Fugitive ‘Freemen’ Reject Offer to End Standoff

JORDAN, Mont. — Prospects for an imminent end to the “freemen” standoff faded Wednesday when the group rejected an offer of limited leniency and declared they had made a pact with God to leave only under their own terms.

“We are back to the spot where we started,” negotiator former U.S. Army Col. James “Bo” Gritz said as he prepared to give up his mediation effort. “They made their decision. . . . There are no more deals.”

Federal and state officials were also gloomy about prospects for a negotiated settlement after Assistant Atty. Gen. John Connor Jr., offering to dismiss all pending state charges in exchange for an end to the 38-day-old standoff, was turned away later Wednesday.

“I am of course disappointed that our discussions did not result in acceptance of our very generous proposal. We will continue our efforts to resolve this situation,” U.S. Atty. Sherry Matteucci said.

A spokeswoman for the Montana attorney general’s office, Judy Beck, was even more doubtful. “The upshot of it is, the state made a reasonable offer for leniency involving some of the state charges if they would surrender to the FBI. They have rejected that offer. They’ve rejected the most reasonable offer we can make. John Connor has left and, at this point, he won’t be going back,” Beck said.

Under the government’s proposal--issued with a 24-hour deadline--state charges against the nine freemen and 12 others holed up at the ranch would be dismissed, although the freemen would still face more serious federal charges stemming from their threats to kidnap and kill a judge and the issuing of bogus money orders in the name of their self-declared common law government.

Although the freemen were said to be optimistic about ending the standoff a day earlier, Gritz said that hope evaporated when it became clear that the legislative forum the freemen are demanding as a condition of surrender would be available only after their arrest, booking and arraignment.

The fugitives, he said, fell back on their demand for a “constitutional” grand jury composed of 23 debt-free white men who must unanimously agree on their guilt before they will surrender.

“They say, first of all, they have had communications with God. That Yahweh has placed an invisible barrier around their sanctuary that no foreign enemies can penetrate,” said Gritz, a former Green Beret with wide popularity in right-wing circles.

Gritz said that freeman John Landers, one of four described as the most militant of the holdouts, told him: “You have to understand that we have all taken an affirmation to Yahweh that we will not leave this compound under any circumstances other than our own.”

If Gritz’s four-day mediation effort accomplished anything, it was to demonstrate that the FBI has explored every possibility to resolve the crisis without bloodshed. One of the right-wing patriot movement’s most vehement spokesmen, Gritz harshly criticized the FBI’s deadly 1993 siege near Waco, Texas. And he negotiated an end to a similar standoff at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992.

But by midday Wednesday, even Gritz appeared to have had enough and was suggesting that the FBI move in and arrest the suspects without gunfire.

He said he was told by one of the freemen, Edwin Clark, whom he described as the group’s effective leader, that if the government simply moved in and declared: “It’s over now, I’m going to arrest you,” the holdouts would not shoot in response.

“I think it will come down to a confrontation of wills,” Gritz said.