How the Oregon militia standoff became a battle with a Native American tribe

The press conferences were spaced two hours apart on Wednesday – one by armed militia leader Ammon Bundy, the other by a local Paiute Indian tribal leader. They expressed competing visions for the future of a swath of federally managed land in rural south-eastern Oregon.

At issue: who has more of a say over the contested Malheur national wildlife refuge? A band of mostly out-of-state commandos who have seized control of the property to make a point with the federal government, or Native Americans whose ancestors have lived on the land for thousands of years?

On the fifth day of a standoff waged by about 30 rightwing militia, led by the son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, the political battle lines of a dispute that is garnering attention across the world splintered. No longer was this a tense face-off between the US government and protesters who want Washington to relinquish control of thousands of square miles across several western states so it can be used more freely by cattle ranchers.

Now it was the Bundy Bunch versus a Native American tribe – which claims first rights to the land – each demanding to have a say over the lingering standoff.

On Wednesday morning, Paiute tribal chairwoman Charlotte Rodrique stood before scores of people – including many of the 420-member tribe – at a press conference, saying that the Bundys and their gang were encroaching on land considered sacred to the Paiute people.

“Armed protesters don’t belong here,” she said. “By their actions they are desecrating one of our sacred traditional cultural properties. They are endangering our children, and the safety of our community, and they need to leave. Armed confrontation is not the answer.”

She said the sprawling wildlife reserve is part of the tribe’s ancestral territory and is protected under terms of an agreement signed with federal officials more than a century ago. The tribe still uses the refuge for sacred religious and cultural ceremonies, such as collecting plants for medicine and crafts.

“This land belonged to the Paiute people as wintering grounds long before the first settlers, ranchers and trappers ever arrived here,” Rodrique said, “We haven’t given up our rights to the land. We have protected sites there. We still use the land.”

The motley militia, which calls itself Citizens for Constitutional Freedom, has occupied an isolated scattering of buildings operated by the US Fish and Game Service since the weekend; after staging a rally on behalf of two local ranchers who were imprisoned on federal arson charges.

In Burns, located 30 miles from the beleaguered park headquarters, federal officials have massed in great numbers, ready to move in on the protesters if necessary. So far there has been no violence, only claims by some militia that they are ready to die for their cause.

Not long after the tribal press conference, Bundy, who is adept a public relations, a skill he appears to have acquired from the days at the forefront of his father’s ranch in Nevada in 2014, addressed the press in what has become a daily morning briefing. He said he had not heard of the tribe’s concerns, but embraced them.

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“I would like to see them be free of the federal government as well. They’re regulated by federal government very tightly and I think they have a right to be free like everybody else.”

Dressed in his signature black cowboy hat, denim jeans and a thick grey wool shirt, Bundy claimed members of his group have collected evidence that federal officials help start the fires linked to local father-and-son ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond, who have been imprisoned for arson.

Bundy is revered by his followers. As he talked to a clutch of reporters on a morning with temperatures in the mid-20s, a camouflage-wearing bodyguard standing behind him reached out to pick a piece of lint from his jacket – like a butler dusting off his gentleman boss.

For days, residents of Burns have called for Bundy to leave their community in peace. And on Wednesday, he acknowledged he would leave if certain terms were met – including release of the Hammonds and a dispersal of an undetermined amount of land now administered by the federal government.

“There is a time to go home; we recognize that. We don’t feel it’s quite time yet,” Bundy said. “Enough is enough when there’s actual action happening; when things are actually transpiring. We’ll know when that happens.”

But Rodrique and others here are already at the end of their patience.

She called the militia dangerous people with a mindset that precludes negotiations. She said she would not dignify their presence with a visit.

At the press conference, she questioned the militia’s presence in south-eastern Oregon. But if the Bundy family was going to oversee the handout of US government-managed lands, she said her tribe deserved to be first in line.

“For them to say they want to give the land back to their rightful owners – well, I just had to laugh at that,” the tribal chairwoman said. She joked that when a friend called to ask what she was doing, she replied she was “writing our acceptance letter” to receive those lands.

Then she turned serious.

“When they talk about returning land, I know they didn’t mean us,” she said of her tribe. “When [the US government] wanted us to give up the land, we didn’t do it. We have never given up our aboriginal rights there. We do as well feel there – because this is still our land.”

Listening intently to the tribal chairwoman was Alma Kennedy and her 11-year-old granddaughter, Ashlin Begay.

Kennedy has lived in this remote corner of Oregon all of her 69 years, fashioning out a life by selling mushrooms and working, for decades, as a nurse. She still feels akin to the plants and animals here and wears a brooch her son made for her – a figure of a teepee made from colorful beads and buckskin.

As her grandmother talked, the girl listened. Finally she spoke up.

“If people are giving away land here, they should give it to us,” she said. “It’s ours. It’s always been ours.”

• This article was amended on 6 January 2015 to remove a reference to a tweet by Ammon Bundy which was posted by a parody account, not by Bundy himself.