Refuge occupation protested at rally in Oregon

More than 100 people staged a rally outside the Idaho Capitol to protest the occupation of a national wildlife refuge in OR by an armed group.

The protest was sparked by the re-sentencing of two OR ranchers, Dwight Hammond Jr. and his son Steven, to 5 years in a federal prison for deliberately setting fires on their property that spread to the bordering Malheur Wildlife Refuge.

Ammon Bundy, who has been trying to drum up support for his cause, didn’t speak at Tuesday night’s meeting in Burns where residents discussed the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge which began earlier this month. He says it was important to be present and to not criticize the occupation from the sidelines.

Harney County Judge Steve Grasty took the microphone over to where Bundy sat in the bleachers and told Bundy he’d drive him wherever he wanted to go, as far as Utah. And so I join you in saying exactly what you would say: “Go home!”.

Conservation groups have also shown up at the refuge itself to demand that Bundy and his followers leave, and last weekend got into a shouting match with Bundy’s group.

“They didn’t go out at the same time”, Finicum said.

Bundy has had trouble winning many friends who aren’t militants, or even finding a place where he could spell out his views to people living near the refuge.

Still, Bundy isn’t giving up.

Bundy’s most fervent supporters – those holed up inside headquarters of the wildlife refuge – continue to be militants from outside Oregon.

“It’s clear at this point that the Bundy group does not have the interests of Harney County in mind – they’re in it for their own agenda”, Ward said in the statement. “We went fast, and came back fast”, he told OPB. From that point on, he said, local, state and federal law enforcement officials have considered the group to be criminals.