A house divided:
 The fragile peace in the polygamous community of Bountiful in B.C. may soon be shattered with the arrival of a rival religious leader's bodyguard
 
By Daphne Bramham
Edmonton Journal
 
VANCOUVER -- Last week, Canada Customs officers searched the car of an American driving across the border between Idaho and British Columbia.

The man is known to customs officials, says Jennifer Leenhouts, chair of the Canada Employment and Immigration Union's women's committee.

He is a bodyguard to Warren Jeffs, the new prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Jeffs was already at the polygamous FLDS community of Bountiful, near Creston in southeastern British Columbia.

What the officers found in the bodyguard's vehicle were ammunition clips -- but no ammunition -- for a semi-automatic assault weapon and some rifle shells. Because they did not find semi-automatic weapons or any other guns and because the man's papers were in order, he was allowed to enter Canada.

Within the last two weeks, two "brides" -- polygamous "wives" -- from Bountiful went to the United States to live with their American husbands. An unknown number of others were turned back at the U.S. border after they failed to produce proper documentation.

The brides were assigned to their husbands by Jeffs during his visit. The FLDS believes only the prophet gets a revelation from God about who can marry.

The FLDS, a breakaway sect of the Mormon Church, is under investigation by the RCMP and B.C. government because of allegations of sexual exploitation, sexual and physical abuse, trafficking in women across the U.S. border and teaching racism and white supremacy in its private, but publicly funded, school.

What divides the FLDS from mainstream Mormons is polygamy. While FLDS followers believe polygamy is the way to heaven, mainstream Mormons renounced polygamy more than a century ago.

Tensions within the FLDS and fears of violence have been increasing since Jeffs took control in September 2002 following the death of his father, Prophet Rulon Jeffs.

Warren Jeffs circumvented the usual succession order, and to maintain control over the past year, he has excommunicated scores of senior leaders, including Winston Blackmore, the former bishop of Bountiful.

Jeffs declared them apostates, pariahs doomed to eternal damnation.

In Utah and Arizona, Jeffs has evicted men from homes they built on FLDS-owned property. Others have returned home to find themselves locked out of their own houses, their wives and children missing.

The women and children, like the men's homes and other possessions, were redistributed to others who are loyal to Jeffs.

Because of Blackmore's enduring popularity among more than half of Bountiful's 1,000 residents, Jeffs has yet to do anything so dramatic in Bountiful.

However, many fear the day is coming. Confirmation that Jeffs's bodyguard was in Canada added weight to rumours that Jeffs was issuing eviction orders to his loyalists to carry out in Bountiful.

The rift is another complication for investigators here and in the United States. But it may also provide an opportunity, because some of the excommunicated may decide to provide evidence to back the allegations against FLDS leaders.

That's certainly what Kirk Torgensen, chief deputy attorney general in Utah, was hoping for when senior FLDS members were excommunicated.

So far, it hasn't happened.

Nearly four years ago, Utah hired a special investigator for what it calls "closed-end societies" to get to the bottom of the allegations involving a variety of polygamist groups, especially North America's largest, the FLDS.

There have been a couple of successful prosecutions, but it's tough slogging.

As Torgensen said recently, it's impossible to infiltrate the community, which does not accept converts. "It's easier to turn somebody in the Mafia than these people. In the Mafia, it's a lifestyle. With these people, it's their soul. It's an entirely different setup."

Last month, Jeffs's nephew filed a civil suit alleging he was repeatedly molested and sodomized by Warren Jeffs and his two brothers -- Blaine and Leslie -- over a two-year period when he was five and six years old. The nephew, who is now 21, alleges the assaults took place in the basement of a Salt Lake City private school run by the FLDS.

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff told the Arizona Republic newspaper that his state's criminal task-force investigators would look into all the allegations made in the suit.

In addition to the charges of sexual assault, the 24-page suit alleges that Warren Jeffs ruined the lives of an estimated 200 young men who were expelled from Colorado City and Hildale between the ages of 13 and 21 after they began to show an interest in girls their age -- girls largely destined to become wives of the leaders.

