CIA "missionaries" shilled for US mining and pharmaceutical firms

CIA "missionaries" shilled for US mining and pharmaceutical firms

Published: Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Bylined to: Wayne Madsen

CIA "missionaries" in Delta Amacuro shilled for US mining and pharmaceutical firms

The Wayne Madsen Report: More evidence surfaces of Christian evangelicals being folded into US intelligence operations. As previously reported, Christian evangelical groups, linked to an entity called Mission Aviation Fellowship, being involved in off-the-books operations in Afghanistan involving transporting Afghan warlords and high-grade heroin.

Just before Uganda's first multiparty elections in 20 years, Ugandan police arrested Peter Waldron, a 59-year old US citizen from Wyoming in the Kisugu suburb of Kampala along with three Ugandan nationals and a citizen of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Waldron had a business card that identified him as founder of City of Faith Ministries, Inc. and an adviser to an organization called Contact America Group. Waldron was also identified as a freelance journalist, a photographer and a correspondent for a newsletter called The Africa Dispatch.

Waldron had billed himself in an interview with 'The New Republic' as a preacher and information technology consultant. He told the magazine that he was a former member of the US military who became a missionary. He also claimed he was a radio talk show host, Republican Party campaign adviser, and GOP lobbyist and had worked with the Ugandan Health Ministry since 2002.

CIA's new mantra: Spying for Jesus

However, Waldron was also caught in Kampala with four assault rifles and 180 rounds of ammunition. Waldron's publisher was noticed seated in the Ugandan High Court during the show trial of Uganda's opposition leader, Col. Kizza Besigye, who was giving Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni (a close US ally) a strong challenge in recent elections.

* Waldron was charged with terrorism. A US embassy spokeswoman said she could not reveal any details about Waldron, citing his protections under the "US Government's Privacy Act."

After many years of debate within the US intelligence community about the propriety of using journalists and religious personnel as spies, the Waldron arrest suggests that both are now being used by the "new CIA" without restraint.

On March 7, 1999, three US missionaries were arrested at Harare International Airport while trying to board a Swissair flight for Zurich. The three -- Gary Blanchard, Joseph Pettijohn and John Dixon -- who worked for Harvestfield Ministries, a Pentecostal group based in Indiana, were attempting to smuggle a large cache of weapons out of Zimbabwe.

The three had been active in Lubumbashi, in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo's Katanga Province, and were accused of mercenary activities in the diamond- and gold-rich territory.

At their trial in Harare, the three mercenaries claimed the 43 handguns, rifles, and other weapons were for "hunting."

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez also recognized the combination of US intelligence and "missionary" activities when he recently ordered the expulsion of the Sanford, Florida-based New Tribes Mission from their bases in the tribal areas of Amazonas, Bolivar, Apure and Delta Amacuro.

Chavez said the group was a CIA front for US mining and pharmaceutical interests.

* CIA "missionaries" in resource-rich Venezuelan states like Delta Amacuro shill for US mining and pharmaceutical firms

The use by the CIA of religious workers and journalists as spies now puts all legitimate American religious and journalistic activities abroad in severe jeopardy.

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