Posted on 04/01/2002 2:56:12 PM PST by B-Chan
"Crusaders" Rescue 20 From Burning Church
'No connection to Vatican' says Papal Rep
by USO TSUKINO
(JAKARTA, INDONESIA) A congegration of twenty Indonesian Christians were rescued from their burning church today in a by a military force of unknown origin.
The Kristos Congregation Church in Jakarta was celebrating Easter sunrise services yesterday morning when the building in the largely Chinese section of Jakarta was surrounded by a mob led by members of the radical Islamic Jihad Fist party. Within minutes, the mob had set fire to the building and blockaded the exits. The terrified congregation, led by minister Pastor Xinhua Walters, managed to keep the fire at bay using gardening hoses, but smoke and heat forced them to huddle in the basement as the hours passed. By evening the church was in full blaze. Members of the church called for help from the police using cellphones and the church's shortwave radio transmitter, but the police did not respond. By two a.m., the surviving twenty members of the church were huddled in a basement water closet waiting to die.
"Like A Dark Angel"
Then, at about 3:40 a.m., reports of military action at a nearby football pitch were received by Jakarta-area civil guard units. Upon arrival, police and military forces were confronted with the sight of a large black military aeroplane that had just landed on the empty pitch. "It swept in like a dark angel," said one observer, a charwoman at the local youth sports club. "I didn't think it could land in such a short distance, but it did. I ran away as fast as I could." As the aircraft pulled to a stop the police and Guard units took up positions of defense, but bullhorn orders to deplane and surrender were ignored. The police and military units then opened fire on the aircraft. The fire was returned, both from the aircraft itself and from what local witnesses described as 'pre-positioned' ambush sites. Caught in a withering crossfire, the respondent police and Guard units were decimated. Witnesses report that "a company" of soldiers in camouflaged gear mounted in light armored vehicles emerged from the aircraft and proceeded from the field at high speed, leaving behind the surviving police and Guard units. The survivors were found in a nearby gymnasium after the battle, sedated and with their wounds dressed. One survivor, a Guard captain, reported that the "invaders" had treated his wounds and handled him and his comrades carefully after the battle.
Speeding Through Town
Ten minutes later, witnesses at the scene of the riot heard a series of explosions and saw bright flashes. At about the same time a helicopter was heard overhead. "A voice came from a bullhorn, a loudspeaker on the helicopter. It said that we should disperse peacefully in two minutes, or be fired upon," said Kandy Jaffa, a local shopkeeper, who was standing in an alleyway about fifty meters from the plaza where the church was located. "The bright lights reminded me of fireworks. They were very bight, a lot of people left the area when they went off. I assumed it was the Guard, since I didn't think the police would shoot from a helicopter. I ducked back into my shop to be safe." A number of the insurgents in the mob responded by firing assault rifles and other small arms at the helicopter, which was circling overhead through clouds of dense black smoke. Then, without warning, the mob came under fire from what witnesses and police agree were "military grade automatic heavy weapons." The fire, believed to be from the helicopter, swept the plaza, panicking the crowd and causing a stampede. "The bullets were from a heavy-grade gun, maybe a 20mm rotorgun," said Dr. Amin Jaheel, a local emergency room surgeon. "The impact was tremendous, Men, women, and children were cut down -- maybe two dozen hit in all, with twelve dead here in my ward." The stampeding crowd trampled to death many more as the rioters ran for any cover they could find.
Then, according to witnesses, two unmarked light armored vehicles entered the plaza. One pulled to a stop in front of the burning building, while the other drove in a circle around the plaza firing at will. Figures in "silver spacesuits" emerged from the stationary vehicle and entered the burning church. Four to five minutex passed, then an explosion occurred at the rear of the sanctuary building occurred. From the area of the explosion a line of people emerged, holding on to each other by their clothing, led and surrounded by men in camouflaged fatigue uniforms and balaclava masks holding military assault rifles at the ready. "The men were guarding the Christians, not pointing the guns at them," said a local woman. "The guns were pointed outwards, towards the plaza." The masked commandos led ten of the rescued churchgoers to the stationary vehicle, which then began to circle the plaza as the remaining ten were led aboard the second vehicle. Then both vehicles sped off through the streets of the town, with the helicopter overhead.
"A Daring Escape"
It was by now around 4:45 a.m. Army units called to the soccer pich east of the church arrived just as the black aeroplane was taking off. Witnesses on the scene reported that the two light armored vehicles had entered the gates of the sports complex about ten minutes beforehand and had driven straight aboard the aircraft. The Army units watched as the transport aircraft took off, barely clearing the row of flats at the end of the pitch. "It was a daring escape," reported a Guard pilot on the scene. "The field that pitch occupies is no more than two hundred years long. I never thought it possible that such a large aircraft could take off on such a short approach." The Army units did not attempt to enter the pitch during the takeoff due to warning signs, apparently placed by the mysterious invaders, advising of the presence of a minefield. Army authorities refused to confirm the presence of mines at the pitch, but the area remains closed today.
