|
 The occupation, which began on Saturday, followed a march in
Burns, a small city about 50 miles (80 km) north of the Malheur
National Wildlife Refuge, in support of Dwight Hammond Jr. and his
son, Steven Hammond.
Hammond and his son, convicted in 2012 of setting fires that spread
to public land, traveled to Los Angeles on Sunday evening to turn
themselves in to federal authorities, according to their lawyer W.
Alan Schroeder. They were to be sent to back to prison after federal
prosecutors won an appeal that resulted in their resentencing to
longer terms.
Their ranch borders on the southern edge of the refuge, a bird
sanctuary in the arid high desert in the eastern part of the state,
about 305 miles (490 km) southeast of Portland.
The protest was being led by Ammon Bundy, the son of Cliven Bundy,
owner of a ranch in Nevada where his family staged an armed protest
against the Bureau of Land Management in April 2014. The agency
sought to seize Bundy's cattle after he refused to pay grazing fees.
Federal agents finally backed down, citing safety concerns, and
returned hundreds of cattle to Bundy.
 Federal and state authorities have not said how they planned to
respond to the occupation of the refuge's headquarters in Princeton,
Oregon.
It involved an unknown number of people, Jason Holm, a spokesman for
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land
Management, said in a statement. No employees were in the building.
Holm described the occupation as a break-in, although federal
justice and Interior Department officials contacted later declined
to say whether any crimes were committed in the occupation. Wildlife
refuge buildings were closed over the holiday weekend.
In an interview posted on Facebook, Bundy said the occupation was in
reaction to the government intrusion into the rights of
private-property owners.
"It is the people's facility, owned by the people," Bundy said. "It
has been provided for us to be able to come together and unite and
make a hard stand against this overreach - this taking of the
people's land and resources."
Bundy told CNN some of the occupiers were armed.
The Hammonds distanced themselves last month from the Bundys,
according to a letter Schroeder, wrote to the county sheriff on Dec.
11.
"I write to clarify that neither Ammon Bundy nor anyone with his
group/organization speak for the Hammond family, Dwight Hammond or
Steven Hammond," Schroeder wrote in the letter, which was seen by
Reuters.
The incident is part of a decades-old conflict between ranchers and
the federal government over Washington's management of hundreds of
thousands of rangeland. Critics of the federal government say it
often oversteps its authority and exercises arbitrary power over
land use without sufficient accountability.
[to top of second column] |
'ALTERNATIVE MOTIVES'
Bundy told a news conference on Sunday he had yet to communicate
with any law enforcement officials. He said occupiers planned no
violence unless that was justified by actions taken against the
occupants. He would not say how many people were inside the
headquarters.
He encouraged anyone opposed to overreach by the government in the
management of federal lands to join the occupation at the refuge.
“For those that understand what is going on, and those who want to
and feel a need to stand, we’re asking them to come,” he said. “We
have a facility that we can house them in."
“We will continue to monitor the situation for additional
developments," Holm said in the statement. He did not immediately
return a phone call seeking further details. No one answered a call
to the phone number of the refuge.
Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward was critical of the protesters and
their motives, and advised local residents to stay away from the
refuge.
“These men came to Harney County claiming to be part of militia
groups supporting local ranchers, when in reality these men had
alternative motives to attempt to overthrow the county and federal
government in hopes to spark a movement across the United States."
Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, encompassing 292 square miles
(75,630 hectares), was established in 1908 by President Theodore
Roosevelt as a breeding ground for greater sandhill cranes and other
native birds. The headquarters compound includes a visitor center, a
museum and the refuge office.
(Reporting by Kevin Murphy in Kansas City, Mo.; Additional reporting
by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee and Mark Hosenball in Washington;
Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Peter Cooney and Michael Perry)
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
