/TRW /

WASHINGTON (EFE) The last occupiers of a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon surrendered peacefully on Thursday after occupying the site for 40 days.

Three of the militants who remained at the site – Jeff Banta and Sean and Sandy Anderson – turned themselves in without resistance to FBI agents who had surrounded them since Wednesday.

But a fourth holdout, David Fry, at first refused to leave the site but, after a tense dialogue with authorities and mediators lasting several hours, finally he, too, surrendered around 11 a.m.

The group had been much more numerous on Jan. 2 when they took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and demanded that the government hand over the land to locals and pardon two ranchers convicted of setting fires.

The leader of the militants, Ammon Bundy, and his brother Ryan, were arrested by FBI agents on Jan. 26 after weeks of tension in a confrontation that led to the death of militia spokesman LaVoy Finicum.

Federal authorities decided on Wednesday to besiege the area where the militants were camped out in the park to force them to negotiate.

On Wednesday, Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, the father of the remaining militants’ leader, was arrested by the FBI at the airport in Portland.

The rancher, known for years for refusing to pay $1.1 million in grazing fees and penalties for letting his cattle graze on federal land, was charged in federal court on Thursday with six counts of conspiracy and assault for a April 2014 confrontation he had with authorities.

Then, the government had begun seizing Bundy’s cattle on Nevada state land where they had been grazing free of charge for the past century.

Hundreds of demonstrators, some of whom were members of armed militias, turned out at the time to support Bundy and, given the possibility of violence and the increase in tensions, the government backed down and returned the cattle.

 

/TRW /