Spotlight Casts Sobering Glare on U.S. Militias : OKLAHOMA CITY: AFTER THE BOMB : The Michigan Militia

There are many Michigan militias.

The landscape is dotted by groups ranging in size from half a dozen members to thousands--with strategies that run from the relatively tame--to setting up a separate “constitutional” grand jury and bombing judges at home. Together, those groups give the movement one of its strongest and most visible presences in the country.

The movement in this state also is among the most fractured. For instance: One militia brigade called a recent meeting at a local library, with a seemingly benign agenda featuring a lecture on pepper spray, patriotic poetry and a flute recital.

Yet elsewhere, another very small, very private group talked about “bombing the ATF (federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms)” to retaliate for the raid two years ago on the Branch Davidian cultists near Waco, Tex., and robbing banks or crack houses to pay for weapons.

The largest and most public militia in the state is the Michigan Militia Corps. Two of its founders, who resigned their command positions under pressure last weekend, faxed to news organizations the conclusions they have reached about the bombing.

The Japanese government blew up the federal building because the U.S. government was responsible for the nerve gas attack in the Tokyo subway that is being blamed on an apocalyptic religious sect, said Norman Olson, a Baptist pastor and gun dealer, and Ray Southwell, Olson’s deacon and a real estate agent. “This is big, big, big,” Southwell said.

The three other statewide executives did not find that scenario or its source to be credible. “Fiction,” one branded the tale.

The relationships among the militias here are both competitive and cooperative. They cast the same suspicious eye on each other that they do on the federal government, calling into doubt each others’ military records, sneering about “sunshine patriots” of some groups and “Boy Scouts” in others.

Yet, bound by the same fear of a federal government run amok, the groups keep in close touch, even sending emissaries to meet in fields under cover of night to exchange precious bits of intelligence.

By far the largest figure on the militia scene is Mark Koernke--”Mark from Michigan”--who is a star on the patriot lecture circuit. He is a magnet. Some militia members are drawn toward him, others are repelled.

Koernke reportedly has spies in many places. “The Michigan militia is heavily infiltrated with Koernke people,” said former Michigan Militia Corps member Eric Maloney.

Such is the state of things in Michigan. Somebody is always infiltrating, it seems.

“We are faced with that on a daily basis,” said Matthew Krol, a member of the Genessee County brigade near Flint. “We get (white) supremacists at our meetings. We’ve started to say at the start of our meetings . . . ‘If you’re a supremacist or you’re here so you can learn to use violence, you should leave now.’ ”

Other groups also shun the tough talk of violence. The corps branch in the Detroit area felt it necessary to note at the bottom of fliers advertising an April 18 meeting: “The Wayne County Militia is a law-abiding, equal opportunity patriot’s group.”

Others hang back from the corps because they are already part of much smaller, very secretive militias restricted to relatives or church members--a few people well known to each other.

But they are not isolated. They monitor the corps. They monitor Koernke. They try to keep up with developments across the United States.

“We have contacts everywhere,” said one man in a militia group of fewer than 10. “We have contacts in law enforcement. We have contacts in the military. We have contacts in intelligence.”