'This Is Holy War"
Ten hours later, a distress call was received by a cutter of the Singapore naval force near the entrance to the city harbor. The call came from a container ship, the SeaLand Mercury, which had been reported off course two hours earlier. Upon boarding, the captain of the container ship reported that he had been boarded at sea by men from a helicopter, who had offloaded twenty people onto his vessel. "The men were masked and armed, but they did not raise their weapons or threaten us," said the ship's master, James Galloway. "They didn't say a word other than ordering us to heave to and prepare to be boarded. They landed on the deck, put those hurt people on board, and told us to radio Singapore for help. Then they flew off." The twenty people offloaded proved to be the only survivors of the Kristos Congregation Church.
After transferring Pastor Walters and his parishoners to a local hospital, the police searched their effects. Folded in the clothing of each one they discovered twenty identical facsimiles of a printed announcement claiming responsibility for the rescue. The annoucements, claiming to be authored by a group calling itself "The Crusaders", detailed the groups aims and intentions. "The military action in Indonesia today was conducted by Christian soldiers acting in defense of their brothers and sisters in the Faith. No more will Islamic jihad against Christians go unanswered. We do not seek bloodshed, but neither will we tolerate the murder or oppression of Christians by the infidel. This Crusade will continue until all Christendom is safe. THIS WAR IS JUST WAR. THIS WAR IS HOLY WAR." The missives were signed "DEUS VULT", a Latin phrase meaning "God wills it!", a phrase most historians associate with battle-cry of the soldiers of the First Crusade, which began in 1095 A.D.
"Deus Vult" is also the motto of a controversial quasi-military organization known as the Cross Knights. Led by Pierre Martel, a former French Legion Etrangére commander and author of several books on the Crusades, the Cross Knights came under scrutiny by Quai d'Oray last year after Martel published a call for a "vigorous, armed response to Jihad" on the Cross Knights' website last fall. Although not endorsed by the Vatican, M. Martel's group regularly campaigns for the "revival of Christendom" and for absolute loyalty to the Pope and bishops. He is reported to have requested Papal authorization for "a Vatican-backed rapid-deployment military force to act in defense of Christians everywhere" during an audience with His Holiness in May of 1999. Acccording to Il'osservatore, the Pope declined to pursue this proposal. Known to be a favorite of the Legitimist far right, M. Martel retired from public life last year after agents of the EU Agency of Special Security raided his publishing company headquarters in Nimes. The agents confiscated the company computers and files, but later dropped the investigation after M. Martel agreed to leave the country. He moved his operation to the Kingdom of Tonga in the spring of 2000 and has kept a low profile since, publishing several books on orthodoxy and theology. M. Martel, the son of a noble French family, is reportedly one of the richest men in France and is the main stockholder in a number of global businesses. One of these businesses is the highly secretive Hammer Security Service, also headquartered in Tonga, which provides "site security" to oil platforms, pipelines, and the like in dangerous areas of the world. This morning agents of the EUASS attempted to serve a search warrants for M. Martel and Hammer Security but were rebuffed by Tongan authorities. French calls for a full inquiry into M. Martel's business and military activities were submitted to the Embassy of the Kingdom of Tonga in Paris today.
Adding weight to the suspicions of French authorities' suspicion of the Cross Knights is a photograph taken during the Jakarta raid this morning. The photograph, taken by an amateur photographer on the scene, shows a military cargo transport aircraft flying over the burning church at low altitude. The aircraft, resembling a United States C-130 type, can be seen to bear faint markings when the photograph is increased in contrast (see inset). These markings resemble the "Jerusalem Cross" hoisted by the Crusaders over the Holy Land after its conquest from the Moslems during the First Crusade. A similar cross is the trademark used by the Cross Knights' publishing arm.
World Response
Response around the world was almost entirely negative. Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, and Libya officially condemned the "act of brigandage and murder" carried out by the "Crusaders." A spokesmen for Hamas said, "We all know that the Vatican is behind this. What other entity could afford the expense of equipping and training such a unit?" Vatican sources deny the Church has "any involvement or connection" with this morning's raid. The United States ambassador to Indonesia declined to comment on the matter. The Foreign Ministry (of Japan) has issued a call for "further inquiry" into the matter as well as a statement regretting the loss of lives. As for the Republic of Indonesia itself, its government has so far refused all comment on the affair.
Tokyo 2002.04.01
Take pity on me and tell me if it's an April Fool's joke.
sigh, it's so tiring to be me!
We've got flying nuns, and we're not afraid to use them.
I like to read them even if they aren't true.
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