A-Infos (en) `Mad Dogs' Swell Ranks of Militias

[Tom Burghardt <tburghardt@igc.apc.org>]

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               `MAD DOGS' SWELL RANKS OF MILITIAS
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     THE SUNDAY TIMES: FOREIGN NEWS
     SUNDAY, 22 MARCH 1998
     http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/98/03/22/
     By Tony Allen-Mills, Charleston
 
     Demented violence, epitomised by the blast at the Atlanta
     Games, is enhancing the mystique of militia groups and
     swelling their ranks
 
     THE policemen who helped an ambulance crew to break into
Daniel Rudolph's home in a quiet suburb found what they were
looking for: a severed hand lay on the garage floor. They also
found a graphic home video showing the depths of paranoia and
weirdness being plumbed by violent political extremism in the
United States.
 
     Rudolph's neighbours knew him as a "nice, normal" cabinet-
maker. He and his wife had moved into a white clapboard cottage
in Charleston, South Carolina, a few months ago.
 
     Then Eric, his younger brother, was identified by the FBI as
the prime suspect in the bombing of an Alabama abortion clinic in
January. The blast, which killed a policeman, was linked to
attacks in Georgia, including the pipe-bomb explosion that rocked
Atlanta's Centennial Park soon after the start of the 1996
Olympics.
 
     The FBI arrived to question Daniel Rudolph about his
brother. Nothing in his answers gave a hint of what was to come.
After weeks of media speculation that his brother belonged to a
militant Christian militia holed up in the mountains of North
Carolina, Rudolph set up a video camera in his garage earlier
this month and tied a tourniquet around his left arm. Police
officers who have viewed the video say he switched on an electric
circular saw.
 
     Turning to the camera, he announced: "This is for the FBI
and the media." He placed his arm next to the saw and ran it
through his wrist. He then drove himself to a hospital, which
sent an ambulance to retrieve the hand. It was reattached by
surgeons.
 
     Rudolph has offered no further explanation for his self-
mutilation. Yet in some ways the incident symbolised the near-
fanatical alienation that is contaminating America's radical
fringe.
 
     Most perplexing for the FBI and those studying the growth of
so-called hate groups and patriot militias is evidence that
demented violence merely enhances the mystique of anti-government
radicals. Despite the impending execution of Timothy McVeigh, the
Oklahoma City bomber, there is no sign that the horror of
America's bloodiest terrorist assault has had a deterrent effect.
 
     Past evidence suggests that radical activity subsides at
times of prosperity. Yet a report by the Alabama-based Southern
Poverty Law Centre (SPLC), which monitors extremist groups, says
last year's Wall Street boom was accompanied by a sharp increase
in anti-establishment militancy. The number of potentially
violent groups on the "fringe of the fringe" increased by 20% to
474.
 
     Many of those groups belong to the Christian Identity
movement, which believes white people are God's chosen and that
Jews and blacks are descended from Satan. Some groups foresee an
impending racial Armageddon for which military preparations are
essential. Many of the movement's loosely affiliated followers
support violent opposition to abortion.
 
     It was in the wake of the abortion clinic bombing that
police traced a grey pick-up truck spotted at the scene to Eric,
31, an itinerant carpenter living in a caravan in the North
Carolina mountains. The area is notorious as a refuge for
extremist groups such as the Northpoint Tactical Teams. This was
founded by Nord Davis, a former IBM executive who became a
virulent white supremacist. He died last year.
 
     By the time the truck was found abandoned in the woods, Eric
had disappeared. Despite an intensive manhunt, he has not been
seen and is presumed to be living rough or to have been sheltered
by sympathisers. Forensic evidence from the truck indicated links
with attacks on a gay nightclub and another abortion clinic in
Atlanta, as well as the Olympic bombing. The nails in all the
home-made bombs appear to have been manufactured in the same
place.
 
     The manhunt for Eric coincided with the conviction of Ted
Kaczynski, known as the Unabomber, who waged a murderous postal-
bomb campaign from his shack in rural Montana. Also in Montana
this month, a group of so-called "Freemen" went on trial in
connection with an 81-day FBI siege in 1996 outside a militia
stronghold known as Justus Township. Another extremist siege,
involving right-wing separatists in Texas, is the subject of a
trial in Dallas, where Richard McLaren, self-styled ambassador of
a breakaway Texan republic, is fighting fraud and conspiracy
charges.
 
     According to Mark Potok of the SPLC, several factors are
causing the spread of dangerously eccentric groups. One is the
Internet, which has become a powerful recruiting and
organisational tool. "Before, you might have been a lone neo-Nazi
shaking your fist at the sky, but now with the Net you feel very
much part of a movement that's happening," Potok said.
 
 
     The approach of the millennium may also be firing up radical
Christian passions. "These people expect Christ to return after
the battle of Armageddon, and they believe they are charged with
fighting the battle themselves," said Potok.
 
     Many of those on the extremist fringe have also missed out
on the benefits of the economic boom. Poor rural whites have seen
their farms go under or have lost low-paid factory jobs. Some
have become embittered by failure and the result has been a
dramatic increase in extremist activity.
 
     Copyright 1998 The Times Newspapers Limited.
 
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