TAO COMMUNITY AT THE TEMPLO VEGETAL SAKROAKUARIUS IN COLOMBIA
17 YEARS OF PERSECUTION AGAINST A PEACEFUL COMMUNITY
JUNGLES OF ETASHTITLAN
(AMERICA)
We
will set out in brief words to elaborate a summary, up to these days, of 17
years of persecution with attacks of all kinds and another number of actions
perpetrated against the Taoists that up to this date have left already close to
a hundred corpses of Taoists; this without counting the hundreds, that without
being Taoists, have been victims because they were confused with Taoists or for
the belief that amongst them there were Taoists.
Since in order to
elaborate a total chronicle of this bloody persecution we would need perhaps
several thousand pages, we will make a brief synthesis and will cite some
events, of the most recent at least. In one of the Taoist monasteries, in 1993,
a series of studies were elaborated by the Taoist community with regards to a
geographical zone where there would be organized, after the respective
legalization, a Taoist monastery.
Also in the
aforementioned study, after having acquired cartographic maps issued by the
Agustin Codazzi Geographic Institute, which is a state run Institute, it was
verified, as it can still be verified, that the mentioned area does not
correspond to any sort of forestry reserve and much less to any buffer zone,
given that the buffer zones of Sanctuaries and National parks are not legislated
in Colombia; it was established that there is a forestry reserve but it is
located several kilometers from what is today the Templo Vegetal Sakroakuarius.
In 1994 the
arrangements were already concluded for the acquisition of the properties that
in quality of a purchase were acquired, with others taken on lease, arrangements
accorded with the owners, whom by heredity had acquired the properties from
their ancestors.
Upon the arrival
of the Taoist monks to this place, after some days of exploring the region, they
discovered, not on the acquired property, but in the zone corresponding to the
Forestry reserve, a gigantic poppy plantation, whose surface surpassed 30
hectares, with hundreds of thousands of poppy plants. Upon finding this they
immediately communicated it to the Temple Abbots and to the rest of the
administration of the Temple, since our doctrine is for the absolute
regeneration of the human being, in all its aspects, not in a theoretical way
only but in practice as well, delivering to each being a message of hope, of
health and of life, totally contrary to what is produced by narcotics, which is
thousands of crazed people every year, besides the rivers of blood that due to
them are produced. The Temple administration ordered the destruction, in its
totality, of those crops, activity that lasted approximately 8 days in which the
Taoist monks reduced those plants to diminutive pieces.
Some days after
this the persecution worsened, for this event was its basis, since years before
in another monastery called Geoakuarius the siege had been constant, to the
point where Navy helicopters constantly over flew almost every day, carrying out
maneuvers suggesting that a possible attack was imminent, causing anxiety,
desperation, fear and dread in the hundreds of women, men, children and elderly
people that inhabit the monastery.
These actions
were accompanied by the targeting of some monks by machine guns from the air,
who driven by panic ran, fearing that they would be shot down, and as they ran
were followed by the aircraft; this occurred on a daily basis from the air…
those that from the air perpetrated these actions said that it was all ordered
by the President of Colombia, in those days Dr. Cesar Gaviria Trujillo,
presently Secretary General of the OEA.
A great number of
times that monastery was surrounded by the marine infantry, who also always
sustained that they were acting under presidential order.
We will continue
with the events that took place in the other monastery, the one that in the days
of this document counts with thousands of inhabitants, and is threatened with
being bombed according to the reports and threats received by order of the
current president of Colombia.
The destruction
of the poppy crops was undertaken since the catholic clergy, in the criminal
accusations that it has always brought against the Taoist congregation, accused
us, in a genocidal manner, before the state authorities of being growers of
narcotics crops, with the murderous purpose of achieving that the forces in
charge of public order treat us as delinquents of that sort, reason for which
the Temple administration opted for making an examination of the jungle zone
surrounding the Temple, since any illicit crops that would be near the Templo
Vegetal Sakroakuarius would be the opportunity for our accusers to demonstrate,
with the falsity of always, that any narcotics crops to be found in the zone,
even if they were found far from the Temple, belonged to the Taoist community,
so then on this anti-narcotics and reconnaissance exploration, in order to avoid
the damaging consequences already mentioned, the Abbots and the monks of the
Temple stumbled upon the approximately 30 hectares of poppy crops, and after
making inquiries in the zone, the owner, or owners, of those crops were not
found, and no farm owner could be notified since the crops that were found were
located on the highest plateau located within the properties of the Guanenta
Alto Rio Fonce Fauna and Flora Sanctuary, which is the name of the Forestry
Reserve.
