lose $50 million a month with the rig out of operation. Petrobras' stock sank 6.8 percent and Brazil's currency weakened on Thursday on investor concerns that Petrobras will have to make up for lost production with more costly imports. Petrobras has also caused a string of high-profile environmental disasters in recent years. =================================================================== With Yankees Absent: FARC Presents its Case to World By Andy McInerney March 22, 2001 Workers World Talks between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia- People's Army (FARC-EP) and the Colombian government opened up again in the town of Los Pozos on March 8. Twenty-five countries and international organizations sent official delegates to witness the talks, which are being held in the five municipalities vacated by the Colombian government two years ago. The recent meeting was the product of one in February between FARC-EP Commander Manuel Marulanda and Colombia President Andres Pastrana. The two signed the Los Pozos Accord, which broke an impasse that had been in place since November. The FARC-EP had frozen the talks at that time to protest the government's refusal to address the wave of paramilitary death squad attacks across the country. FARC-EP Secretariat member Alfonso Cano read a statement on behalf of the insurgency's General Staff. "We are dealing with the task of democratically rebuilding a sovereign homeland, respectful of other's opinions and with social justice," he said. "But creating the bases for this task after 53 years of uninterrupted official violence is difficult, because the obstacles raised are serious and the enemies of reconciliation are very powerful." The statement pointed out the decades-long practice of paramilitarism, "the illegitimate and shameful child of the Colombian State." Cano also singled out the role of the International Monetary Fund as a cause of the impoverishment of millions of Colombians. He called for a five-year moratorium on the payment of Colombia's foreign debt, and challenged the Colombian government to invest one-third of the budget during this period for the process of social reconstruction. This money should be prioritized and dispensed by the Table of Dialogs, where both the FARC-EP and the government have equal representation. He also called for three new international events to be held in Los Pozos: one on crop substitution for illicit crops, another on the foreign debt, and a third to address the unequal distribution of land. INTERNATIONAL PRESENCE WELCOMED >From the beginning, the FARC-EP has been able to use the dialog process as a means to reach wider layers with its message of radical social change, both in Colombia and around the world. Every meeting has become an exposure of the crimes the Colombian elite has committed over the years on behalf of their imperialist masters. By contrast, the FARC-EP's program of land redistribution, social ownership of Colombia's wealth, and reorganizing the armed forces points the way to what they call a "new Colombia"--the socialist path. The Colombian government and the big business press tried to portray the presence of the international delegates, and the agreement to form a 10-nation "facilitating commission," as a concession on the part of the revolutionary movement. In fact, the FARC-EP has sought to bring international attention to its struggle for years. In June 2000, the FARC-EP hosted a public audience where thousands of peasants were able to present their grievances in the presence of several dozen international observers. Prior to that, the FARC-EP toured Europe along with government representatives to explain its views of the dialog process. The new facilitating committee is composed of representatives from Cuba, Venezuela, Mexico, France, Italy, Canada, Spain, Norway, Switzerland and Sweden. It is charged with helping to keep the talks from breaking down, as they have several times since the most recent dialog process began in January 1999. What the FARC-EP leaders have opposed from the beginning is any direct role of other countries in the talks themselves. They have also refused government demands for "international monitors" in the cleared dialog zone. U.S. GOV'T REFUSES TO ATTEND The two sides in the Colombian talks invited the U.S. government to send a representative to the meeting. That invitation was flatly turned down. Instead, U.S. State Department spokespeople used the invitation as an opportunity to criticize the FARC-EP. U.S. President George W. Bush diplomatically called the issue one "that the Colombian people and the Colombian president can deal with." That leaves out of the picture the fact that the U.S. is already intensively involved in the Colombian civil war, to the tune of $1.3 billion last year. Under the so-called Plan Colombia, the U.S. is providing combat helicopters, counterinsurgency training, and biochemical warfare for use against supporters of Colombia's revolutionary insurgencies. Colombian activists call the package a "declaration of war" against the Colombian people. FARC-EP leader Manuel Marulanda was not surprised by the U.S. refusal to come to the talks. "What are we going to do about it? We can't beg them," he said. "If they don't want to come and speak with us, then neither can we do anything special to invite them." For the Colombian government, the refusal was more of a blow. Pastrana is under fire by some elements of the Colombian ruling elite who want to abandon the talks altogether, and having a U.S. presence in his corner at the talks would be a publicity coup. The U.S. government, beginning with former