Fair Game Read online

  Janet McLaughlin paid a high price for standing up to Miscavige. Mike Rinder, who was in ‘The Hole’ on and off between 2004 and 2007, describes a Lord of the Flies style culture inside the compound where former executives were forced to confess to crimes against Scientology they had not committed, reminiscent of the outlandish confessions of those in Chinese thought control camps.31

  While Janet McLaughlin was stuck in ‘The Hole’, her husband, Colm, and at least four other IASA executives were sent to the Freewinds as punishment. One of them was Karleen Desimone.

  At first Karleen was sent to do hard labour in the engine room. ‘It’s hot, it’s extremely loud, it’s smelly, it’s not nice,’32 says Valeska Paris, a colleague of Desimone’s on the Freewinds. Eventually Karleen graduated to the kitchen where she scrubbed pots and pans and peeled vegetables. It was here that she crossed paths with José Navarro.

  José and Karleen already knew each other. When the Venezuelan had first arrived on the ship in 1993, Karleen was on board with her family. Already José sensed the chemistry between the two of them. He wanted to have a relationship with Karleen, but was overruled by senior Scientologists on board. ‘They told me you can’t have anything to do with her, because you’re not a Scientologist yet.’33

  The same excuse could not be used 13 years later when Karleen and José were reunited in the ship’s kitchen. By this time José had more than paid his dues to the Sea Org. But the ship’s hierarchy found new excuses to keep them apart. José was told he could not be friendly with Karleen. She was on the vessel to be punished and was to be treated as if she was on the Rehabilitation Project Force.

  This was easier said than done. Karleen and José were working together in the confined spaces of the Freewinds kitchen. They would brush past each other, talk and flirt, and share cigarettes during meal breaks. After three weeks of simmering sexual tension they vowed to start a relationship once Karleen’s punishment was over.

  These plans were undermined when one of the kitchen staff told the ship’s Master at Arms that something was going on between them. Security removed Karleen from the kitchen and the pair were given a one-month separation order. ‘We were so angry,’ says José. ‘We hadn’t even kissed yet!’34 They became even more determined to be together and they wrote letters to each other in contravention of the separation order.

  At 8 am, on the morning after the one-month separation order had expired, José woke and went to have a cigarette in the smoking area near the crew’s dining room. Karleen was there. ‘We started kissing,’ he says. ‘We couldn’t stop. It was amazing.’

  The couple made secret plans to get married. Karleen was still officially being punished, so they had to hide their feelings for each other. But rumours of their relationship filtered back to Scientology’s security apparatus. They were hauled into an office where they were asked to explain themselves. They admitted to breaking Sea Org rules about pre-marital sex.

  As punishment Karleen was sent back to the engine room, and José was forced to work on the decks. ‘I tried to swap to make it easier for her,’ he says, ‘but they said no, she deserves heavy punishment.’35 She sent a note to him telling him to meet her in the engine room at a designated time. Security found out. This time they would be separated permanently.

  José was told he would be sent to the Rehabilitation Project Force, in Australia. ‘They told me if you finish it, you can come back to the ship, and get married,’ he says. He was sent to Australia, without even getting to say goodbye to the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

  After his arrival in Australia he found out that Karleen had been pregnant with their child. Women in the Sea Org were banned from having children. According to Valeska Paris, who was on board at the time, Karleen was forced to have an abortion, carried out by a doctor on the Freewinds.36 José wasn’t even told. He had no say in the decision, and was unable to comfort Karleen through her grief. The Church of Scientology would not directly respond to the allegation that she was forced to have an abortion, instead an email sent by Sydney lawyer Patrick George stated, ‘The Church specifically denies that either Ms Desimone or Mr Navarro were ever forced to do anything in the Church.’37

  José Navarro disembarked from the Freewinds in October 2007, on the island of Bonaire. He was escorted by a Sea Org legal officer, who made sure he did not escape. They flew to Amsterdam, then London, then Singapore, before arriving in Sydney. After a brief stop at Scientology’s Advanced Organisation in Glebe, he was taken to the RPF’s headquarters in Dundas.

