Armed protesters won’t leave federal building

“This taking of the people’s land and resources”, Ammon Bundy said, spokesperson for the protesters.

Among those holed up in the building were Ammon and Ryan Bundy, sons of rancher Cliven Bundy, who rose to prominence in 2014 during a standoff with federal agents over cattle grazing rights in the neighboring state of Nevada.

“We are within our rights”, he said in another video posted from the wildlife refuge Sunday.

The takeover by an armed group of a federal wildlife refuge in remote southeastern OR has forced schools in the area to close for the week. They were upset over the looming prison sentences for local ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond. His brother Ryan, who is also a member of the group, told the Oregonian that they wanted the Hammonds released, and for the federal government to abandon its control of lands in the region and close the refuge.

A group of self-styled militia men remain in control of a federal wildlife refuge in OR on 3 January.

Finicum, a rancher who lives in the Kaibab Plateau area of northern Arizona, has publicly stated he is no longer paying grazing fees, calling them “extortion” and is petitioning for donations on GoFundMe to help support his legal battle with the Bureau of Land Management.

The 73-year-old rancher and his 46-year-old son claim they lit the fires in 2001 and 2006 to reduce the growth of invasive plants and protect their property from wildfires. The Hammonds have been ordered to report to prison in California Monday after a federal judge ruled that the sentences they had served for arson were not long enough under federal law.

And like his father, Bundy said he is standing up to the federal government over land rights. Critics of the federal government say it often oversteps its authority and exercises arbitrary power over land use without sufficient accountability.

“We will be here for as long as it takes”, said Ryan Payne, an Army veteran who characterized the group’s action as a liberation of public lands.

“The facility has been the tool to do all the tyranny that has been placed upon the Hammonds”, Bundy told the Oregonian.

In an opinion piece for the Burns Times Herald, Williams wrote that the five-year sentences are the minimum for the crimes the Hammonds committed. They went to the wildlife refuge Saturday evening following a peaceful rally in Burns to support the ranchers.

Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward said the group of armed protesters arrived in town under false pretenses.

“I guess they figured they’re going to be there for whatever time it takes and I don’t know what that means”, the father said. Finicum wouldn’t tell the paper how the militia got into the compound buildings except for stating they found a “stack of keys.” . “The last thing we need is some type of confrontation”.

Federal officials said they were monitoring the takeover, but there did not appear to be an imminent plan to confront the protesters.

Bundy said his group planned to “gather here and we can unite, we can stay out of the cold”.

A Hammond family statement says the two men only want to turn themselves in and serve out their prison terms.

The trial judge sentenced Dwight and Steven Hammond to three months and one year in jail respectively and for a time that seemed like the end of it.

When asked what it would take for the protesters to leave, Bundy did not offer specifics. “We’re planning on staying here for years, absolutely”, Bundy told The Oregonian.

“I also think that the sheriff and the county and the city are all doing all that they can to manage the Bundy’s self-serving attention grabbing efforts in a way that prevents Harney County from becoming a rallying cry for every anti-government person in America”.

For what it’s worth, the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “militia” as “a group of people who are not part of the armed forces of a country but are trained like soldiers” – a description that would not cover the loose assemblage that broke away from a larger protest in OR to occupy the building. The Hammonds, as well, have rebuffed the Bundy’s support for their cause.