This is the same Warren Jeffs who has unprecedented access to Bountiful's children and their education as spiritual leader and director of Bountiful school.

One of the things he teaches is that FLDS followers do not have to obey man's laws, only God's laws and that God's laws are revealed to them through him, the prophet.

"Priesthood is the celestial law," Jeffs said in a sermon last year.

"Priesthood is the government, power and authority of God restored from heaven to earth, given to man; and it governs and controls all things ..."

All FLDS men over the age of 12 can join the priesthood. But only the prophet can get revelations from God about who can marry. As a result, he holds the keys to heaven, because FLDS believe only men with three wives can enter heaven. And wives can enter only if their husbands invite them.

Jeffs recently told students in the FLDS community of Colorado City: "No man can become a god if he has only one wife and no man can be a god with no wives. He's just a bachelor. To be a god, he must have many wives."

If it works on sheer numbers alone, Jeffs's entry to heaven seems assured. While no one is certain how many wives and children he has, reports suggest nearly 100 wives and several hundred children.

The same Warren Jeffs, who is subject to investigations in two states for tax and welfare fraud, is the one who will cash a B.C. government cheque for nearly $500,000. The cheque is for Bountiful school this fall. Last year, it received $460,826 in government grants.

Education Minister Tom Christensen has said he's heard complaints about the school, but has no evidence that would cause him to stop funding the school.

Although Blackmore continues to be supported by the majority of residents of Bountiful, Jeffs's base is the 10,000-strong, twin communities of Colorado City and Hildale. From there, he controls the United Effort Plan trust, which has land and corporate holdings valued in the tens of millions of dollars.

But Blackmore is fashioning himself as a kinder, gentler leader to the 600 or so people who remain loyal to him. He's recently started allowing his followers more freedom to do things, such as watch television, use the Internet and adhere less strictly to the dress code.

It's this more relaxed attitude that is attracting disaffected and excommunicated Americans to his side. And Blackmore is encouraging that by building two new communes in Idaho.

Blackmore was a loyal follower of Jeffs's father -- loyal enough that "Uncle Rulon" put Blackmore on the board of the United Effort Plan trust.

The United Effort, according to documents filed with the B.C. land titles office, "is the effort and striving on the part of church members toward the United Holy Order. This central principle of the church requires the gathering together of faithful church members on consecrated and sacred lands to establish as one pure people the Kingdom of God on earth under the guidance of Priesthood leadership."

In addition to a position on the trust's board, Rulon rewarded Blackmore with 26 wives, who have produced more than 90 children.

But just months before the 92-year-old Rulon Jeffs died, he revoked Blackmore's board membership, along with his ability to do what he wanted with the UEP trust property in Canada.

A month after Rulon Jeffs died in September 2002, Warren Jeffs tightened his grip on the trust by installing three of his loyalists on the board.

Within days, they had taken control of the UEP's 92 hectares at the heart of Bountiful. The land and its buildings are valued at $2.64 million.

It took a B.C. Supreme Court order, but Jeffs also wrested control of Bountiful elementary secondary school away from Blackmore in 2003. The school property and buildings are valued at $485,400.

The school also provides cash flow from B.C. taxpayers. The school has been licensed by the B.C. education ministry as an independent school.

One of the recurrent themes in the FLDS is "keeping sweet" and being obedient to the church's leaders. The motto is spelled out in white stones at the entrance to the school and it dominates Jeffs's taped sermons played for students.

"To be loyal to Heavenly Father, to truly love Him and obey Him, you must keep sweet no matter what. If your feelings can be disturbed, then you simply need more of the Spirit of God," Jeffs's soothing monotone exhorts on one tape.

"The price is sacrifice. Set aside any feeling or thought that disturbs the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is the feeling, a burning, a real feeling of peace, a power where you can control your feelings and be in tune."
 
Edmonton Journal
Originally published Sunday, August 15, 2004
 
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