  On the RPF José was paid $17.50 a week. He worked 12–14-hour days, seven days a week. All Sea Org members assigned to the RPF wore dark work clothes to signify their status as ‘degraded beings’. They were forced to run from job to job. The food was deliberately sub-standard and the sleeping quarters cramped. At Dundas, around 20 Sea Org members slept in a room that was around six by ten metres. Bunk beds were stacked up to the ceiling, four high.38

  On the RPF in Sydney at the time was former St George rugby league player Chris Guider. After prematurely quitting his career as a professional footballer, Guider rose to be the Master at Arms at the Religious Technology Center in the US. He was the most senior ethics officer in the Church of Scientology, responsible for enforcing the will of the church’s leader, David Miscavige. Guider says he was sent to the RPF in Australia, after he failed to comply with an order from Miscavige to hit an editor who was working on a Scientology promotional video.39

  The RPF in Sydney was used as a dumping ground for troublesome people that David Miscavige wanted sent a long way away. ‘The order came down from Miscavige that they were to be sent to the worst RPF on the planet,’ says Guider. The worst RPF on the planet was in Sydney. The Church of Scientology, through its lawyer Patrick George, denied Australia was used as a dumping ground. ‘On the contrary Australia is an important continental hub for the religion,’ he said in a statement.40

  Carol Miles, the public face of the Freewinds, was another difficult case banished to the RPF in Sydney. Valeska Paris, who’d also been sent there from the Freewinds, says Miles was held against her will. ‘She told me she wanted to leave and have kids.’41 The ‘worst RPF on the planet’ also detained local Scientologists. Mark Whitta, the former Captain of the Advanced Org in Sydney, was imprisoned there underneath a squash court. ‘The poor guy was there for months, on a mud floor, under this building,’ says Guider. ‘Because he was high profile, they didn’t want the public to see him, so he was put under the squash court all day long under guard.’42 The deprivations of the RPF in Sydney were not restricted to adults. According to Valeska Paris, a 16-year-old boy was put on the RPF for four years after he stole from the canteen.

  About a year and half into his punishment in Australia, José began to lose hope. ‘I thought I was never going to see Karleen again,’ he says. ‘I tried to write to her, but they wouldn’t let me.’ The Church of Scientology had lied to him. Valeska Paris had heard Lurie Belotte, David Miscavige’s representative on the Freewinds, say he would never be allowed to return to the ship.43 He was now the responsibility of the Church of Scientology in Australia. He would languish in the RPF at Dundas for nearly two and half years before he found a way to escape.

  ON HIS SEVENTH NIGHT on the run, José Navarro continued to roam the streets of Sydney. He was delirious with sleep deprivation and hunger as he walked past a group of carefree backpackers, towards the sandstone façade of Central Railway Station. Was it delirium? Or was the woman walking towards him really staring at him? As he got closer he recognised her. It was Ramana Dienes-Browning. When José last saw her, she was a senior executive on board the Freewinds. But now Ramana was living in the Blue Mountains and had travelled to Sydney for the day. She had just finished dinner with her mother, having told her for the first time about the physical and mental abuse she had suffered in Sea Org. Her mother had introduced Ramana to the Freewinds, and was still a practising Scientologist. The dinner was cathartic for Ramana
, and traumatic for her mother. She had cried throughout the meal as Ramana told her of the ten long years she had spent in Sea Org.

  Ramana had begun the day by meditating. ‘I’d received a clear message to keep my eyes and ears open,’ she says. With time to kill between dinner and the train home, she went for a walk. ‘For some reason I decided to walk down to a part of the city which I never go to. As I walked down the street, I passed a man and we looked at each other and I couldn’t place him. As I walked past him a few metres it suddenly hit me … I know him … I know him from the Freewinds! I hadn’t seen him for over ten years!’44

  Everything about their chance meeting was out of context. They were on land, not sea. They were in Australia, not the Caribbean. Neither was wearing their crisp white Sea Org uniform. In fact, both had escaped from Sea Org, but neither knew, in that instant, if the other was in or out. ‘The last time I saw him [he] was in his cook’s uniform in the crew galley on the Freewinds,’ says Ramana. ‘I immediately doubled back and walked up to him. Both of us couldn’t believe our eyes. We hugged. He seemed relieved, almost tearful and couldn’t stop saying, “I can’t believe it’s you.”45 I asked him what he was doing. I can’t remember what he first explained, because it was tentative and wary … like he was trying to work out if I was there to catch him or whether it really was a chance meeting.’

