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[ARMY PLANS TO INVESTIGATE EXTREMISTS WITHIN THE RANKS - EFFORT TO ASSESS HATE GROUPS' INFLUENCE FOLLOWS FT. BRAGG KILLINGS]

ARMY PLANS TO INVESTIGATE EXTREMISTS WITHIN THE RANKS - EFFORT TO ASSESS HATE GROUPS' INFLUENCE FOLLOWS FT. BRAGG KILLINGS

Washington Post - December 13, 1995
Author: William Branigin ; Dana Priest , Washington Post Staff Writers
The Army announced yesterday that it will investigate the presence of extremists in its ranks around the world in an effort to ferret out hate groups that may be gaining influence in American society

Army Secretary Togo D. West Jr. said the investigation, prompted by what police consider the racially motivated murders last week of a black man and woman allegedly by white soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division, will be headed by the Army's deputy inspector general, Maj. Gen. Larry Jordan. An investigative team will travel to bases in the United States, Europe and Asia to examine "the climate throughout the Army among America's soldiers" and determine the extent of involvement in white supremacist and other hate groups, West told a news conference.

He said the investigation would report its findings and recommendations by March 1.

The killings early last Thursday of Michael James, 36, and Jackie Burden, 27, as they were walking down a street in Fayetteville, N.C., after midnight were the latest incident that has raised alarms about the influence of radical right-wing groups in the nation's armed forces.

In the deadliest incident, two former Army buddies who formed their association at Fort Riley, Kan., have been indicted for the April 19 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City that killed 169 people.

In Fayetteville, police charged three soldiers stationed at Fort Bragg with last week's murders. They said the three, who identified themselves as neo-Nazi skinheads, had been out looking for blacks to harass after a night of drinking. Army officials said the investigation would include a look at whether Army officers in charge of the three suspects knew of their extremist associations and acted appropriately to limit them.

"I expect to be in touch with them," West said of the commanders at Fort Bragg.

"There is no place for racial hatred or extremism in the U.S. military," Defense Secretary William J. Perry said in a written statement.

The Fayetteville case also has raised questions about the adequacy and implementation of Army regulations designed to deal with soldiers who belong to extremist groups. Army officials have been at a loss even to explain the regulations in recent days, issuing contradictory statements about whether, for example, displaying a Nazi flag above a soldier's bunk in a barracks was prohibited or allowed.

Spokesmen at Fort Bragg said this week that such a display could be considered an expression of "passive" membership in a hate group, which they said Army guidelines did not prohibit, as opposed to "active participation," which is barred.

"We have to be careful," said Maj. Ken Fugett, a spokesman for the XVIII Airborne Corps. "The soldier still does have his First Amendment rights." However, West said yesterday that displaying such a flag would be prohibited because it would have a detrimental effect on "good order and discipline" in a unit. He conceded Army regulations probably were not clear to some officers.

According to a fellow soldier, one of the accused, Pvt. James Norman Burmeister II, displayed a Nazi flag above his bed in the Fort Bragg barracks they shared before he moved off-post to a trailer several months ago.

Former military officers and members of civil rights organizations that monitor hate-group activity said that while the Army is the most integrated of U.S. institutions, it reflects the problems of society as a whole. Across the country, membership in hate groups, including various skinhead gangs, has been growing in recent years, watchdog organizations report.

In inquiries so far, authorities at Fort Bragg have identified "perhaps a dozen or so" soldiers as members of extremist groups, said Lt. Col. Robert McFetridge, the post's senior legal officer, in an interview on the CBS program "This Morning." He said "these numbers might grow" as the investigation continues.

Police in Fayetteville charged three soldiers -- Burmeister, 20, of Thompson, Pa.; Pvt. Malcolm Wright, 21, of Lexington, Ky.; and Spec. Randy Lee Meadows Jr., 21, of Mulkeytown, Ill. -- with involvement in last week's murders.

The three "confirmed that they were skinheads," Lt. Richard Bryant, a police spokesman, said, but they denied being part of any broader organized group.

"It was just the three of them," Bryant said. "They said they were not trying to get a group together. They just had their own beliefs."

In a search of Burmeister's rented room in the trailer, police found a Nazi flag, white supremacist literature, a bomb-making manual and copies of Resistance magazine, Bryant said.

