More than seven years after the fatal conflagration at the compound of the Branch Davidian sect in Waco, Texas, survivors and victims’ relatives are finally making their accusations against the US government in a court of law. At least 80 members of the sect, including the founder, David Koresh, died when FBI officers, with paramilitary back-up, stormed their buildings to end a 51-day stand-off. More than seven years after the fatal conflagration at the compound of the Branch Davidian sect in Waco, Texas, survivors and victims’ relatives are finally making their accusations against the US government in a court of law. At least 80 members of the sect, including the founder, David Koresh, died when FBI officers, with paramilitary back-up, stormed their buildings to end a 51-day stand-off.
In opening proceedings yesterday, the chief lawyer for the victims, Michael Cadell, played a videotape showing some of the children who died and posted pictures of 13 of them on a board as he argued that the victims were innocent casualties of dire government mistakes. The children, he said, “never owned a gun, never used a gun, never broke the law, never hurt anyone”.Mr Cadell said his purpose was not to defend the conduct of Koresh – whose stockpiling of weapons led to the government raid that precipitated the stand-off – but to show that the fatal conflict was the result of mistakes by the authorities.Their first error, he said, was to have proceeded with a raid by officers from the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, even though they were aware that sect leaders had been tipped off in advance. Four bureau officers and six sect members were killed inthe gunfight that erupted during the raid.Their second error, Mr Cadell said, was to have caused two of the fires that resulted in the fatal inferno on 19 April 1993, and the third was not to have any firefighting equipment on hand, despite the risk from the combination of firearms and tear gas being used to try to force the Davidians out of their compound.For the US government, Michael Bradford accused the sect of setting fire to its own buildings to fulfil their apocalyptic vision of the end of the world.

He added that several of those who died were killed not by fire, but by bullets fired by Koresh who wanted to prevent their surrender. This version of events is rejected by survivors and relatives of the victims, who say Koresh was negotiating a surrender when the fire started.The fact that the lawsuit has come before a judge and jury represents a victory for the survivors, who have fought against government reluctance and widespread public apathy to have the case heard. If they win, they could receive millions of dollars in damages.. Is it the intense summer heat, or a symptom of a chronic disorder in a society collapsing from within? Murders have been occurring at the rate of one every 17 hours in Israel in the last few days. But Israelis have been shocked less by the statistics than the pettiness of the apparent motives. Is it the intense summer heat, or a symptom of a chronic disorder in a society collapsing from within? Murders have been occurring at the rate of one every 17 hours in Israel in the last few days.

But Israelis have been shocked less by the statistics than the pettiness of the apparent motives.
The country was yesterday digesting details of the latest homicide, that of Michael Baram, a 46-year-old medical equipment salesman and father of three, who was beaten to death in a parking lot brawl. The police say his killer was a motorist with no previous criminal record with whom he had earlier had an argument over the right of way at a road junction.Before him, there was Alon Michaeli, who was fatally stabbed in an argument over a deckchair on a beach in Tel Aviv, (a crime for which six people are now being questioned).On the same day, last Friday, Uri Macroya, 33, was carted off by the police on suspicion of beating his lover’s 30-month-old child to death with a belt. The toddler’s mistake? Interfering with his viewing of the Euro 2000 match between France and the Czech Republic.The apparently trivial causes for these killings – combined with three other murders in Israel within four days – have been greeted with genuine horror. The Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, has appealed to Israelis to be especially vigilant, and to stop this “terrible chain of events.”The mass-selling Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper turned to the Bible, which depicts a society on the brink of total destruction, fatally corroded by its own vices “Have we become as Sodom? Are we likened unto Gomorrah?”.