Cliven Bundy, allies to speak in Paradise Saturday

Two weeks after the charges against him were dropped, Nevada rancher and anti-government activist Cliven Bundy will speak in Paradise.

Bundy drew national attention in spring 2014, when, after years of refusing to pay cattle grazing fees on federal land, he led an armed protest against Bureau of Land Management agents attempting to round up his cattle. Two years later, his sons Ammon and Ryan led an occupation of an Eastern Oregon wildlife refuge.

The federal government’s efforts to prosecute the Bundys supporters unraveled into mistrials and acquittals. Charges against Cliven Bundy were dropped earlier this month.

Titled “Freedom and Property,” Saturday’s event will begin at the Old Paradise School Gym at 5 p.m., and is scheduled to run until 8:30 p.m. Plains residents Dave and Roxsanna Ryan are organizing the event.

In addition to Bundy, speakers will include Andrea Parker, whose husband, Eric Parker, joined Bundy’s 2014 Nevada protest; Shawna Cox, who was recently acquitted of charges related to the Oregon occupation; Chris Briels, the former Harney County, Oregon fire chief who resigned to support the Bundys; Roger Roots, a member of Cliven Bundy’s legal defense team; Billy Hill, a Trout Creek resident active in land-use issues; and State Sen. Jennifer Fielder, R-Thompson Falls.

On her Facebook page, Fielder wrote that “I will be there to hear first-hand accounts from those who risked their lives to expose injustice and grave wrongdoing by the federal government, and I will present why I am requesting corrective actions” for actions taken against the Bundy-led protests in Nevada and Oregon.

But others are speaking out against the event. Kayje Booker, state policy director at the Montana Wilderness Association, said in a statement that Fielder’s participation “confirms that she’s aligned herself with a dangerous fringe group that is violently trying to bring an end to public land ownership.”