Scores of antigovernment militiamen occupied a wildlife reserve in Oregon for a second night on Sunday, warning that their protest against the jailing of two ranchers could last months.
The group — thought to number up to 100 — on Saturday began occupying the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Oregon after a rally in support of ranchers Dwight Hammond, 73, and his son Steven, 46, who were jailed over fires on federal land in the area.
The local sheriff’s department on Sunday said in a statement that the building’s seizure was an effort by the group to instigate a confrontation with authorities.
“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,” Harney County Sheriff David Ward said in the statement.
He added that efforts were under way to resolve the standoff “as quickly and peaceful as possible.”
However, there was on Sunday night no visible police presence at the reserve, where several militiamen in vehicles guarded the entrance, while others kept watch from a lookout tower.
There have also been no reports so far of any confrontation around the facility, which was closed when the militia moved in.
The Oregonian news Web site reported that the FBI was handling the case.
The protesters holed up inside the refuge — a loose-knit grouping of antigovernment farmers, ranchers and survivalists — said they planned no violence, but would not rule out armed resistance if authorities stormed the site.
School was canceled in the area for the week and the county courthouse said it would be closed yesterday “for security reasons.”
One of the protest leaders is Ammon Bundy, the 40-year-old son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who was at the center of an armed antigovernment standoff with authorities in 2014 over grazing rights on public lands. The younger Bundy, who spoke by telephone with CNN on Sunday, called on the government to restore the “people’s constitutional rights.”
His brother Ryan and others in the group have demanded that the Hammonds, who have been ordered to report to a federal prison yesterday, be spared jail and that the government relinquish control of the Malheur reserve.
It was unclear how many of the protestors, if any, were armed.
“We have no intentions of using force upon anyone, [but] if force is used against us, we would defend ourselves,” Ammon Bundy said.
The Hammonds were convicted of arson after lighting what they said was a controlled fire on their ranch in Harney County that spread to government land.
However, witnesses at their trial said that Steven Hammond had illegally slaughtered deer on federal property during a hunting expedition and then handed out matches in order to “light up the whole country on fire,” according to a US Department of Justice statement. The fire consumed 139 acres of public land.
The pair were freed after the father had served three months in prison and his son had served a year, according to local media.
When a judge, in an appeal, ruled in October last year that a five-year sentence was justified and ordered them back to prison to serve the balance, militia groups responded angrily.
After a peaceful rally on Saturday in the town of Burns, a group of demonstrators advanced on the sprawling Malheur reserve about 50km to the southeast, where wild horses, pronghorns and other creatures roam free.
Ammon Bundy told the Oregonian by telephone that the protesters had no intention of leaving anytime soon.
“We’re planning on staying here for years, absolutely,” he said.
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
Hundreds of Filipinos and tourists flocked to a sun-bleached field north of Manila yesterday, on Good Friday, to witness one of the country’s most blood-soaked displays of religious fervor, undeterred by rising fuel prices. Scores of bare-chested flagellants with covered faces walked barefoot through the dusty streets of Pampanga Province’s San Fernando as they flogged their backs with bamboo whips in the scorching heat. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists said they saw devotees deliberately puncturing their skin with glass shards attached to a small wooden paddle to ensure their bleeding during the ritual, a way to atone for sins and seek miracles from
RSS