president Bill Clinton and now continuing with Bush, has clearly opted for the military solution. Plan Colombia is aimed at stiffening the military's resolve and readiness to meet the FARC-EP on the battlefield. ELN BREAKS OFF TALKS During the time when talks between the FARC-EP and the government were frozen, Pastrana tried to shore up his "peace" credentials by promising talks with the country's second-largest insurgency, the National Liberation Army (ELN). He offered to withdraw from a zone in northern Colombia to prepare for talks with the ELN. The ELN is proposing a national convention in the zone. But Pastrana's promises were never matched with deeds. In fact, while promising the zone, government-linked death squads organized a campaign against the zone. Peasants were herded into anti-ELN demonstrations at the tip of the bayonet. Human rights groups documented the role of the death squads and drug lords in organizing the "mass" demonstrations. This anti-ELN campaign coincided with a military offensive against the insurgency in southern Bolivar province. On Mar. 8, the ELN announced that it would "temporarily suspend" the talks it has been carrying out with the government. A letter from ELN Commander Pablo Beltran charged that "there do not exist conditions neither of security nor of credibility to carry out any new meetings with the negotiation teams." Battles continue to rage; U.S. mercenaries under fire The talks between the FARC-EP and the government have been taking place without a ceasefire. Battles between the revolutionary movement and government troops are a daily affair. On March 4, units from the Jose Mar=EDa Cordova Bloc of the FARC-EP wiped out a paramilitary base in the northern Antioquia province. On March 10, FARC-EP combatants attacked a communication center in El Valle. On Feb. 18, the daily battles saw U.S. soldiers in combat. The Feb. 22 Miami Herald reported that U.S. mercenaries paid by DynCorp, a Virginia-based outfit that boasts of providing logistical support to "every major wartime contingency including Korea, Vietnam, Grenada and Desert Shield/Desert Storm," came under fire during a search-and-rescue mission in southern Colombia. A Feb. 25 Associated Press report quoted a U.S. Embassy official in Bogota as saying, "Sure the Americans get shot at. We had 125 bullet impacts on aircraft last year, and I'm sure that Americans were flying some of those aircraft." The presence of mercenaries--undoubtedly linked to the U.S. military and CIA--on Colombia's battlefields raises the specter of a new, massive escalation of U.S. intervention, including the direct participation of U.S. troops, on behalf of its client regime in Colombia. =================================================================== As 250,000 Fill Zocalo: Mexico Cheers Chiapas Caravan Historic March for Indigenous Rights By Bill Hackwell Mexico City March 22, 2001 Workers World The long march for the rights of the disenfranchised and neglected Indigenous peoples of this country, led by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), roared into Mexico's capital on March 11. At 2:15 p.m. a caravan that had begun in the Lacondon jungle amid the highlands of Chiapas was received in the famous Mexico City Zocalo square by a wildly enthusiastic crowd of over 250,000 people. "We are here to demand democracy, liberty and justice," proclaimed Subcommander Marcos. "The government thinks that today marks the end of an earthquake, but after today the people who are the color of the earth will never be forgotten again." The route of the caravan had been carefully crafted. Beginning its last leg in Xochimilco on the south side of Mexico City, it then traced the path of Mexican revolutionary heroes Emiliano Zapata and Francisco Pancho Villa, who in 1914 briefly took over the city to push for land reform for the peasants and poor of Mexico. Disregarding security measures, the 24 Zapatista leaders rode on an open flatbed truck that moved slowly through middle and working-class districts. They were greeted by tens of thousands of people along the way. Signs of welcome and solidarity were evident throughout. Chants of "You are not alone" and "Zapata lives, the struggle goes forward" could be heard above the engines and horns of the caravan that followed. A popular banner slogan read, "Everything for everybody, nothing for us!" DOZENS OF RALLIES ALONG MARCH The caravan that had begun 16 days earlier had wound 2,100 miles through 12 states, stopping in small agricultural communities along the way as well as in large industrial cities like Puebla, Toluca and Morelia. The Zapatista demands for Indigenous recognition and autonomy were raised at 35 actos or rallies. A total of over 300,000 people attended these rallies and an untold number lined the roads cheering on the caravan. Each stop had its own particular flavor and emphasis. In Oaxaca, where the population is over 80 percent Indigenous, 25,000 people came out, many with signs against political repression there. Local leaders talked about the struggle to stop the federal government from privatizing the historical archaeological site of Monte Alban, the famed city of the Zapotec Indians. Another significant stop was at Anenecuilco, Morelos, where Zapata's daughter Ana Maria and son Diego greeted the caravan in the town of their father's birth. As the EZLN leaders laid flowers on Zapata's monument, the crowd began to chant, "If Zapata were alive, he would be with us!" On March 8, International Women's Day, the four women commanders--Esther, Susana, Yolanda and Fidelia--conducted the program in Milpa Alta. Commander Esther told