Civil rights groups said the magazine is published by George Burdi, a 24-year-old Canadian neo-Nazi who formed Resistance Records in Detroit a few years ago to promote white supremacy and market skinhead music. Burdi also formed a skinhead band, Rahowa (short for Racial Holy War), and put out songs, such as a version of the 1960s Nancy Sinatra hit, "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'." In it, Burdi shouts lyrics such as: "These boots are made for stompin'/and that's just what they'll do/One

Burdi is serving a one-year jail term in Canada for assaulting a woman protesting his racist songs at an April 1993 concert in Ottawa.

Floyd Cochran, a former white supremacist who turned against the movement two years ago, said in a telephone interview, "There has been a historic desire by many white supremacists to hook up with active-duty military men. You have some people who might be susceptible" within the ranks to the message of such groups, "and people on the outside who want to recruit them."

The Atlanta-based Center for Democratic Renewal, which monitors hate-group activity in the United States, estimates there are 25,000 to 30,000 "hard-core activists" in white supremacist groups nationwide, including about 4,000 active skinheads.

The center estimates another 200,000 people are "sympathizers and supporters" of white supremacist groups, a figure that excludes an estimated 100,000 militia members, who may not necessarily be racists.

In a 1992 report, the Army's Criminal Investigation Command noted the presence of hate groups at Army bases and reported on the vulnerability of military posts to such activity.

At the Army base in Wildflecken, Germany, a small group of white soldiers formed a hate group that wrote racial slurs on black soldiers' automobiles, the report said. At Fort Carson, Colo., some Army soldiers associated with skinheads and were known to steal weapons and sell them in the Boulder area, it said.

"Because military posts are a reflection of the larger society, it was simply a matter of time before gangs began to infiltrate the military communities," the report said.

Regarding skinheads, the report concluded "no-nonsense law enforcement" was the most effective way to deal with such groups
Caption: PHOTO ap
Investigators will report findings and recommendations by March 1, Army Secretary Togo D. West Jr. tells reporters.
Edition: FINAL
Section: A SECTION
Page: A1
Company Name: 82ND AIRBORNE DIVISION FORT BRAGG FORT RILEY OKLAHOMA CITY SKINHEADS
Index Terms: NAZI; NEWS NATIONAL; TOGO D. WEST JR. ; JACKIE BURDEN ; MALCOLM WRIGHT ; RANDY LEE MEADOWS JR. ; JAMES NORMAN BURMEISER III ; Army ; Investigations and probes ; Murder ; Hate crimes ; Bombings
Record Number: 691929
Copyright 1995 The Washington Post

[Canada Wakes Up to Right-Wing Extremism]

Canada Wakes Up to Right-Wing Extremism

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR - May 11, 1995
Author: By Mark Clayton, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
EVER since a bomb destroyed a federal building in Oklahoma City last month, killing at least 164 people, Canadians have been asking: Do we have heavily armed extremists, too? Could that happen here?

Most editorial commentators quickly reassure: ''No, thanks to our tough gun and anti-hate laws -- but let's not get complacent.''

Then the bombs began going off. On April 20, the day after the Oklahoma explosion, a pipe bomb blew up outside the provincial parliament in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.

On Saturday, a large blast leveled five homes in a Toronto suburb. Hate graffiti and a swastika were found in the debris. Police called the explosion, which did not kill anyone, a ''criminal act.'' On Sunday, a firebomb partly destroyed the Toronto home of a well-known neo-Nazi.

Authorities do not know who is responsible for these bombings. But Canadians are slowly waking to find that violent extremism knows no borders and that much of Canada's radicalism is imported from the US.

''The Canadian public thinks [a big Oklahoma-style bomb] can't happen here,'' says Stephen Scheinberg a historian at Concordia University in Montreal. ''I'm less persuaded. Canadian extremists have already proven they can be murderous. There may be fewer than in the US, but it doesn't take too many people to launch a terrorist act.''

Despite the recent spate of bombings, Canada hardly seems to be slipping toward anarchy. Tight gun laws in the ''peaceable kingdom'' are set to get tighter. Free-speech is tempered by Canada's tough ''hate laws'' that restrict what can be said or printed about a race or creed.

Unlike the US, Canada does not have a constitutional provision on a right to bear arms. Paramilitary groups are banned.

But Canada does face possible danger from 2,000 to 4,000 hard-core Canadian members of increasingly violent right-wing white supremacist groups such as the neo-Nazi Heritage Front, Aryan Nations, National Alliance, and the Northern Hammerskins, experts say.

''Almost every single hate group in Canada is a an offshoot of a US group,'' says Warren Kinsella, author of a book on Canadian hate groups. ''If US groups become armed and dangerous, they'll quickly become armed and dangerous up here.''