The logical
causes for which no one responded as owner of these crops is because they were
planted by delinquents in the heart of the Reserve, motive for which no one
could be denounced, but in view that those crops could not continue there
because they would be attributed to the Taoist congregation, they were
completely destroyed in their totality. Not even a week passed after this had
happened, when in a very strange but precise manner, considering the pain of the
growers of the poppy crops that were destroyed, it was seen and heard on
television, radio, and the press that the TAO sect was carrying out large
depredations in the heart of the Guanenta Alto Rio Fonce Fauna and Flora
Sanctuary, depredation of poppy crops that has cost us 7 years of persecution;
while the forest guards of the INDERENA, as it was called during those days when
they were depredating trees useful for their wood, but on their way to
extinction and therefore of prohibited exploitation, some Abbots and monks that
were recapturing some bee hives accidentally came across the forest guards that
were in the process of cutting down the wood of the trees on their way to
extinction and of prohibited exploitation; the monks sustained a dialogue for a
few moments with the forest guards, in an amicable fashion. In an astonishingly
surprising manner, a few days after, the Abbots and monks that conversed with
the forest guards that were depredating, appeared with a warrant for their
arrest for the offence of accidentally having found the forest guards committing
a forestry crime, arrest warrants that still remain active, in the same way that
to this day prevails the vile persecution which started off with their
accusation that the heart of the park was being depredated where today there
does not exist the 30 hectares of poppy crops that they had. Who could they be?
When in those days the most bitter persecutors of the Taoist congregation was
the bishop of the city of San Gil, Jorge Leonardo Gomez Serna, and the Governor
of Santander Mario Camacho Prado.
Today before this
bloody persecution mixed with assassinations, Taoists and the world in general,
ask ourselves to whom did those poppy crops belong to, which caused so much pain
to the assassins due to the death of their narcotics plants, but more real pain
has been caused to us Taoists since from those days to these, there is almost
five hundred dead amongst Taoists and non Taoists, some of them family members
of Taoists that were assassinated when they were thought to be Taoists.
A few days after
the destruction of the poppy crops, the military units of the battalions of
soldiers and other garrisons quartered in Santander, participated in numerous
incidents that most likely will escape from this document.
In the first
place, hundreds of soldiers surrounded the Temple, equipped with all possible
armament, and established many check points, each one a few kilometers away from
the other, in which were demanded the identity documents of the Taoists that on
that road traveled, and who were later registered in books and in some cases
photographed, and no longer exist since they were amongst those that have been
assassinated. This only happened with the Taoists since all the other passers by
traveled with tranquility and without perturbations; but the Taoists were made
to unload their luggage and were searched in an exhaustive manner in front of
everyone, all this while they were identified and written into the books. These
Taoists have been in their great majority tortured, mutilated, and assassinated
by people who have arrived with lists and photographs in hand in order to end
their lives, as has happened to many, and generally from the ones that were in
the Temple in those days. As this was happening the soldiers would say to the
monks and Taoists: “don’t worry that when we enter your Temple we are going
to take you cocaine in case you don’t have any, weapons in case you don’t
have any, marihuana in case you don’t have any, and another amount of things
to show you that you are delinquents.”
As these events
were taking place, in the surroundings of the Temple were placed launch platform
vehicles for missiles called Nimrod batteries, which for many days pointed day
and night at the most populated zones of the Temple. You can well imagine the
tranquility of the inhabitants of the Temple during such a situation, especially
when in the late hours of the night there were bursts of machine gun fire, that
were fired into the trees and mountains of the Temple, and that were prolonged
for hours until they ceased; they would besiege the surroundings of the Temple
with a large quantity of war vehicles, that can be compared to something similar
to the preparations of an international war where the deployment by land and air
won’t be delayed, since the air of the Temple was being over flown by many
types of airplanes and helicopters of generally diverse shapes, in which from
the ground could be seen a large quantity of weapons that pointed towards the
inhabitants of the Temple, who were almost moribund in their great majority due
to the effects produced by the venoms, chemical
and biological weapons, that other types of planes sprayed from the skies
of the Temple, planes that very few times we could barely see, due to that one
of the many symptoms that are produced, and were produced, is
exaggerated vision reduction. In those days, some monks in the Temple
died, the ones that did not tolerate the effects of that biological and chemical
attack which produced lack of appetite, blood flows from ears, mouth, nose,
urethra, and rectum; there appeared fevers of more than 40 degrees with vomiting
and diarrhea, strong headaches and total imbalance when walking; we would walk a
couple of paces and fall to the ground due to our lack of strength and strong
dizziness.
While this was
happening to human beings, what can be said of the animals and plants of the
forest; the mountains of the Temple dressed themselves in mourning, the leaves
of the vegetation were burned due to the venoms and animals died by the
thousands, from the most exotic to sheep and goats in the Temple. They all
perished. Wild birds were found struggling between life and death while many
species disappeared from the region, many of whom have not returned.