the crowd of 10,000 there that, "We remember the anniversary of our sisters in New York who were fighting for a just wage. They showed that without women the world won't change." NATIONAL & INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT The Zapatistas became known to the world when they captured six towns on Jan. 1, 1994, the first day of the North American Free Trade Agreement. In the 12-day war that followed, 145 people were killed. NAFTA, imposed on Mexico by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, has spelled economic disaster and increased poverty for the Indigenous people as well as other Mexican workers and peasants. But the Zapatista rebellion also signaled the opening salvo of the anti-capitalist resistance movement to globalization worldwide. It was an inspiration to militant struggles in Seattle, Prague and Geneva. Now it will give added impetus to the protests against the FTAA in Quebec on April 20. More than 1,000 people from other countries--including Italy, Spain, France, Britain and India--traveled with the caravan. Over 200 came from the U.S., including representatives of Pastors for Peace, Mexico Solidarity Network, Schools for Chiapas, Chiapas Support Committee, San Francisco Zapatista Committee and the International Action Center. Trade union banners appeared as the march got closer to Mexico City. The Union of Mexican Electricians and the Union of Mexican Telephone Workers called for defending the dignity of the Zapatistas. The National Union of Agricultural Workers brought 5,000 members to the rally in Mexico City. But the real backbone of the caravan was the 1,000 Mexican activists who traveled the entire way. Many were youth whose imaginations have been captured by the Zapatistas and the possibility of a revolutionary movement against U.S. imperialism. Large images of Che Guevara were everywhere. University students kept joining the closer we got to Mexico City. When the caravan began in San Cristobal de las Casas it had 90 vehicles, 25 of them buses. By the time it entered the Z=F3calo it had swelled to 300 vehicles and 50 buses. MEDIA FRENZY & THE FOX GOVERNMENT Throughout the entire 16-day trek media and government helicopters followed overhead. Camera people in ninja outfits riding motorcycles raced after the comandantes' bus, followed by swarms of press cars and media vans. It was the top news story in every newspaper every day. The entire population of Mexico got to follow the journey on television. The struggle of the 15 million Indigenous people was center stage of Mexican politics. Of course, some coverage has been negative. The reactionary media conglomerate TV Azteca has given a lot of time to representatives from the Federation of Employers of the Republic of Mexico, who called Subcommander Marcos an "irresponsible, ignorant demagogue." The Indigenous people's poverty is their own fault, said these exploiters, and they need help in determining what is good for them. For the newly elected government of President Vicente Fox of the right-of-center PAN party, this spotlight on the forgotten and neglected Indians of Mexico presents a major problem. This former Coca-Cola executive has tried to portray himself as inclusive. The Zapatista leadership refuses to meet with him, however, and instead has demanded to address the Mexican legislature directly. Fox has been careful not to criticize the march. He even welcomed the Zapatistas to Mexico City. It was obvious that the orientation of the Federal Police and other security agencies on the route was to get the caravan to Mexico City without provocation or incident in an attempt to limit sympathy and support for the growing movement. The president went so far as to invite the Zapatista leaders to Mexico's White House, Los Pinos, but they refused, saying it was a trap to make Fox appear in control of the situation. While the Fox government has met some of the Zapatistas' demands, they have said that they will not leave Mexico City until all 60,000 troops are pulled away from the area around the autonomous Indigenous communities--in particular the huge military bases at La Garrucha, Guadalupe Tepeyac and R=EDo Euseba. The day before the rally at the Zocalo, Fox released 14 political prisoners. But another 19 Zapatista leaders remain in prison. The EZLN is also demanding that the San Andreas Accords signed in 1996 by the COCOPA, a congressional body representing all the capitalist parties, be ratified into the Mexican constitution. This agreement says that the Indigenous of Chiapas have the right to their land and to determine its future. The Fox government is afraid that giving in to the Zapatista demands will open up similar demands from other Indigenous people representing 54 different groups. This is the real sticking point. Who will control the land--the people who have lived there for thousands of years or the multinational corporations that, using the crafty Fox as their agent, want to exploit the rich resources of Chiapas? In direct reference to this, Commander Moises said, "Those who want to exploit Mother Earth have no mother at all." =================================================================== But Suspects In Victims' Murders Probably Praying Remains of Missing Atheist IDd Associated Press More than five years after Madalyn Murray O'Hair and two relatives mysteriously disappeared, forensics tests have confirmed that human remains found in January in a shallow grave are those of the missing trio. O'Hair, 76, her son Jon Garth Murray, 40, and Robin Murray O'Hair, 30, her granddaughter, vanished from San Antonio in 1995 along with $500,000 in