Exploding Number of wotaskd processes on Linux

Hello,

I'm currently deploying a webobjects application on Suse Linux 9.0.  The
problem I'm experiencing is, that using the command /etc/rc.d/wotaskd 
start
does not start one wotaskd but 9 or 10! And not enough with that. Their 
number
keeps growing by the minute, so that the only way out gracefully seems 
to be
issuing a "pkill java" before the server is brought to its knees.

I've deployed on Suse Linux before and used the  exact same scripts, so 
I'm
struggling a bit to find an answer to this problem. Did anyone 
experience
similar problems? All pointers greatly appreciated.

Regards,
J.L.Simon