  ‘It was a long hug,’ says José. ‘Ramana asked, “What are you doing around here?” I lied and said, “I’m going to see a friend.”’ He wasn’t sure if he could trust Ramana. What if she had been sent to track him down and lure him back to Sea Org? Conflicting thoughts competed inside his sleep-deprived brain. Was Ramana still in the Sea Org? Even if she wasn’t, she might still be a Scientologist. Could he trust her? Informing on wrongdoers is a strong a part of the culture inside Scientology. He was overwhelmed to see Ramana. She had the potential to be his saviour, but he was paralysed by indecision.

  They went to say goodbye to each other. ‘As I went to leave, Ramana said, “Hold on, you look really bad. What’s going on?” I told her I’d left Sea Org a week ago. She said, “Oh my God, you’re coming with me!”’

  The pair caught a train to the Blue Mountains. ‘At this stage I didn’t realise he was starving,’ says Ramana. ‘It took the whole trip back home to get the story out of him, he was so wary of which side I was on. As I told him bits of my story and reassured him I was totally out and he was safe, he filled in the blanks and gave me more information about his escape.’ When they arrived home, José had a long hot shower and Ramana cooked him his first proper meal in four days. ‘Oh, mate, it felt so good,’ says José. ‘I was very lucky.’

  Scientologists are taught to fear the outside world. Hubbard referred to non-Scientologists as ‘wogs’ and the world they inhabited as the ‘wog world’, with its legal system of ‘wog justice’. He picked up the racial slur while living in England, and fashioned it into his own disparaging term. Those inside are told the ‘wog world’ is a dangerous place, and that if they leave Scientology they will become failures. Former Scientologist Marc Headley says when he was in the Sea Org the general public were ‘portrayed as drug addled criminals’,46 but after José Navarro escaped he came across a range of people from all walks of life who went out of their way to help him.

  José stayed on Ramana’s couch until she helped organise share accommodation with a close friend. They kept a close eye on him over that first six months. ‘He had been one of the only people who was decent and kind to me when I was in serious trouble on the ship,’ says Ramana. ‘I’m so glad I had the chance to repay his kindness.’ José was able to pay the rent at his share home because a local café owner took him on even though he was an illegal worker. The owner’s son was studying psychology, and helped José out. ‘I will never forget them,’ he says of the family.47

  Ramana’s brother-in-law helped José get his passport and belongings from the Church of Scientology. When his visa was close to expiring, Gráinne O’Donovan, a lawyer with a deep knowledge of Scientology, came to the rescue, referring José to the Australian Federal Police’s people-trafficking unit. ‘Gráinne was my saviour,’ says José. ‘She was my mentor, she made me feel safe, she contacted the police, bought me food, told me that it was okay to be free, she organised everything. She saved my life.’48

  Evelyn Eck, a senior adviser to Senator Nick Xenophon, accompanied José to see the Federal agents. He had heard Xenophon described inside the Sea Org as ‘the number one Suppressive Person in Australia’. Now Xenophon was supporting his application for a protection visa.

  José was terrified when he first met the Australian Federal Police. ‘I was shitting my pants. I was really nervous. I thought I was going to be sent back to Venezuela.’ He had no reason to worry. The police working in the Transnational Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking Team were experts in their field, and sensitive to the trauma he had been through.

  José got further help from the Red Cross and Jennifer Burn, the Director of Anti-Slavery Australia. He qualified for assistance under the government’s Support for Victims of People-Trafficking Program. Eventually they helped José get a protection visa and permanent residence in Australia on the grounds that he was a victim of human trafficking.

