Anarchists of the Midwest

Nicholas von Hoffman

Washington The best reconstruction of what took

place in the scrubby hill country of north-east Arkansas on the evening of 3 June runs like this. That afternoon federal marshals dressed in camouflaged army fatigues surrounded a farmhouse. There were Arkansas state troopers with them and the Lawrence County sheriff, Gene Mat- thews. An ambulance and a fire truck stood by.

The farmhouse was not like others. Its foundation was dug deep into the ground, more basement than silhouette, of heavy Concrete construction. People who have seen it have described the building as a bunker. It was a departure, from the or- dinary domestic architecture of the region, where they grow alfalfa to feed the Angus beef cattle and Appaloosa horses which the farmers raise. Several days before, someone had telephoned the FBI to say he had seen Gor- don Kahl travelling in a car in the vicinity of Walnut Ridge, The 63-year-old man's face had been on 'wanted' posters tacked up in the nation's post offices since last February when two federal marshals in North Dakota had tried to serve a warrant on Kahl for Parole violation. In 1977 he had been con- victed of not filing income tax returns. Gor- don Kahl believed the income tax was un- constitutional; he belonged to a group call- ed 'Posse Comitatus' which appears to hold that the very government created by that constitution is unconstitutional.

Mr Kahl had the courage of his convic- tions.

beliefs ... He was a man willing to fight for his murdered t and murder for them. He he two federal marshals in North Dakota and then vanished in that wide trackless country. They brought in US army helicopters with radar and infra-red sensing devices to find him but, like others of his persuasion, Kahl had prepared himself for living in the wild. The crafts of `sur-

nvivalism' as they call it, are much studied y members of groups dedicated to bring- g America back to the true constitutional path. It is said that among the North Dakota wheat farmers there are many who nurse the same resentment against Washington, federalism and taxation as Gordon Kahl and, although they would not have

hello done what he did, they were willing to him his v make good his escape after he left victims beside the flat highway. Shortly before six the man who owned the house where Kahl had taken refuge tried to drive away from the place. He was stop- ped and revolver found to have a loaded and cocked on his lap and a loaded rifle with a telescopic sight on the back seat. The man said there was only one person in his house, his wife. Sheriff Matthews led four other lawmen into the house. As they were enter- ing, the wife came towards them. As she did, Kahly stepped out from behind the refrigerator firing a handgun.

Although he was wearing a bullet-proof vest, the sheriff was hit and went down. Returning fire, he crawled out of the door. The other officers dragged Matthews clear, whereupon a gun battle erupted and did not end until flaming hot tear-gas canisters ig- nited the contents of an ammunition locker. The house exploded in flames. It was ten o'clock at night before the lawmen could enter the ruins. There they found Gordon Kahl's body near his high-powered semi- automatic rifle. The sheriff also died..

The authorities say they think there may be as many as 3,000 members in the local chapters of the Posse Comitatus. The in- dications are that the FBI is only now beginning to infiltrate and buy informers, so information on the group may not be reliable. The Posse Comitatus, with its membership concentrated in the Midwest and West, may not have any central organisation; a common credo more than any organisational structure may be what holds them together.

However they are organised, they are but one of a number of groups that have mixed right-wing politics and religious and political fundamentalism based on a literal interpretation of bible and constitution. They are angry anarchists of the Right, ex- aggerated individualists who consider the use of force and violence legitimate and who have an unusual number of weapons even for gun-loving Americans. Inspector Thomas Kupferer of the United States Mar- shals Service has told reporters that, 'There has been some information that they are in- to RPGs — rocket-propelled grenades mortars, explosive and protective equip- ment, heavy-duty armour, that type of thing. And so with some of the information we got with some of their training grounds and tactics, it fits', From last June to February a radio sta- tion in Dodge City, Kansas, broadcast the sermons of two gentlemen described as `paramilitary evangelists' associated with the Posse Comitatus. They are not coy when talking about violence: 'You're God's battle-axe . . . they're going to cleanse this land and they're going to cleanse it just the way it was cleansed in symbolism — with blood, because that's the way it is going to be. He's going to cleanse this land. And isn't that going to be fun? So, keep your ammunition dry ...'

The paramilitary gospellers have other ugly messages to deliver: `If the Jews ever fool around with us, or try to harm us in any way, every Rabbi in LA will die within_ 24 hours ... Let them start ... We've got the address and licence number and the name of every Anti-Defamation League leader in this area and the areas all over the United States.'

How much anti-semitism and racism is mixed into these groups cannot be ascer- tained yet. It's an important element in some but perhaps not in others. Leaving the hateful aspects aside, much of what these groups espouse is shared by millions, although in an adulterated form. The con- viction that the constitution has been betrayed, that its true meaning has been twisted by the rich, powerful and the sinister is abroad among us. Millions believe that any attempt to curb the right to own weapons violates the primal American social contract. Everyone has a right to a gun, not only to protect one's self against malefactors, but against Big Brother.

The suspicion that Washington is the seat of a tyrannical conspiracy has never been stronger among those inclined to the anar- chism of the Right. How odd, for the inten- sification of hostility towards central government goes on at a time when the Ad- ministration in power is the most sym- pathetic in more than half a century. There are days and occasions when the President himself talks (without the religious and racial hatred) like a chapter member of the Posse Comitatus. But, although his Ad- ministration works overtime to shrink the federal domain, the raging Right is not assuaged or reassured.

We saw similar behaviour at the other end of the political spectrum in the late 1960s. The coming to power of an Ad- ministration eager to make changes in civil rights, welfare legislation and so forth had the perverse effect of enraging some of the leaders and organisations which stood the most to benefit. No change was enough, no policy was well motivated; the new Left often fell on its patrons and allies with a vindictiveness and violence it had never used on its enemies.

The rioting will never be forgotten by Americans old enough to have lived through it; the bombings by the radical Left, while amateurish, nevertheless did

enough murderous work for most tastes. Considering how frightening such events are to peaceful white-collar people who like to spend their time worrying about crabgrass in the lawn, the reaction was disciplined and measured. There were some examples of the police engaging In vigilante work, but for the most part not heretics but terrorists were brought to justice. The same care is being exercised with the rise in activity of these new groups of politically insane people.

But political violence is like someone walking from the bow to the stern of a crowded rowing boat. Everyone knows the safest reaction to the rocking is to stay still and quiet, yet the panic is always trying to climb up out of the deep and get aboard.