Older white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan aren't doing well in Canada today. Instead, more radical groups such as the Northern Hammerskins and Aryan Nations are growing the fastest and forming close ties with US counterparts, experts say. British Columbia is Canada's new extremist hot spot.

''You have the proliferation of armed compounds through the northwest -- especially in the US -- and the spread of some of the more militant factions into Canada,'' says Alan Dutton of the Vancouver-based Canadian Anti-Racism and Education Research Society. ''In British Columbia, we are seeing nothing less than the rebirth of the Aryan Nations.''

Because paramilitary activities are outlawed in Canada, some right-wing extremists are taking paramilitary training in the US, Canadian law-enforcement sources and other observers say.

The Hayden Lake, Idaho, compound of Aryan Nations is a training ground for Canadian members. And members of the Toronto-based Heritage Front have taken weapons training at the Otto, N.C., compound of the now-defunct white-supremacist group Church of the Creator.

Formed in 1989 by Wolfgang Droege, a disciple of former Klan leader David Duke, the Toronto-based Heritage Front boasts about 1,800 members -- making it Canada's largest extremist group. Recruiting from high schools and colleges, the Front encourages new members to acquire firearms certificates.

Recruiting with music

Although the Front and other Canadian groups are not nearly as heavily armed as militias and like-minded extremist groups in the US, most share the language of white supremacy.

''I'm a proud white man who wants to defend the white race,'' George Burdi, a 24-year-old Canadian security chief for the Heritage Front, recently told MacLean's, a Canadian weekly magazine.

Articulating that language in a way that attracts new, young followers is Mr. Burdi's particular strength. He founded Resistance Records in Detroit in 1991. Detroit was a logical location because hate laws regulating free speech in Canada made his songs impossible to produce here.

His band, RaHoWa -- an acronym for Racial Holy War -- attracts youths with head-banging music and racist lyrics.

The Heritage Front also uses the relatively mild ''white rights'' message to recruit youths who might ordinarily be turned off by a more overtly racist message, say antiracist groups such as B'nai Brith Canada.

But once inside the group, members swim in a shared ideological pool of overt racism seething with hatred, a former Heritage Front member who recently defected told the Monitor.

''After I joined, I began to see everything more and more through this racist lens,'' says Elizabeth Moore, a 21-year-old Canadian. ''University lectures, TV shows, books, everything seemed like some conspiracy to put down the white race.''

The ''bible'' of the US ''patriot movement'' is the ''Turner Diaries,'' a novel -- some have called it a blueprint for revolution -- in which a band of white rebels brings down an oppressive United States government. It is popular reading among Heritage Front members and other Canadian and US white supremacist groups.

''Turner Diaries'' author William Pierce heads a white supremacist group called National Alliance in Hillsboro, W. Va. A branch recently opened in Ottawa. The racism embedded in ''Turner Diaries'' is masked behind the rhetoric of ''antigovernment, anti-Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, anti-Federal Bureau of Investigation, antitax, antigun control,'' says Joe Roy, chief investigator for Klanwatch in Montgomery, Ala.

That's intentional, he says, because white supremacists have targeted the fast-growing militia movement to grow their cause. They play on militia members' fears of conspiracy and try to influence them with their racist agenda.

That is where Canada's Ernst Zundel comes in.

For 20 years, Mr. Zundel, the neo-Nazi whose home here was firebombed on Sunday, has catered to the conspiracy theories of US right-wing extremists. He has been on trial twice for hate- mongering. Convicted once, he was acquitted on appeal by Canada's Supreme Court.

Since then, Zundel has operated at the margins of the law, mostly mailing his literature outside Canada. It is the US militia movement, with its fears of a government conspiracy, that Zundel and others are trying to instill with a racist agenda.

Behind the boarded-up-and-barred windows, security cameras, and electronic locks of his home locals call ''the bunker,'' Canada's best-known neo-Nazi is trying to ''liberate'' America.

Four powerful AM radio stations in the US air his show six days a week to 18 ''prairie'' states and six Canadian provinces. His ''Another Voice of Freedom'' television broadcasts, produced in his basement studio, air on 60 US public-access channels, he says.

''I target my market,'' says Zundel as he welcomes a newcomer to his claustrophobic confines. ''The amount of books and videos I sell to the Rocky Mountain and prairie states is phenomenal compared with what I sell even in the biggest cities.''

Zundel more closely resembles someone's cherubic grandfather than a Nazi apologist who denies 6 million Jews were murdered in Hitler's death camps. As one of the world's largest publishers of anti-Semitic materials, Zundel circulates literature to 40 countries. It is outlawed in Germany.

