Final Attack on Mount Carmel Center 1993

For more than fifty days, FBI agents were stationed outside Mount Carmel Center, the headquarters of the religious cult called the Branch Davidians. They were waiting for the group's charismatic leader David Koresh to stand down and order his followers to lay down their arms and surrender to the overwhelming force that has surrounded their compound. But as time breached the deadline set by the FBI, David Koresh and his followers were intent to wait out to be certain that what they are going to do next is in line with prophetic utterances made a few years earlier. They were willing to wait for divine instructions but the federal government and the FBI who did not understand the worldview of the Branch Davidians and therefore they could not wait any longer and they believed that they were justified to use force. If only they knew the aftermath of the assault they would have made a different decision.

Background

A historical background is needed to at least make sense of the numerous and sometimes conflicting accounts of what really happened in the aftermath of the final attack on Mount Carmel center in April 19, 1993. It has to be pointed out that this group did not come out of nowhere; in fact, the origin of the Branch Davidians can help explain why Koresh was able to hold sway over a group of people and ultimately led many of them to their death. This group came from a splinter sect that broke away from a Christian denomination known all over the world as the Seventh-Day Adventist Church (SDA). The SDA is known for “...their belief in the imminent return of Jesus Christ to earth, for their special vegetarian dietary restrictions and for their retention of Saturday as their Sabbath.” Those who are aware of the practices of the SDA can ascertain that the Branch Davidians came from the SDA.

This does not mean that the SDA is responsible for what happened at Waco but at least it provides a backdrop that will help understand how and why the splinter group used some of the ideas and doctrines they had at SDA and shaped it into their own. Nevertheless, it can also be said that these two groups were linked by: “…historical roots, the origins of their members, their name, their identity, and their apocalyptic preoccupations, idiom, and paranoias.” Once again it must be reiterated that the SDA is not responsible for creating the Waco debacle