Opening the Doors of hell in India
Apologies for not posting in these parts for a while, but various reality-based necessities have intruded and limited my scope for wildcat investigation and general commentary. Never fear though, as I’ve got an intriguing tale up my sleeve to rouse the GNN crowd from its stupor. It involves hijacked wifi connections, mysterious car thefts, illegally rented apartments and the death of about 40 innocent people in the city of Ahmedenebad, India. It may also involve a whole lot more, and certainly more than the media is letting on (or willing to see).
Anyhow, let’s survey the facts of the matter as they stand. Last week 22 separate bomb blasts claimed between 42 and 45 lives in Ahmedabad, western India. This is nothing unusual, alas, in India at the moment, where bombings are becoming depressingly regular occurences. Authorities never seem to catch the culprits, and different groups continue to pop up to claim responsibility, although the police and the commentariat invariably use each atrocity as an opportunity to crack down on muslim student groups, or various factions in India’s criminal underworld.
Last week’s blasts were no exception. When a note claiming responsiblity did emerge, it was sent to India’s largest television networks, written in English and originating from a standard Yahoo account. It was also signed by a group called the “Indian mujahadeen” – previously unknown to authorities – and it focused on massacres committed by Hindus against Muslims (such as the Gujarat pogroms of 2002). The subject line of the note was “Await 5 minutes for the revenge of Gujarat” while its contents thundered that “In the name of Allah the Indian Mujahideen strike again! Do whatever you can, within 5 minutes from now, feel the terror of Death.”
When CNN-IBN received the note, it broadcast its contents and then sent the mail onto India’s police. Then, using some pretty elementary technical nous, the police managed to track the source of the mail to a wifi connection in the Navi Mumbai area of Mumbai, a newish development targeted decidedly at the upper range of Mumbai’s demographics. This was unusual – terrorists operating out of a yuppie suburb. Police also confirmed that the cars used in the Ahmedabad attacks were also stolen from Navi Mumbai.
It was surely then only a matter of time before the attackers were exposed and the kingpin behind the atrocities could be paraded before the cameras in a coup for justice against rampant islamist terror… But there was a snag. As I noticed in the Guardian yesterday, when police tracked down the wifi signal it turned out that the laptop from which it emanated belonged not to a wizened old sheik or a member of Mumbai’s mafia families, but to an “expat American” by the name of Kenneth Haywood.
What the hell had happened? Haywood claimed that his account had been hacked and that the terrorists had sneaked into his apartment block, used his connection and then scarpered, hiding their tracks as they went. Quite why they would then steal the cars from the same area, thereby alerting police to their activities (and providing an opportunity to track them down on CCTV etc..) was not explained.
Nevertheless, by and large the international and Indian media have accepted Haywood’s story. And who are we to disbelieve an account as reasonable as this (from the Guardian):
The Hindustan Times newspaper quoted Haywood, a business consultant, as saying the technician who set up the web connection had insisted he not change his default password…He told the paper he had already complained about excessively high browsing bills: “I found that my net usage had suddenly increased and I started getting inflated bills.”
As Parambir Singh of India’s anti-terrorist squad put it, “We are not saying that they are suspects, but at the same time we cannot, at the moment, give them a clean chit.” And this was sensible, as Haywood’s computer remains in the lab being tested where, as the Hindu reports today, “it [will] take three or four days for completing the analysis of the hard disk.”
Meanwhile, Singh’s boss, Hemant Karkare told the Indian daily that “Experts are still on the job” and that Haywood, “is very much on the radar of suspicion.”
Is it possible that an American working for what one paper describes as a “multi-national company” and another describes as an “executive training firm” could have been somehow involved in the massacre of 42 innocent people? Or, to add some more pertinent information, was he involved in the attempted massacre of hundreds more? Since the bombs exploded in Ahmedabad, police have found 19 devices in the town of Surat, some placed in packed marketplaces, and 7 explosions have hit Bangalore, with one fatality.
It is possible that Haywood has been the victim of an horrendous example of identity theft. Certainly, it would be nice to give a respectable guy who “has more than 20 years of experience in hands-on corporate training and has held senior positions with Fortune 500 companies” the benefit of the doubt.
The only problem is, Campbell White, the firm that Haywood works for, is not a multinational company at all. Or, if it is, it’s certainly a very strange one. What I’ve managed to find out is that Campbell White is effectively a front for a far right Christian cult, and is far from the image being spun by Haywood and the media. This will take a little explaining, but it’s well worth it.
Fortunately for them, Campbell White erased key details of its staff from its website in early July 2008. Unfortunately for them, Google caches such things, so ferrets like me can have ready access. What you find is a list of American and Australian expats fulfilling the usual roles (India managing director, manager of human resources etc..) Superficially there is nothing odd about that at all. What you find at the current site, however, is a strange list of first names (no “Ken” you might notice).- http://campbellwhite.net/staff/staff.htm
Anyhow, a little googling around with the actual names produces some very interesting results. I do hope the Indian police have been doing this, I really do. First port of call was to assess Campbell White’s corporate history, to provide a little meat to the investigation. What you find is a cached webpage describing how the very same firm provides(d) “chauffeur drive buses and taxis” in Bangalore, through its Bangalore Chauffeur Driven Buses and Taxis subsidiary. That taxi company was headed by the same
David Curwen Walker (“an experienced chauffeur with over 25 years of professional driving in Australia and Africa”) who has since become “responsible for our Internal Legal Department, and integration of International Operations Training” according to the staff list deleted this month. Talented guy.
So I searched for David’s web presence, figuring that a man with such experience would be all over the net. It turned out that he wasn’t really, but that a David Curwen Walker had posted a couple of items on a site called
Churchfinder.( http://churchfinder.wordpress.com/ ). At that site, Curwen Walker described himself as a “pastor” of the Door Christian Church in Kammanahalli dispensing “good, solid preaching of the Word of God.” Nice of him to balance driving, legal services and serving the Lord.
