RIGHT OF CENTER: WACO: A CASE OF DISREGARDED RIGHTS

More than two years after federal law enforcement officers raided the Branch Davidian cult compound, the very mention of Waco, Texas, evokes an array of emotions and opinions.

Many critics express scorn and outrage for the tactics of the feds who carried out the raid that ultimately cost cult leader David Koresh and 80 of his followers their lives. Other people cite disgust for Koresh and disbelief that anyone would defend a guy whose twisted theology led so many gullible people astray.

While some contend the government's role in the Waco debacle justifies complete distrust of the federal government, particularly when it comes to domestic law enforcement, others claim that such paranoia spawns home-grown terrorism such as we suffered in Oklahoma City.

But in these opinions and in the media coverage of Waco, there is little apparent concern expressed for the government's blatant disregard for the Branch Davidians' civil rights. By relying heavily on government accounts of the 51-day siege at Waco that led to the fateful and fiery raid, the national media failed to adequately examine what the feds were doing there in the first place.

The government's version of events is that the Davidians operated a drug laboratory, although the claim was based on scarce evidence from dubious sources. Any proof that such a lab existed was destroyed in the fire that followed the botched raid. Rarely was it mentioned, though, that without a drug tie-in to the Branch Davidians the federal agents would have been unable to call in the tank-like Bradley vehicles used to launch canisters of toxic CS gas into the compound. Why wasn't the typically cynical press more skeptical of the government? Where was the concern for due process for the Davidians? Do Americans abandon their rights when they join a weird religious sect?

During Waco hearings this week, a young girl testified to being abused by Koresh when she was only 10 years old. It isn't the first time such charges were brought against the cult leader. But what hasn't been reported is that investigations into previous reports of child abuse were investigated by authorities and lacked evidence. At the time of the raid on Waco, for arrest warrant purposes, any legal claims of molestation would have to have been considered unfounded.

The government also claimed the Davidians were stockpiling illegal weapons, thus the reason for a search warrant of the compound. But former cult members and gun dealers who associated with the group have said the Davidians merely bought and sold legal weapons as a way to make a living. If there was a massive buildup of weapons, the proof apparently was destroyed. Again, we'll never know, because federal agents bulldozed the remains.

That our government could stage such a colossal disaster as Waco isn't hard to imagine. The media rightfully have criticized the tactics of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the FBI. But the media's failure -- and the public's -- to decry civil rights violations in the Waco slaughter is deplorable.

Our rights aren't something the government grants or denies to anyone it wishes. They are "inalienable." The Constitution is to prohibit the government's usurpation of those presupposed rights. You might not have a great deal of sympathy for a nut like Koresh or for those adults who blindly followed his lead. But when any group is denied its basic constitutional rights, it ought to set off alarm bells for every American, particularly when the denial led to the painful deaths of many innocent children.

~Jay Eastlick is the news editor of the Southeast Missourian.