The remote high desert of eastern OR became the latest flashpoint for anti-government sentiment as armed protesters occupied a national wildlife refuge to object to a prison sentence for local ranchers for… Ammon Bundy and militiamen from other states arrived last month in Burns, some 60 miles from the Hammond ranch. There’s no law enforcement visible.
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The short answer is visibly no where near the occupied wildlife refuge headquarters.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) – The man behind the armed occupation of a federal wildlife refuge comes from a Mormon family that has been challenging government authority for at least two decades.
“And while we’re here what we’re going to be doing is freeing these lands up and getting the ranchers back to ranching, getting the miners back to mining”, Ammon Bundy said in a Facebook video (which has since been taken down or made private). Their father, Cliven Bundy, was involved in a 2014 standoff with the government over grazing rights in Nevada. Federal officials backed away from seizing the Nevada rancher’s cattle, but the dispute remains unresolved, and the Bureau of Land Management says the family has not made payments toward a $1.1 million grazing fee and penalty bill. Now Mr Bundy’s two sons are leading the push in Oregon.
The Hammonds have received support from local residents, but the most vocal groups are from outside the area.
But the county sheriff has told the activists to go home, and many locals don’t want the group around, fearing they may bring trouble.
“It is time for you to leave our community”, Ward said.
The ranchers that Ammon Bundy came to defend rejected his assistance and on Monday voluntarily surrendered to serve a federal prison term on a 2012 conviction on charges of committing arson on federal land.
The attorney’s statement doesn’t seem to hold much sway with Bundy and the others.
Captain Moroni said he participated in the 2014 Bundy Ranch standoff, and he was disappointed that more protesters did not arrive.
“It’s a terribly tyrannical system”, Bundy said.
Implying that some on the inside are secretly working for the government to set up a “perfect propaganda opportunity”, and that some are simply setting themselves up to commit “suicide by Fed”, Vanderboegh wrote that nevertheless “we must get across to the Feds that if they do not end this peacefully, if they go for a dynamic raid that gets people killed, that they will start a national conflagration that will be fought using the principles of Fourth Generation Warfare as adapted to an American civil war”.
Gorey said that he had nothing to add to the statement.
But why exactly are a Nevada rancher’s son and his supporters taking up the cause of two guys from Oregon? The Hammonds were convicted three years ago of starting fires that burned federal land in 2001 and 2006. One of the blazes was set to cover up deer poaching, according to prosecutors.
When a judge, in an appeal, ruled in October that a five-year sentence was justified and ordered them back to prison to serve the balance, militia groups responded angrily. They said they lit the fires to reduce the growth of invasive plants and protect their property from wildfires.
“And I don’t know where they get off thinking that the land doesn’t belong to those who originally had it”, she quipped.
“It’s hard to discredit what they’re trying to do out there”, he said. Officials later revoked Bundy’s grazing rights completely.
As the federal authorities gear up to confront the armed militia occupying an OR nature preserve, RT examines the simmering conflict between the ranchers and the federal government over public land use, which lies beneath the current crisis. It fizzled after the election of President Ronald Reagan, however, as the new administration failed to revoke the laws but promised the BLM would be more sensitive to local concerns.
“These are just a group of individuals, and they’re not anti-government, they just don’t agree with how the government’s being run right now and they want to see some changes”, Curtiss said.
Ammon Bundy himself has benefited from federal programs.
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Bundy borrowed $530,000 in 2010 for his company, Valet Fleet Service LLC, according to public records on usaspending.gov. Valet Fleet Service is a truck maintenance company in Arizona.
