APut 07/13 1854 Aryan Nations HAYDEN LAKE, Idaho (AP) -- White supremacists staged a cross

APut 07/13 1854 Aryan Nations


   HAYDEN  LAKE,  Idaho  (AP)  --  White  supremacists  staged  a
cross-burning,   but   used   electric    lights    instead    of
gasoline-fueled  fire,  a  participant at the weekend Aryan World
Congress was quoted as saying.

   No guns were visible, and those attending the gathering at the
Church of Jesus  Christ  Christin  (Aryan  Nations)  showed  less
conviction  than in the past, said the unnamed participant quoted
by the Spokesman-Review in Spokane.

   "Compared to last year, it was like going from a  forest  fire
to a barbeque," the participant said.

   At  the  windup  of  the gathering Sunday, a hat was passed to
raise money for legal  fees  for  Aryan  Nations  leader  Richard
Butler  and  Robert  Miles  of  The  Mountain Church in Cohoctah,
Mich., the participant said.

   Both face federal charges in Arkansas of plotting at the  1983
World Aryan Congress to overthrow the government.

   News  reporters and photographers were barred from the two-day
gathering.  A news conference was scheduled Monday morning, but a
$50 entrance fee was required.

   "At this point, to my knowledge, no one is willing to pay  the
50  bucks,  and  so  consequently we're not going to have a press
conference," Aryan Nations spokesman Richard Masker said Sunday.

   Everett Hofmeister, a lawyer for Butler, said he might file  a
lawsuit   against   Kootenai   County   sheriff's   deputies  who
photographed everyone entering the Aryan gathering.

   Hofmeister  branded  the  action  an   infringement   on   the
constitutional  right  of  freedom of assembly of those attending
the gathering.

   "We felt that this was an outstanding congress,"  Masker  said
at  the  conclusion of the event. "Everyone who attended was very
pleased with it."

   The unnamed participant disagreed.

   "There was nothing profound this year," the participant  said.
"I  saw  people  looking  for  somebody  to follow, and there was
nobody.

   "This sedition charge stuff is splitting  the  movement,"  the
participant said.

   At  past  Aryan  gatherings,  security guards and participants
have displayed semiautomatic rifles, shotguns, carbines, handguns
and knives.

   Guards this year carried large wooden  shields,  painted  with
emblems  of  the Ku Klux Klan and Aryan Nations, and some carried
knives.

   The Aryans also couldn't get a  county  fire  permit  for  the
cross  burning,  so  they  erected  a cross wrapped with electric
light bulbs on a catwalk on the compound's guard tower.

   The participant said about 175 people  attended  the  Saturday
evening "cross lighting," conducted by Miles with about two dozen
people in Klan uniforms.

   Members of one political faction appear content to "talk among
themselves,"  he  said. "Another faction wants to go out into the
community" with its message denouncing  Jews,  blacks,  the  news
media and the federal government.

   "At  no  time  did  I  hear  them mention the need for a white
homeland," the participant said.

   That was a focus of Miles' 1986 address.

   
Last page !