Oregon: Northern Paiute Tribe Condemns Wildlife Refuge Occupation | Democracy Now!

12.1.16

Oregon: Northern Paiute Tribe Condemns Wildlife Refuge Occupation | Democracy Now!: And in Oregon, the Northern Paiute tribe has condemned the ongoing occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge by white right-wing militia members. On Saturday, a self-styled right-wing antigovernment militia calling itself the Citizens for Constitutional Freedom took over the wildlife refuge in support of two ranchers sentenced to prison for setting fires that burned federal land. Leaders of the occupation include Ammon and Ryan Bundy, the sons of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who refused to pay decades’ worth of cattle grazing fees, prompting a standoff with federal rangers in 2014 in Nevada. The militia has called for the wildlife refuge land to be "returned to them." But leaders of the Northern Paiute tribe said that if the land of the wildlife reserve in Oregon should be returned to anyone, it should be returned to the tribe. The tribe has rights to the land under a treaty signed by the U.S. government more than a century ago. On Wednesday, tribal council member Jarvis Kennedy contrasted the federal government’s treatment of the armed militia members with the violent, forced removal of the Northern Paiute more than a century earlier.