NM Ranchers Angry At Linkage
With "Hate Groups" In Report

LAS CRUCES, N.M. —(AP)— Ranchers in southern New Mexico who complained that they had been linked to white supremacists by a state police report got their point of protest across and an apology from a top state official.

The ranchers, who advocate more local control over public lands, said the report linked the Wise Use Movement with radical and violent groups.

"It's unacceptable, insufferable and smacks of the Soviet Union," Otero County rancher Bob Jones said Friday.

In the original state police report, titled "The Extremist Right: An Overview" and issued June 8, the Wise Use movement was defined as "a coalition of ranchers, loggers, miners and others who want federal environmental regulations repealed and who want more control of public lands given to local authorities."

Another section of the original report said Wise Use groups, anti-environmentalists and land grant activists "may prove to be the most volatile and pose the greatest threat to law enforcement."

Ranchers said that, while they have been critical of some federal government policies, including Forest Service supervision of public grazing lands and the military's plans to expand flight paths in southern New Mexico, they are not violent.

Darren White, secretary of the Department of Public Safety, took note of the ranchers' outrage and backed away from the link to radical groups.

In a memo issued Friday to roughly 300 law enforcement agencies statewide, White ordered two new lines added to the Wise Use definition:

"The majority of groups that identify themselves with the ‘Wise Use Movement’ pose no threat or danger ... Our definition is strictly limited to those groups that advocate unlawful, illegal, militant, and/or dangerous methods to achieve their ends ..."

White also apologized to any groups that felt they had been unfairly labeled by the initial state police report.

Some Wise Use and property-rights advocates complained state police had labeled them potential threats merely for exercising their right of free speech.

"We were just livid," said Chuck Cushman, executive director of the American Land Rights Association in Battle Ground, Wash. "This is the height of McCarthyism and extremely inappropriate."

The Wise Use reference is in a glossary contained in the 73-page report that defines so-called "hate groups" around the nation and terms used by such groups. The Wise Use movement was listed among other groups such as the American Nazi Party, the white supremacist Aryan Brotherhood, anti-semitic groups and the White Aryan Resistance.

"They got a lot of crazies, and then they lump the Wise Use movement in with them," said Otero County rancher Charlie Lee.

Otero County residents, including Sheriff John Lee, complained about the State Police report to Lt. Gov. Walter Bradley at a meeting in Santa Fe on July 2. The New Mexico Cattle Growers Association also complained to Bradley last week.