from "el diario/La Prensa," a Spanish language newspaper published
in New York City. Translated and edited by Toby Mailman.


Uruguay
"CHILDREN OF GOD" "CULT" IN ARGENTINA, URUGUAY

The religious sect "Children of God," dismantled last Wednesday, 
September 1 [1993] in Argentina, and whose members were accused of 
committing "acts of slavery" and different sexual aberrations, has 
been operating for the past few years in the Uruguayan beach resort 
Punta del Este, a woman who preferred to remain anonymous told the 
press on September 3.

"I'm afraid (...) children, those people came to my house and 
have alot of connections," she said.

The woman, who did not know about the group's secret activities
and only sympathized with it because of the presence of so many
children, said the sect rented houses during a number of summers,
which were occupied with couples with a lot of children.

According to the testimony the members of the sect, here known 
as "The Family," sold music cassettes, videos and magazines 
explaining its origins.

A few weeks ago the woman denouncing the sect, who lives in 
Punta del Este, received a telephone call from Buenos Aires and a 
woman belonging to the groups asked her for money to lease a farm in
Montevideo, a city where they are thinking of installing a center
like that which exists in the Argentine capital.

The donation, however, never happened because the caller never 
contacted the potential benefactor again.

For his part the priest Julio Cesar Elizaga, Vatican advisor on
sects and new religions in Latin America, said that he did not 
dismiss the possibility that the organization is still operating in 
Uruguay.

Elizaga recalled that during the past summer there was a very 
heavy "propagandistic presence" of that organization in Punta del 
Este.

"This is a group with spiritual characteristics but with an 
aberrant concept of morality which follows the steps of a sexy God 
and promots the exercise of free sex among everyone, forcing the 
young ones to prostitute themselves as a form of obtaining 
followers," said the expert.

The sect's guide is called "The Basic Mop" [literal translation]
and its members are truly transigent people who constantly change
their houses, cities and countries to avoid being followed by the
police and justice.

According to Elizaga the movement currently has 15,000 members 
in 70 countries.

The priest recalled that in Uruguay their first appearance was 
during the 1960s.

More recently the sect took radio space called "Music with Life"
and its members presented themselves at various institutions and
schools behind the facade of a movement dedicated to the recovery of
drug addicts.

The case which moved Argentina acquired notoriety on September 1
when the police "rescued" 300 children of different nationalities and
took 30 adults, mostly foreigners, prisoner.

The sect was founded in California (US) in 1968 by David Brande
Berg [sic], who had left a Christian missionary alliance and began to
preach in middle-class communities in Huntington Beach. (ed-LP 9/4/93
from AFP)

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