1. Divide &
Convert (Tahiti) – One of the most efficient
way and brutal ways that Missionaries have converted large
amounts of people is by dividing and conquering. Missionaries
will persuade a leader of a tribe that they will arm him
and allow him to defeat a rival tribal if he converts to
Christianity. After the conquering and pillaging of the
opposing tribe, under the rule of the converted leader,
both tribes convert to Christianity. One classical example
occurred is the story of how the South Pacific was converted:
In 1797, thirty years
after the discovery of Tahiti by Wallis, the first missionaries
landed on the island. The missionaries, sent by the London
Missionary Society, tried for seven years to convert the
natives but were unable to make any headway.
It was then that they
discovered, as if by miracle, the proper method of converting
the Tahitians. They discovered that the local chief, Pomare,
liked alcohol (distilled by the missionaries) so much that
he became an alcoholic. Addicted to the distilled spirit
(perhaps the "holy" spirit), Pomare agreed to
back the missionaries in their work of conversion. Pomare,
supplied with western firearms, easily subdued his native
opponents. Upon his victory over his rivals, the whole
island was forcibly converted in one day.
Then the process of inculcating
"Christian virtues" began. Persistent unbelievers,
those who refused to be converted, were executed. Singing
was banned (except for hymns) and all forms of adornment,
flowers or tattoo were disallowed. Of course, surfing and
dancing were not permitted as well. The punishment for breaking
any of these rules included, among others, being sentenced
to hard labor.
Within thirty years of
missionary control, the population of Tahiti fell from an
initial estimate of 20,000 to 6,000. On another island,
Raiatea, a man who was able to forecast the weather by studying
the behavior of fish was executed for witchcraft. The missionaries
continued this tactic from island to island and managed
to convert the whole South Pacific.
Though this method was
used centuries ago, it is still a commonly used tactic used
by Christian Missionaries in tribal areas of Asia and Africa.
2. Terrorist Organizations
(North-East India) – These relatively small
armed tribal groups are eventually nurtured by Missionaries
into violent and sadistic terrorist groups:
On December 4th, 2000,
Christians converts under the direction of Missionaries,
desecrated an ashram (Hindu religious retreat) set up by
murdered Hindu leader Shanti Kumar Tripura. . They desecrated
Hindu idols and destroyed photos of the slain religious
leader revered by both Hindu tribals and Bengalis. The Christian
converts also raped two female devotees and brutally
attacked two men who had come to the ashram for puja
(religious rituals).
The next day, Christian
converts brutally desecrated another ashram at Jirania Khola
and forced the inmates to stop all Hindu rituals and practices
at gunpoint. A group of seven armed converted Christian
terrorists barged into the ashram and threatened the 150
Hindus with dire consequences if they continued to perform
Hindu rites at the ashram. The terrorists fled only after
a large group of locals rushed to the ashram.
Due to threats by violent
Missionaries and their Christian converts, altogether 11
ashrams, schools and orphanages set up by the murdered Hindu
leader in various parts of the state have been forcibly
closed down by the Christian fundamentalist terrorist organization
known as “National Liberation Front of Tripura”
(NLFT).
In early October the same
Christian fundamentalists had issued a diktat ordering the
indigenous tribal Hindus to stay away from Durga Puja celebrations
(Hindu Festival) and warned that any tribal members seen
taking part in the festival would be instantly killed. In
its official public statement, the NLFT said it wanted all
tribals in Tripura to become Christians. They also stated
that salvation for Tripura lies only in Christianity and
would eliminate anyone who dared to come in the way of their
plans to forcibly convert all of Tripura to Christianity.
NFLT is still an active
and powerful terrorist organization that operates in Northeast
India. They have converted many Hindus and tribals forcibly
at gunpoint, and are involved in rapes, and assassinations.
They continue to receive arms as well as moral and financial
support from Western Christian organizations and Missionaries.
3. Manhunts (South
America) - Another method, aptly called "manhunt",
involves the missionaries going out, sometimes in motorized
vehicles, hunting for natives to integrate them
into reservations set up for missionary work. The New Tribes
Mission (NTM), for instance, went on such a manhunt in Paraguay.
