Self-styled militia group joins OR occupation, could raise tensions

Schools were closed following the seizure of the refuge because of safety concerns in this small town in eastern Oregon’s high desert country and tensions have risen.

On Wednesday night, residents attended a community meeting to air their views about the two dozen or so armed men hold up at the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge south of Burns.

“I understand that the occupiers of the federal land have said that they will leave if the local community doesn’t want them, and from what I’m seeing in the news, the local community doesn’t want them”, Clinton said in an interview with the Las Vegas Sun.

A conservative radio talk show host from Cincinnati is making national news as a spokesperson for the small, armed group occupying a national wildlife refuge in Oregon.

Bundy, the leader of a militant group that has taken over the Malheur County Wildlife Refuge outside Burns as a protest against the federal government’s land-use policies, said he “has a lot of empathy” for Ward.

In Oregon, Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward’s patience is beginning to wear thin.

Sheriff Ward plans to call Bundy on Friday to see where the militant group stands.

Ward and Bundy and several other law enforcement officers met by the side of a road leading to the Malheur Wildlife Refuge for a few minutes amicably, shook hands and agreed to speak again Friday.

Harney County Sheriff David Ward told hundreds of people gathered at the meeting Wednesday evening that the group needed to leave so local people could get back to their lives.

The group of protesters, led by Arizona resident Ammon Bundy, objects to federal land policy and the re-sentencing of two Harney County ranchers who were convicted of arson on federal land.

Other tribe members, in an even harsher denunciation of the group that has occupied the refuge since Saturday, said the protesters were a public menace and an insult to the local people. They say they are protesting the imprisonment of two local ranchers, Dwight and Steven Hammond, who have been sentenced to prison for arson on federally owned land.

“It is our goal to get the logger back to logging, the rancher back to ranching”, said Bundy, the son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who was involved in a 2014 standoff with the government over grazing rights. “And I could only say this to him: We will take that offer but not yet”.

The argument is rejected by those who say the USA government is better equipped to manage public lands for all those who want to make use of them. And Bundy said he “appreciates” that Ward disagrees with the group’s tactics.

“The occupiers have used the flimsiest of pretexts to justify their actions”, said Audubon’s conservation director Bob Sallinger in a statement.

Bundy said his group poses a threat to no one.

Ward also said via Twitter that he is keeping his options open.

“They have rights as well”, Bundy said.

Sheriff Ward responded by saying, “I would rather have people saying you went overboard than, in hindsight, say ‘why didn’t you do enough?'” A community meeting was scheduled for later Wednesday.

Petty reported from Portland, Oregon.