But no place else on earth is more receptive to his message than middle America, he says. ''They say the truth makes us free. I really believe that.''
Caption: PHOTOS: 1)NEO-NAZI: For 20 years, Toronto-based Ernst Zundel has catered to the conspiracy theories of US right-wing extremists.; 2)LEFT THE GROUP: Elizabeth Moore, ex-member of Heritage Front, a Canadian hate group, says when she was with them she saw 'everything through this racist lens. Lectures, TV, books ... seemed like some conspiracy.', PHOTOS BY MARK CLAYTON
Section: THE WORLD
Page: page 1
Dateline: TORONTO
Record Number: MAY11004
Copyright 1995 The Christian Science Monitor

[Militia groups active in 13 states across U.S.]

Militia groups active in 13 states across U.S.

Toronto Star, The (Ontario, Canada) - April 22, 1995
Author: Daniel Girard and Peter Edwards Toronto Star
For half a year, David Hollister has been trying to erase the memory of his showdown with right-wing extremists.

But the mayor of Lansing, Mich., yesterday recalled the events of last fall after it was revealed two suspects in the Oklahoma City bombing may have links to the same citizens' militia group that crashed his seemingly innocent United Nations Day celebration at city hall.

"There were 200 of them dressed in fatigues and we couldn't tell if they were armed or not," Hollister said, replaying the Oct. 24 incident.

"It was terrifying."

At the protest, organized by leaders of the Michigan Militia, school children were taunted and Hollister said police had to hold back demonstrators while he raised the U.N. flag, a civic tradition more than a decade old.

"They said I was an agent of some foreign government, that the ceremony was a Communist conspiracy and talked of Russian tanks in northern Michigan," Hollister said.

"They view themselves as the last vestige of hope for democracy."

Militia leaders said at the time the U.N. flag is a source of global domination and America's sovereignty was being threatened.

Similar citizens' militias, which are said to have about 10,000 members in Michigan, are reported to have sprung up over the last year in that state and at least twelve others.

Searching for clues in the Oklahoma investigation, FBI agents yesterday entered a farmhouse in Decker, Mich., the town reported to be the headquarters of the Michigan Militia.

"The Michigan Militia started out as a group of basically extreme libertarians who distrust the government and who focus on gun ownership," John Nutter, an assistant professor at Michigan State University, told The Star.

"In Michigan they have conducted paramilitary training exercises - they go running around the woods in camouflage with guns," he said.

Nutter said that while the bombing would seem out of character with the philosophy of the militias, "there is a novel, a right-wing, Nazi fantasy which is a bible of the right-wing movement in which a small group of 'Aryan mercenaries' attack and destroy the FBI in Washington with a fertilizer bomb."

The Michigan Militia is part of a movement that has been described as being obsessed by the fate of the Branch Davidian cult, which set itself aflame, killing 70 members, rather than surrender to federal agents in a bloody standoff on April 19, 1993 - two years to the day of the Oklahoma disaster.

But Michigan Militia officials deny any part in the bombing.

"Our stand in the militia is defensive," chief of staff Ray Southwell said. "This obviously had nothing to do with defence."

Prior to the U.N. flag protest, Southwell told the Detroit Free Press: "Enough is enough. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States. Do we remember that anymore?"

Experts in this country yesterday warned that racist groups with ties to suspects in the Oklahoma City bombing are Canada's biggest terrorist threat.

"They're dedicated, they're armed," said Warren Kinsella, author of Web of Hate: Inside Canada's Far Right Network.

"They're recruiting. They've demonstrated a tendency to violence."

And the links between Canadian right-wing extremists and their American counterparts have always been cozy, Kinsella said.

"Whenever things get hot, they (Canadian neo-Nazis) head down to the States," Kinsella said.

The author added that Woodbridge neo-Nazi George Burdi had been spending a great deal of time in Michigan, considered by American authorities to be one of the three most active centres for U.S. right-wing militia activity.

Burdi, an insurance salesman and singer in the band RaHoWa (Racial Holy War), was convicted of assault causing bodily harm last week in Ottawa for kicking an anti-Nazi activist in the face at a melee at the Canadian War Memorial in May, 1993.

Toronto Heritage Front leader Wolfgang Droege was also involved in the action by neo-Nazis and skinheads.

What is the Michigan Militia?

Suspects in the Oklahoma City bombing are thought to be members of this radical anti-government group based in Michigan:

What they believe:

* Say gun control is broad conspiracy to bring about world government under NATO or the "socialist" U.N.

* Against any laws banning weapons, attacks by Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) and FBI on Branch Davidians in Texas.