Five missionized natives were killed in one such manhunt.
Those unconverted natives were taken to the NTM camp in
Campo Loro. Within a short while, according to Survival
International, all had died of new diseases
they had no immunity to. Stung by criticism, the best reply
the NTM 's Director in Paraguay could muster was: "We
don't go after people anymore. We just provide transport."
In another such "manhunt"
in 1979, also in Paraguay, one of the frightened natives
fell down from a tree and broke her leg. (Her right breast
had already been shot off by a previous encounter with
the missionaries.) She was compelled, with her broken leg,
to walk back to the mission camp. She subsequently died.
4. Kidnappings
- In conjunction with the "manhunt",
converted natives are trained by the missionaries to carry
guns. The "newly contacted" natives are then rounded
off to the mission camp. One American organization, Cultural
Survival, reported in 1986 that natives in the NTM camp
in Paraguay kidnapped and forced into missionary
schools.
5. Forced Captivity
– In one such Missionary camp, a witness
described the situation of the kidnapped captives:
”I … saw two
old ladies lying on some rags on the ground in the last
stages of emaciation and clearly on the verge of death.
One was unconscious, the second in what was evidently a
state of catalepsy...In the second hut lay another
woman, also in a desperate condition and with untreated
wounds on her legs. A small, naked, tearful boy sat at her
side...The three women and the boy had been taken in a recent
forest roundup, the third woman having being shot in
the side while attempting to escape.”
6. Genocide (Brazil)
– There are many accounts of genocide committed
by Missionaries but they rarely reported in Christian media
because of the perverse nature of the crime and because
they are usually committed against remote tribals. One of
the most horrific massacres was of Brazilian tribals by
the grossly misnamed Indian Protection Service,
which Christian Missionaries supported and often assisted
in killings.
In just a few years, the following tribes population was
reduced due to Missionary genocide:
•
Munducurus tribe: reduced from 19,000 to 1,200
• Guaranis tribe: reduced from 5,000 to 200
• Cajaras tribe: from 4,000 to 400
• Cintas Largas: from 10,000 to 500
• Tapaiunas: completely extirpated
• Other tribes were reduced to only a few (one or
two!) individuals and some by only a single family.
The Missionaries employed some of the
following methods in their killings:
• The Cintas Largas
were attacked by dropping dynamites from airplanes.
• The Maxacalis were given alcohol and then shot
down when they became drunk.
• The Nhambiquera were killed in huge numbers by
machine gun fire.
• Two Patachos tribes were exterminated by giving
the unsuspecting Indians smallpox injections.
• Some of the Indians were murdered by presenting
them with food laced with arsenic and formicides.
• One missionary persuaded 600 Ticuna Indians that
the end of the world is taking place and they will only
be safe on a ranch. On that ranch the Indians were made
slaves and tortured.
• The Bororos tribe was banned from performing customary
religious rites on the dead. Deprived of their cultural
identity, the Bororos, instead of converting, committed
suicide on by one, until the tribe was extinct.
7. Intentional
Denial of Medicines- In another New Tribes Mission
(NTM) mission camp, many of the natives either died from
starvation or from diseases transmitted by the missionaries
for which they had no immunity against. In one such mission
camp in Paraguay, the German anthropologist, Dr. Mark Munzel,
reported that food and medicine were deliberately withheld
by the missionaries. From a total of 277 natives in April
1972 only 202 survivors were left three months later. A
US congressional report confirmed that 49% of the camp population
had vanished!
In Bolivia, William Pencille,
of the South American Missionary Society, was called in
to help when white ranchers moving into the tribal areas
came upon the Ayoreos. Pencille persuaded these natives
to stop resisting the encroachment of the cattlemen and
to settle on a patch of barren land beside a railroad tract.
The natives, having no resistance to common diseases of
the "modern" man, began to die. Throughout all
this Pencille had the means to save the lives of these people.
He had access to many modes of transport, including an airplane,
and to funds which could easily have been used to buy medicines
for them. Yet this is what he said: "It's better
they should die. Then I baptize them (on the point of death)
and they go straight to heaven."