gold coins. At first, some speculated the ailing O'Hair - America's best-known atheist - had gone off somewhere to die so that Christians would not pray over her. But investigators believed they were kidnapped, robbed and killed, and their bodies dismembered and dumped on a ranch near Camp Wood, about 125 miles from San Antonio. http://news.findlaw.com/ap/o/1110/3-16-2001/20010316103046990.html O'Hair's U.S. Supreme Court case (Abington School Dist. v. Schempp) http://laws.findlaw.com/us/374/203.html =================================================================== Remains Identified as O'Hair's http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/3/15/190211.shtml Friday, March 16, 2001 AUSTIN, Texas (UPI) A forensic expert said Thursday the remains of atheist leader Madalyn Murray O'Hair, her son and granddaughter were found last January buried on a Texas ranch, officially ending a six-year mystery about their disappearance. Dr. David M. Glassman, chairman of the anthropology department at Southwest Texas State University, said forensic tests identified the bones of O'Hair; her son, Jon Garth Murray; and her granddaughter, Robin Murray O'Hair, the victims of a 1995 abduction and extortion plot. Glassman said it was impossible from the surviving bones to determine the cause of death for Madalyn O'Hair and her granddaughter, but it appears Jon Murray was tortured. "When we removed the dirt that was covering his skull, his head had been covered in a plastic bag, his arms had been bound with a plastic ligature, and there was some trauma in the form of defect fractures to the side of his head and the back," he told a news conference. Glassman said the fractures were sufficient to have caused Murray's death. The examination supported the theory of federal agents who said the O'Hairs were killed and their bodies dismembered, possibly with a power saw. "All three of the O'Hair skeletons had been dismembered to the point that their legs were all cut, between the hip and the knee," he said. Glassman said the bone pieces were found scattered around the gravesite and one of his challenges was to put them together and determine which bones matched which skeletons. Also found in the grave were the skull and hand bones of a man in his early 40s. They are believed to belong to Danny Fry, a third conspirator whose headless and handless body was found on the banks of the Trinity River near Dallas in October 1985 after the O'Hairs vanished. Fry's body remained unidentified for three years, and it was when officials identified it that the plot began to unravel. Former O'Hair office manager David Waters, the mastermind in the extortion plot, led FBI agents and forensic experts to the bodies on Jan. 27 at a 5,000-acre ranch 100 miles west of San Antonio in the rugged Texas Hill Country. Waters, 53, guided FBI agents and Texas Rangers to the bodies as part of a plea bargain deal with federal prosecutors. He had pleaded guilty to one extortion charge in a closed federal court hearing Jan. 24 to order to get four other kidnapping and extortion charges dropped. A sentencing hearing is scheduled March 20. The maximum sentence is 20 years. Waters is already serving a 60-year state prison sentence for stealing $54,000 from O'Hair in 1994. During the January dig on the Cooksey Ranch, the law officers found human remains, including a metal hip replacement joint, which led them to believe they had found O'Hair. The 77-year-old woman had undergone a hip replacement a few years before her disappearance. Waters and the other two men allegedly abducted and held O'Hair, her son and granddaughter at a San Antonio motel in a plot to steal the $500,000 in gold coins. The three were then killed, their bodies chopped up and buried on the ranch, the FBI said. Waters's third accomplice, Gary Karr, was convicted on extortion and robbery charges last June. No murder charges were filed against Waters or Karr. Madalyn Murray O'Hair, who once said she was the most hated woman in the United States, was best known because of the Baltimore lawsuit she filed that resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court banning school prayer in 1963. =================================================================== "Anarchy doesn't mean out of control. It means out of 'their' control." -Jim Dodge ====================================================== "Communications without intelligence is noise; intelligence without communications is irrelevant." -Gen. Alfred. M. Gray, USMC ====================================================== "It is not a sign of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society." -J. Krishnamurti ====================================================== "The world is my country, all mankind my brethren, and to do good is my religion." -Thomas Paine ====================================================== " . . . it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds . . . " -Samuel Adams ====================================================== "You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no results." -Gandhi ______________________________________________________________ To subscribe/unsubscribe or for a sample copy or a list of back issues, send appropriate email to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. ______________________________________________________________ **How to assist RadTimes: An account is available at <www.paypal.com> which enables direct donations. If you are a current PayPal user, use this email address: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, to contribute. 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