The women of the
Temple that were pregnant aborted, losing their offspring and falling into
terrible health conditions, and what can be said of the children; faced with all
of this we opted for removing the children as targets of this type of chemical
and biological war, something that we did secretly so that those that were
attacking us would not find out the location of the minors, with the lamentable
fact that in a few days they did find the location where the children were with
their fathers and mothers, upon which there appeared a helicopter in that place.
According to the parents of a small child that was amongst the dead, white and
green were the colors of the helicopter that over flew several times the place,
spraying a white powder, which when coming into contact with the children, made
them begin to suffocate and cough excessively and in a matter of minutes would
present spasms and die, which is what happened to the 9 month old boy whose
parents saw that artifact of death that wrenched the life from defenseless
children whose only desire was to live, spraying that lethal substance that was
very similar in its appearance to that other powder that in the mornings covered
the leaves of the burnt and dried out trees of the mountains of the Temple. In
those same days 2 forest guards were discovered, escorted by approximately 15
soldiers, as they dumped chemical substances in the waters that conform the
water supply of the Temple.
Faced with this
situation, and about to complain to the forest guards for their criminal action,
the soldiers proceeded to protect them until they had emptied the bags full of
unknown substances into the fountains of water from which we the monks drink.
Parallel to these
events, through the different mass communication mediums, we were being accused
of being about to commit suicide, when it was the ones from the planes and
helicopters who were killing us. At the same time we were being accused of being
growers of narcotics crops, kidnappers and another number of crimes, amongst
them depredation when our only depredation was the destruction of the poppy
crops and they, in order to destroy us, were razing to the ground an entire
ecosystem, since it was not 1 or 2 planes, it was dozens of planes that were
over flying and fumigating, at the beginning at night and then day and night.
One of the
doctors of the community took samples of the water and took them to a laboratory
and requested an exam that could identify glifosato and it tested positive in a
high percentage, more exactly 71.4 ppm and also stated: NOTE: other detected
traces were not identified.
The preceding
account of one of the many times that the fumigation and irrigation with
biological agents occurred, lasted between 40 and 60 days; the military siege
lasted more than half a year. The great majority of the ones that were
photographed are no longer living, and one of them whose name was Arturo Usuga,
one day in the city while washing his car in the company of his youngest son, an
individual on a bicycle approached them, pulled out a photograph from his pocket
and looked at it and looked at him, then pulled out a weapon and shot him with
it until taking his life.
Another whose
name was Pedro Diaz Granados, who was also at the Temple in those days, a farmer
who was an apiarist (beekeeper), while examining his beehives there arrived an
armed group at his farm, a group of men who said were paramilitaries and with
list in hand identified him, escorted him to the house and in one of his rooms
shot him causing his death.
In
a region of the coast where 3 Taoists lived, father, mother, and son, there
arrived a group that, according to the surviving son, said were paramilitaries;
they told them to make them lunch, they prepared it for them and after they had
eaten they told the elderly man and woman: “sit down that we are going to pay
you” and they sat down and they told them: “you are Taoists, right?” And
they said “yes”. They covered their faces and mouths with bandages telling
them “don’t scream that this won’t hurt”, and immediately cut their
heads off with machetes and proceeded to pick their bodies in pieces, and threw
them on the roof of the house, which was made of straw, poured gasoline on it
and lit it on fire. While this was happening, the son was trying to save his
life running through the hills, and upon discovering his escape, they shot him,
injuring him in the leg. He nonetheless managed to get to a hospital and pass on
this information to the Taoists from that town… and it has not been heard from
him since. Those three also had been to the Temple where they had been
photographed and registered into the books in the days of the military siege.
And so sporadically, but continuously, they have been torturing, mutilating, and
assassinating Taoists; the testimonies of their family members we will be
sending later, given that the death certificates, certificates of the deceased,
the only act of requesting them has become a mortal danger since there already
are Taoists whose lives are in danger for having requested this, since they have
been told: “it is better that if you like life that you don’t request
anything.”
Also 2 of the
creators of the International Taoists Territory of Peace were tortured and
assassinated in Rionegro, Antioquia, and were left almost unrecognizable. Since
then they have perpetrated 4 massacres, that according to the survivors, the
protagonists of these massacres have identified themselves as paramilitaries and
with lists in hand have been assassinating Taoists; since this account is brief
I will not extend it to the hundreds of events that we could include, due to the
shortness of time, but if it is your volition we can recompile them with some
time, and in order to conclude for now I want to cite 3 things:
If it is to your liking, I can in a later occasion relate many more things, as terrible as the preceding ones, and even more, since all this persecution is even harsher in the zone or region where they believe are to be found the Venerable Maestros Kelium Zeus and Samael Joab Bahtor Whehorh, whose whereabouts are asked of the great majority of the ones that have been massacred, since they are their principal objective, to the point of even bombarding entire towns in the belief that they are in those towns, but these are other facts.
For
further information please write to: comunidadtao@hotmail.com
or libertad_de_religion@hotmail.com