Armed men occupying Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon are tearing down part of a fence erected by the government to keep ranchers out of federally owned property.
The escalation comes
10 days into the standoff at the fowl sanctuary south of Burns, Oregon.
Ammon and Ryan Bundy, who head the group occupying the refuge, announced they would be tearing down the portion of the fence and replacing it with a gate, to allow local ranchers access to pastures.
The Bundy brothers also said they would not end the occupation until Dwight and Steven Hammond, the two ranchers recently imprisoned by the government, are set free. The Hammonds were prosecuted by the government under a terrorism statute, over fires set on their property that damaged 140 acres of federally owned land. Government prosecutors insisted on a five-year mandatory minimum sentence.
Following a peaceful protest in Burns on January 2, the Bundys and their fellow militia members seized the empty building at Malheur. The group has been camped at the refuge ever since, calling for the government to abide by its own rules and stop the heavy-handed treatment of the ranchers. Their father, Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, successfully faced down federal agents in 2014 in a dispute over grazing fees and land use.
Comment: Will this facility ever be shut down and will the victims of this gulag system ever find justice? Or will it just become another Gitmo situation -- all talk and no action?