WACO: THE FLAME STILL BURNS

By GINIA BELLAFANTE

They arrived by the dozens to mourn, but not all were wearing black. Among the 200 people who flocked to Mount Carmel, Texas, last Wednesday for a vigil commemorating the second anniversary of the Waco blaze were strutting men bedecked in camouflage. They were members of the North Texas Constitutional Militia, a paramilitary group, and they brought with them a granite stone carved with the names of the victims who died when the Branch Davidian cult went up in flames on April 19, 1993, following a 51-day standoff with the Federal Government. An 11-year-old niece of polygamist cult leader David Koresh approached the memorial and traced the names of the 82 victims, murmuring, "My cousin . my cousin . my uncle . my cousin."

During the ceremony, 285 miles to the north, a bomb ravaged an Oklahoma City federal building, blasting concrete and metal and lives, and creating a whole nation of mourners. At first the timing of the explosion seemed like nothing more than an eerie coincidence. But soon evidence of a connection surfaced. In an FBI affidavit taken after Timothy McVeigh's arrest, a former co-worker claimed that the bombing suspect had been unusually aggrieved by the government's conduct in Waco.

Waco still burns feverishly for the 50 or so remaining members of the Branch Davidian sect, their relatives and their far-right supporters who feel a passionate allegiance to a group they believe was unjustly ambushed by an oppressive government. Pam Hawkins, a Branch Davidian sympathizer and founder of the Mount Carmel Independent Investigation Advocates, said that her first reaction to the news of the Oklahoma bombing was that it might have been a "planned disruption" of the Waco commemoration. "I have learned," she said grimly, "not to give the government the benefit of the doubt."

A mind-set that can entertain the notion that the Federal Government would car-bomb its own day-care center in order to disrupt a ragtag vigil is a mind-set that won't easily be appeased by government denials. After a 1993 investigation, the Justice Department blamed the Davidians for the suicidal fire and absolved the FBI of responsibility. Various groups of survivors and families of victims have initiated lawsuits against the Federal Government, seeking more than $1.5 billion in total damages. One group has hired former Attorney General and leftish advocate Ramsey Clark to handle its case. At the vigil he told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that his clients aren't interested in money but "want truth to prevail."

Clive Doyle is a survivor of the blaze who lost his daughter to the flames and suffered extensive burns himself. "Waco," he says, "is a wake-up call for people in the sense that they saw their government at work against citizens, perhaps for the first time." Doyle has done much to keep the memory of Waco alive. He is the informal leader of the 10 or so sect members who still live near Waco, and he leads the group in religious services every Saturday; some worshippers reportedly expect Koresh to be resurrected. Until that happens, Doyle is the unofficial supervisor of the Mount Carmel site, and last week also oversaw the planting of a grove of crape myrtle trees there. Nothing, though, has revived the memory of Waco like the horror that supplanted it last week. "We are not calling for people to do this kind of thing," says Doyle. Then he adds, "But it does help in a sense that Waco was not forgotten."

--By Ginia Bellafante. Reported by Hilary Hylton/Austin

With reporting by Hilary Hylton/Austin