Villagers pray cult stays away

CAIWU is a settlement of about 70 farming households in the north of Guangdong province. Muddy paths make it almost inaccessible by car. The village is six hours' drive from the provincial capital Guangzhou; a river separates it from the nearest town of Dawan. Its isolation made it all the more vulnerable when the Beili Emperor Doomsday sect arrived. Members of the cult, including teenagers, met in secret and would not tell even their families what they did at their meetings. They said their god, who had ordered the secrecy, would save them when Doomsday came. Last week, the arrest of some cult leaders in the city of Yingde was reported. No matter how many claims the Government makes that the cult has been smashed, the villagers of Caiwu remain unconvinced. Some worry that their relatives and friends lured into the cult might return to take revenge. 'We fear that our place will become a haunt for those sect people if the Government cannot eradicate the sect itself,' Cai Tianping, a 53-year-old Caiwu farmer, said at the end of the week. His three daughters ran away from home after joining the cult's branch in Caiwu. 'The Government could only catch several senior members of the sect,' Mr Cai said. 'But their followers may come back and give us trouble.' His youngest daughter Cai Yawu, 18, was lured into the cult about two years ago. She later persuaded two of her elder sisters to join. 'At the beginning, they only went to the cult's assembly once a week, mostly on Sundays. Then they went there two times a week and then three to four times a week.' Mr Cai recalled. 'Once they did not return home after staying there for 10 days. They never told us where the assembly was held or what they had done there. They said their god told them to keep it secret and they could be saved by their god on the Doomsday. 'I have not received much education. But I felt that there were problems with it. A good religious group would not ask girls to leave their families. 'I did scold my daughters and also knelt to beg them to leave the cult. But they scolded me and said I would be burned in Hell for preventing them from believing in their god. 'They packed some belongings and ran away before the Lunar New Year. Yawu [the youngest daughter] wrote a letter to us from Guangzhou, criticising the other family members for not joining the cult. 'We have not heard from them since.' THE Beili Emperor was established by a peasant Wu Yangming in his hometown in Anhui province in central China six years ago. The cult's influence has spread to more than 20 big cities and towns around the country. Its branch in northern Guangdong was set up by a local farmer Liu Rong three years ago after he met cult members fleeing to Dawan town to escape a police crackdown. Mr Liu's influence has since spread to eight neighbouring settlements and towns, including Caiwu village, with a total of 400 followers, according to government officials. Officials were surprised that by word of mouth the denomination could snowball to such a size in only three years. While the bulk of followers were found in small villages, there are also believers in the bigger towns and cities in northern Guangdong like Yingde, Hanguang, and Jiulong. Most disturbing for the Government is the fact that the cult has denounced the rule of the Communist Party. It called for the establishment of a new country under the rule of Beili Emperor. Cult followers also persuaded farmers not to sell their produce to the state, not to work in fields, and not to observe Beijing's one-child policy. Yingde city Public Security Bureau official, Zhao Shimu, said they had been investigating the cult's movement in the area for more than a year. 'The Communist Party is determined to sweep away any illegal organisations encouraging superstition, damaging productivity, and disturbing people's lives.' In raids in April and May, security officers smashed about 13 hideouts of cult followers and netted eight of their senior members and another 80 followers in the region, he said. He believed the cult had forced some of its female followers into prostitution. Their beliefs run contrary to official religious policy. A Yingde government propaganda department official said: 'The country only recognises five religions. They are Christian, Catholic, Buddhism, Taoism, and Islam. 'Religious groups other than these five will not be allowed. Our country respects freedom of religion, but we want to have a better management.' The chairman in Yingde of the Three-Self Patriotic Committee - the government-approved Christian group - Father Yang Wenteng, said this week: 'I once attended an assembly of the Beili Emperor. It was held in an ancestral hall, actually an abandoned hut, in a remote village. A dozen people were there. There was no special rite during the assembly and they also talked about Jesus Christ's teachings. 'But they denied Him as the saviour and said His teachings were not good enough. They replaced their god's teachings with those of Jesus Christ. I tried to persuade them to join our committee but they rejected me, laughing at me and saying that I would be burned in Hell on Judgment Day.' Cases like the Beili Emperor highlight the need to improve education in rural areas, according to a teacher at Caiwu village's only primary school. On the outer wall of the brick-built structure slogan has been painted 'Raise People's Quality' but the teacher said not all the village's children could receive proper schooling. 'Children are sometimes busy helping their families in the fields and they can only go to school occasionally,' the teacher said. According to the villagers, Caiwu has a population of 500 to 600 and most of the elderly can neither read nor write. There is only one primary school there and the nearest secondary school is in Dawan town. Some children said they would rather idle away their time swimming in the river or playing with oxen. To them, being educated or literate means little in a village context. Neither the children nor their parents in Caiwu speak Putonghua - the official language. They use the Cantonese dialect. Villager Cai Lu Yaqiao, 52, whose 16-year-old daughter Daxi also ran away from home after joining the cult, said: 'We have been busy working in the fields and do not often have time to teach our children. I am illiterate and when I heard that Daxi had joined a religious group to learn something about Jesus Christ, I thought there should be no problem.'