  José found out that despite the propaganda fed him to him in the Sea Org, his life would not be an eternal misery once he left Scientology. He has made a new life for himself in Sydney and has never been happier. He works in a top restaurant, has a beautiful girlfriend and can speak his mind. He can watch TV when he feels like it, go to bed when he wants, and knock back a few cold beers after work. He is paid properly and has access to healthcare. He is a free man.

  So how did it come to this? Why did the Australian government have to provide a protection visa for José on the grounds that a religious organisation it deems a tax-exempt charity had trafficked him? How could a church that claims to believe in freedom and human rights enslave and traffic its members? How could a church that in its own religious creed says ‘that all men have inalienable rights to their own lives’ separate a loving couple who wanted to get married and have a child, and force the woman to have an abortion?

  How could a church use Australia as a penal colony in the 21st century?

  To understand the madness of modern-day Scientology, you need to go back to the source, and the thinking that marked its very beginning.

  CHAPTER 2

  RON’S WAR

  L. RON HUBBARD WAS not built to withstand the sweat and swelter of a Brisbane summer. His ruddy complexion was susceptible to sunburn; his eyes were sensitive to bright sunlight. Raised in the northern states of Montana and Washington he was not used to the heat and humidity that hit him when he arrived in Brisbane in January 1942.1 It was a place, as the novelist David Malouf described it, where ‘the pavements gave off a heat that rose right up through your shoes’.2

  Hubbard wasn’t meant to end up in Australia. A junior Lieutenant serving on the USS President Polk, his ship was diverted to Queensland after Japanese forces took Manila. Hubbard found himself in a subtropical town undergoing rapid change on the other side of the world. Brisbane at the beginning of 1942 felt more like a big country town than a city. Its shops and hotels were made of timber; its homes stretched high on stilts. The streets were lined with jacarandas and poinsettias. The backyards were fenced with corrugated iron. Its tallest building told the time. The clock tower above the Brisbane City Hall put surrounding structures in the shade.

  The population of Brisbane, fewer than 350,000, was about to swell by a fifth, as Queensland’s capital morphed into a garrison city and General Douglas MacArthur set up headquarters for the Allied Forces’ South West Pacific campaign. US servicemen flooded the city, bringing jazz, the jitterbug, and nylon stockings. Local women flocked to the handsome GIs with their well-cut uniforms and healthy pay packets.

  Tension between Australian and American soldiers spilled over into widespread street brawls in November that year. One Australian s
oldier was killed, and eight more received gunshot wounds when thousands of troops became involved in an infamous fracas that became known as the Battle of Brisbane.3

  L. Ron Hubbard missed all of this, however. While the American servicemen based in Brisbane were commonly described as ‘overpaid, over-sexed and over here’, Hubbard’s stint in Queensland is better characterised as overbearing, overzealous and over too soon. Hubbard would end up portraying himself as a war hero who helped save Australia from the Japanese. His arrival, his stay and his departure would all become subject of Scientology mythmaking. But the truth is that Hubbard was sent home from Brisbane in disgrace.

  When L. Ron Hubbard enlisted in the Naval Reserve in 1941 he was already a widely published author, knocking out novels and short stories for a penny a word. The 30-year-old pumped out pulp fiction, science fiction and westerns as he struggled to support his first wife, Polly, and their two children, Nibs and Kay. Writing swashbuckling stories was obviously not enough for Hubbard. He wanted to live the adventurous life of his characters. He was desperate to join the military, and thought his country needed a man of his talents.

  Hubbard soon found out the military could be just as brutal with rejection slips as the big publishing companies. In 1938, the Air Corps turned him down. In September 1939, he sent a letter to the Office of the Secretary of the War Department recommending himself. Once again he was rejected. By 1941, he had cultivated a broad range of references. The most colourful came from the desk of Robert M Ford, a politician from Washington State. The reference begins: ‘This will introduce one of the most brilliant men I have ever known …’4 Ford later admitted, ‘I don’t know why Ron wanted a letter. I just gave him a letter-head and said, “Hell, you’re the writer, you write it!”’5 But Hubbard’s creative writing did not win over the military. In April that year he failed his Navy Reserve physical.