Other facts:

* Started 1994 in Emmet County, Mich., organized in 66% of state's counties.

* Claim over 12,000 members with affiliates in at least 9 states.

With files from the Chicago Tribune

SA1 headline reads: Showdown with militia 'terrifying,'
Caption: 2 AP PHOTOs: MILITIA MEN: Members of the right-wing extremist group the Michigan Militia train during exercises near Saline, Mich., in December, 1994; HOUSE RAIDED: FBI agents enter a farmhouse yesterday in Decker, Mich., yesterday searching for evidence in Wednesday's bombing in Oklahoma City. (SA1 edition)
Section: NEWS
Page: A17
Record Number: 950422TS18172
Copyright (c) 1995, Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved.

[Liberals seek action on hate Crimes not prosecuted, MPP report alleges]

Liberals seek action on hate Crimes not prosecuted, MPP report alleges

Toronto Star, The (Ontario, Canada) - April 20, 1995
Author: Kelly Toughill Toronto Star
Ontario Attorney-General Marion Boyd has refused to prosecute hate-related crimes presented to her office by police, a Liberal MPP says.

Tim Murphy yesterday called for new rules forcing the Ontario attorney-general to reveal how many cases of alleged hate-propaganda she has refused to prosecute and also explain why.

"If we can have zero tolerance for violence in the schools, surely we can have zero tolerance for these crimes as well," Murphy (St. George-St. David) said.

In 1993, when controversy erupted over Boyd's alleged failure to approve prosecutions of hate crimes, Metro police issued a statement saying there had been no recent incident where Boyd's consent to a prosecution was sought and denied.

The recommendation is one of nine key points in a Liberal report on hate crimes released yesterday by Murphy.

The report also recommends:

*Including hatred against women as one of the reasons for stiffer sentencing in assault cases, similar to proposed federal guidelines involving hatred against gays, against religious groups or against racial groups.

*A ban on plea-bargaining for hate-related crimes and a requirement that prosecutors seek the maximum sentences.

*Monitoring all "hate rock concerts" to make sure they do not incite violence similar to the attack on a Tamil in Toronto last year following a RaHoWa concert.

*Shutting down all telephone lines that promote hatred against specific groups.

*Designating special prosecutors to deal with both hate literature and violent crimes motivated by hatred.

*Providing extensive education to prevent and combat racism and other forms of hatred.

"This kind of behavior attacks society's core values," Murphy said. "Society must express its abhorrence of these crimes in the strongest terms."
Edition: ONTARIO
Section: NEWS
Page: A10
Record Number: 950420TS17750
Copyright (c) 1995, Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved.

[Neo-Nazi musician is guilty of assault]

Neo-Nazi musician is guilty of assault

Toronto Star, The (Ontario, Canada) - April 11, 1995
Author: Mark Bourrie SPECIAL TO THE STAR
OTTAWA - Anti-racism activists say yesterday's conviction of a Toronto neo-Nazi leader has shattered a powerful pillar of Canada's white supremacy movement.

George Burdi, 24, was convicted by an Ottawa jury yesterday of assault causing bodily harm for kicking an anti-Nazi activist in the face in a brawl at the Canadian War Memorial.

Alicia Reckzin, 22, suffered a broken nose when a group led by Burdi and Heritage Front leader Wolfgang Droege charged through downtown Ottawa on May 29, 1993.

Burdi, a Woodbridge insurance salesman and singer in a band called RaHoWa (Racial Holy War), was in Ottawa to play a concert to recruit high school students to the Heritage Front.

The concert was broken up by anti-racist protesters and the Ottawa police riot squad.

Bernie Farber, a senior member of B'nai Brith Canada who watched the trial, says Burdi's conviction will end his career as one of the bright lights of the North America neo-Nazi movement.

He said Burdi's band's records were being used by neo-Nazis to recruit hundreds of young people to the white supremacy movement. The Toronto activist is often in the U.S. on tours.

"This conviction means that his chances of getting into the States is nil to nil. It may not seem like a serious charge, but it does real damage to the North American neo-Nazi movement," Farber said.

In Burdi's week-long trial, Droege testified that he, not Burdi, led the charge of skinheads and neo-Nazis at the war memorial. He said Burdi had tried to maintain order.

But anti-racist demonstrators said Burdi led a charge of about 60 neo-Nazis from the steps of the Chateau Laurier to the National Arts Centre.

Burdi will be sentenced May 11.
Edition: METRO
Section: NEWS
Page: A2
Dateline: OTTAWA
Record Number: 950411TS16572
Copyright (c) 1995, Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved.