BLOOMFIELD, Ind. --
Six years after Timothy McVeigh detonated a truck bomb in front of the
Oklahoma City federal building and killed 168 people, the militia
movement that shared his anger and mistrust of government is fading.
Across the country, hundreds of the military-style groups that formed
with a common distrust of the government and a fascination with firearms
have disbanded. Several that remain have begun working to change their
image, and in southern Indiana, one of the few places where the movement
still thrives, leaders of about 20 militia groups have promised
law-enforcement officials that they will stay away Monday, when McVeigh
is scheduled to be put to death at the federal penitentiary in Terre
Haute.
"We don't want to do anything to add to the irrational fears people
might have that somemilitia members might react in some way to avenge
McVeigh's death," said Roger Stalcup, a Bloomfield bail bondsman
who oversees the Southern Indiana Regional Militia, an umbrella group.
"Nothing could be further from the truth. He's not a hero to our
movement and never has been."
Even in places like northern Michigan, once a seedbed for the militia
movement, interest has faded. Norman Olson disbanded the Northern
Michigan Regional Militia this year after members stopped appearing at
meetings and training exercises. "It had dropped down to just a
handful," Olson said.
Shift to hate groups
But observers who monitor the militia movement, including officials
with the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center, say the nation
shouldn't be lulled by their image-building. Many former members have
defected to join more radical hate groups.
"Americans should be worried about the radical right," said
Mark Potok, editor of the center's Intelligence Report. "I think
militias are becoming more and more insignificant; the action is with
the radical right. ... And overall, we're looking at a movement that is
more hard-line and more dangerous than the militia movement was in the
1990s."
According to the center, militia groups are at about one-fifth of
their former strength. In 1996, the center kept track of 858
militia/patriot groups. Today there are about 194, Potok said.
The militia movement began to pick up steam in 1993, when about 80
Branch Davidians were killed during the federal siege on their compound
near Waco, Texas. Membership in Olson's group shot up, and in the remote
woods of northern Michigan he began gathering members for martial arts
and firearms training on weekends.
"We tried to bring these highly emotional people with their own
agendas into the team," said Olson, who owns a gun shop in Alanson,
Mich. "They could find some security within our numbers."
With no crises, interest wanes
But since the Oklahoma City bombing, militia involvement has dropped
precipitously for a variety of reasons, Potok said. Many members grew
tired of preparing for crises that never arrived, notably the doomsday
predicted for Jan. 1, 2000.
That dawn "was bright and sunny, just like Dec. 31," Potok
said. "That was a big turnoff. We saw in the patriot publications
many letters to the editor saying, `You made us look like fools.'"
Others had left the movement after the bombing, fearing they would be
seen in their communities as brethren of McVeigh, who shared their
anti-government views. Others feared a clampdown on the movement by the
federal government.
Potok said a clampdown did occur. Thousands
of militia members, he said, were jailed
for weapons violations or tactics such as filing phony liens against
government officials and impersonating judges.
Defections to more radical, hate-based groups have also hurt militia
membership, Potok said.
By 1999, Stalcup and other southern Indiana militia leaders had
agreed to meet with agents from the FBI's Indianapolis field office, a
move that in the movement's heyday would have been construed as betrayal
but then was regarded as common sense.
On guard with guns, PR
Now, when Stalcup's local group, the Greene County Militia, meets
monthly, members say the Pledge of Allegiance, read the minutes from the
last meeting and discuss "what kind of PR events we want to put on
our calendar," Stalcup said.
On weekends the group still gathers in the woods to run obstacle
courses and shoot target practice, but Stalcup said the training no
longer is about readying for a government showdown.
Yet the depth of that kind of restraint is hard to gauge. Olson said
he longs for the day when another government debacle like the federal
siege near Waco gives the militia movement the call it needs to rise up
and re-energize.
Such sentiments worry observers like Penny Weaver, director of
community affairs at the Southern Poverty Law Center.
"They are a shadow of what they used to be," she said, but
"it's still important for us to keep an eye on them."
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