The advent of a new assortment of outside protesters has again shifted the dynamics of the situation at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. At first, when a band of armed men and women led by Ammon and Ryan Bundy seized the refuge’s headquarters, they sought support from the local community for their demand that millions of acres of federal land be placed in local, state or private hands. Instead, community leaders asked the Bundy group to leave. F.B.I. agents and sheriff’s deputies from around Oregon then converged in the nearby town of Burns.
Since then the Bundys, who have gained notoriety as opponents of the federal government, have attracted an assortment of sympathizers — and, now, enemies. The Malheur refuge is remote, about 30 miles from the nearest town, and yet people like Mr. Suckling were upset enough to make a pilgrimage to ask the Bundy group to leave.
Some in the Malheur takeover group have not liked the new incursion very much, as small as it has been. On a recent morning, a spokesman for the occupiers — gun on hip, cowboy hat on head — was calmly addressing reporters at a news conference when a small but visible tussle started unfolding in view of television cameras.
Mr. Suckling held up a sign denouncing the occupation: “Keep Public Lands Public.”
Pete Santilli, a supporter of the takeover who was standing next to Mr. Suckling, grabbed the edge of an American flag that was suspended nearby and tried to cover the sign. Mr. Suckling moved the sign to keep it in camera range. Mr. Santilli moved the flag. The men jostled. “Don’t touch me,” Mr. Santilli snapped, loudly enough to be heard by reporters. “If you touch me once, I am going to defend myself.”
Another opposition demonstrator, Candy Henderson, has been roughing it in a tent a few miles from where that exchange occurred. Ms. Henderson, 64, a retired horse trainer from Walla Walla, Wash., arrived last weekend and found that there were no motel rooms available because so many people had already been drawn there.
But no matter. As a long-distance hiker, she said she had been just fine in her down sleeping bag, though a temperature of 18 degrees on a recent morning still felt pretty cold.
Ms. Henderson found out in the fall that she had breast cancer, and that factored into her decision to come here.
“I don’t like crowds, don’t like to be around people, I usually stay to myself,” she said, sitting on a picnic bench at campground, bundled up with layers against the cold.
“But this is so important and I feel so passionate about this, I had to come,” she said,
In an odd juxtaposition, at the campground where Ms. Henderson and a friend and fellow counterprotester, Jay Godfrey, are camped, a group of about two dozen members of the Northern Nevada Oath Keepers have been camping as well.
The Oath Keepers, with a mission to “defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” according to the group’s website, has set up a medical tent, in case the refuge standoff results in bloodshed. Members, who are working separately from the Bundy group, are visibly armed.
But across that seemingly wide gulf in perspectives at the campground, things have been friendly.
“They’ve been very nice,” Ms. Henderson said, adding that she had sat down to lunch with some of the Oath Keepers.
“She’s a very nice lady,” said Gary Underhill, 53, the officer in charge of the group. Mr. Underhill said members of his group mentioned to Ms. Henderson that their medical tent had encountered a hurdle, with two trauma medics forced to leave and go back to work.
So Ms. Henderson volunteered to pitch in, should the need arise.
“I’ve had wilderness first-aid training, so I said, ‘If you get in a jam, let me know,’ ” she said.
Ms. Henderson said she had to leave for six weeks of radiation starting early next month at a hospital in Houston, but planned to return to Oregon, and her tent, after that if the antigovernment group’s takeover continues.
“I’m going to come back and I’m going to stay until they are gone,” she said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/20/u...st.html&eventName=Watching-article-click&_r=0
Since then the Bundys, who have gained notoriety as opponents of the federal government, have attracted an assortment of sympathizers — and, now, enemies. The Malheur refuge is remote, about 30 miles from the nearest town, and yet people like Mr. Suckling were upset enough to make a pilgrimage to ask the Bundy group to leave.
Some in the Malheur takeover group have not liked the new incursion very much, as small as it has been. On a recent morning, a spokesman for the occupiers — gun on hip, cowboy hat on head — was calmly addressing reporters at a news conference when a small but visible tussle started unfolding in view of television cameras.
Mr. Suckling held up a sign denouncing the occupation: “Keep Public Lands Public.”
Pete Santilli, a supporter of the takeover who was standing next to Mr. Suckling, grabbed the edge of an American flag that was suspended nearby and tried to cover the sign. Mr. Suckling moved the sign to keep it in camera range. Mr. Santilli moved the flag. The men jostled. “Don’t touch me,” Mr. Santilli snapped, loudly enough to be heard by reporters. “If you touch me once, I am going to defend myself.”
Another opposition demonstrator, Candy Henderson, has been roughing it in a tent a few miles from where that exchange occurred. Ms. Henderson, 64, a retired horse trainer from Walla Walla, Wash., arrived last weekend and found that there were no motel rooms available because so many people had already been drawn there.
But no matter. As a long-distance hiker, she said she had been just fine in her down sleeping bag, though a temperature of 18 degrees on a recent morning still felt pretty cold.
Ms. Henderson found out in the fall that she had breast cancer, and that factored into her decision to come here.
“I don’t like crowds, don’t like to be around people, I usually stay to myself,” she said, sitting on a picnic bench at campground, bundled up with layers against the cold.
“But this is so important and I feel so passionate about this, I had to come,” she said,
In an odd juxtaposition, at the campground where Ms. Henderson and a friend and fellow counterprotester, Jay Godfrey, are camped, a group of about two dozen members of the Northern Nevada Oath Keepers have been camping as well.
The Oath Keepers, with a mission to “defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” according to the group’s website, has set up a medical tent, in case the refuge standoff results in bloodshed. Members, who are working separately from the Bundy group, are visibly armed.
But across that seemingly wide gulf in perspectives at the campground, things have been friendly.
“They’ve been very nice,” Ms. Henderson said, adding that she had sat down to lunch with some of the Oath Keepers.
“She’s a very nice lady,” said Gary Underhill, 53, the officer in charge of the group. Mr. Underhill said members of his group mentioned to Ms. Henderson that their medical tent had encountered a hurdle, with two trauma medics forced to leave and go back to work.
So Ms. Henderson volunteered to pitch in, should the need arise.
“I’ve had wilderness first-aid training, so I said, ‘If you get in a jam, let me know,’ ” she said.
Ms. Henderson said she had to leave for six weeks of radiation starting early next month at a hospital in Houston, but planned to return to Oregon, and her tent, after that if the antigovernment group’s takeover continues.
“I’m going to come back and I’m going to stay until they are gone,” she said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/20/u...st.html&eventName=Watching-article-click&_r=0