Anyhow, thinking that googling staff members had been a relative success so far, I picked another member with a distinctive name, Scott Grabowska. Astonishingly, a
Scott Grabowska was listed (
http://www.thedoorchurch.com/index.php?action=viewday&time=1203231600&module=calendarmodule&src=%40random43548944aa9f2 ) as hosting a “special revival service” at the Door Church in Englewood Colorado, nightly services at the Potter’s House Christian Fellowship Church in Virginia Beach, VA and a service in Shreveport, Louisiana as well. This, while serving Campbell White, perhaps, as “International Protocol Trainer.”
Thinking that this could be a notable coincidence, I soldiered on, adding
Jonathan Heimberg to the list. Heimberg is listed as Campbell White’s tech guy (“Senior Manager Information Services”) but could he be related to the Jonathan Heimberg who comments from Bangalore on the website worldcfm.com? Worldcfm, by the way, stands for “world Christian Fellowship Ministries.” Heimberg commented rapturously that “In the last week, we have seen a sovereign move of God. We have tapped a stream of converts from North East India, the state of Nagalin” adding that, “These bright, young people have come to Bangalore for Schooling and Hi-Tech careers, and a great many have begun coming to the church.”
So perhaps I was on a roll. Pushing my luck luxuriously, I moved onto Dan Rubianes, Campbell White’s managing director in Bangalore, no less. Well, google is not very forthcoming with details about Dan, but by sheer coincidence I’ve managed to track down the name at a forthcoming biblical spectacular – the 2008 Chandler International Bible Conference, being hosted by the Door Christian Center ( http://www.thedoorchristiancenter.com/) in Chandler, Arizona. There, a certain Dan Rubianes will be headlining ( http://www.thedoorchristiancenter.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=52&Itemid=1) alongside a certain Pastor Joe Campbell who, could quite easily be a distant relation of the Joe Campbell listed as the USA director of Campbell White.
If you want to get tickets it starts on August 10, so you’d better hurry. Incidentally, last year saw the appearance of a certain Scott Grabowska, so the connections really are rather deep I’d say. I hope you’ve stayed with me long enough to enjoy them.
But what of Ken Haywood himself, our man on the spot with the troublesome wifi connection which spews out hate e-mails seeking to stir up trouble between Hindus and Muslims? Well, armed with the connection between Door Christian Church and Campbell White, I searched for Ken Haywood and Door Ministries. What I found was an extremely detailed website ( http://www.geocities.com/life_after_potters_house/) run by a chap named Steve Schoner and entitled “After Potter’s House..”
It turns out that Schoner was sued in 1994 by a member of Potter’s House (an alternative name for the Door Church). His offence was protesting against the church’s cult like activities in Flagstaff Arizona. As you might have guessed, the man pressing the complaint was the very public spirited, Kenneth Haywood. Perhaps not the same man, but certainly a gem of a coincidence I hope you’ll agree.
Apparently, Haywood sued Schoner et al for “[causing] emotional damages because he referred to them as a cult and that their reaction to that was that they had physical manifestations….including a heart attack” and it was devilish placards like this that brought on the angst:
The dirty heathens! Joking aside, it turns out that the Christian Fellowship Ministries have stirred up a great deal of controversy for their cult like activities. Some parents have gone on the record claiming that their sons and daughters have been “lost” to them for years due to the CFM’s separatist tenets.
In one case, a 5 year old girl was subjected to the sight of a pastor dressing up as the devil and plunging her hands in a bucket of blood. The pastor in question, a man named Dan Mazon, “said the blood was fake, but admitted trying to scare the 5-year-old from sex and drugs” according to a 2004 news report by KPHO Phoenix (http://www.rickross.com/reference/door/door45.html) . Mazon added chillingly that “That’s the problem with this generation that does not understand fear.”
CFM also has a novel and deeply profitable structure. As the KPHO report put it, “Some people also criticize the church’s financial structure, which is a pyramid structure. If one parish is able to set up another church — that church must send 5% of its offerings back to the sponsor church — and send 5% to the Mother church in Prescott [Arizona].” [More info on the church here ( http://www.rickross.com/groups/door.html), courtesy of investigator Rick Ross]
Could it be the CFM has identified an unprecedented growth market for its business model in the teeming millions of India?
CFM founder Wayman Mitchell has shown a passion for the spirit of the subcontinent in the past. As his website documents ( http://www.waymanmitchell.com/Blueprint_From_Heaven.htm) , in 1984 he and several disciples had an emotional experience on the site of the martyrdom of St. Thomas:
It is said that as he preached the gospel to a wild Indian tribe they pierced him through with a spear. As we stood overlooking that city I could not help but think how far this man had come. is so far that it staggers the mind. Remember, he had no airplanes, no modem [sic] means of transportation, none of the things we have…We think it is a great task when we climb on one of those monstrous 747’s to go around the world and land in twenty or thirty hours, but think of Thomas! He’d have to travel for several months at the very least and possibly years, to come to that wild place on the east India coast. This man had a world vision. God stir us as we read this that we may understand the seriousness of what we are talking about. When the Lord Jesus said, “I send you to the nations,” He was talking about a fundamental principle of world evangelism.
Later on, Mitchell related how “Not knowing what we were going to see Mike Maston, Larry Neville, Jack Harris and myself, were standing on the brink of destiny.
God had placed within our hands the tools and the ability to affect that nation for eternity. He was opening the door. We are talking about a sovereign God, a king. This is a royal commission.”
Yes indeed, a “royal commission,” but what Indian police should be asking themselves is what, exactly has been committed?
