Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 22, 1995 TAG: 9510230061
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAN VERTEFEUILLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
To the uninitiated, it seems a little far-fetched, participants realize. But to those in the know, the assertions being made at Saturday's "anti-United Nations rally" were well-documented, if not well-known.
"Mainstream America is going to reject this message till they get a knock on the door in the middle of the night," said a 53-year-old Roanoke man, a self-described former liberal. "Then, of course, it'll be too late. It's intellectually correct to reject it, to call us paranoid."
A crowd of 100 - either true believers or simply the curious - stood through two hours of speeches in Fallon Park by a founder of the Militia of Montana and local right-wing activists as they listed the crimes and plots undertaken by the United Nations.
Bob Fletcher - spokesman for the Militia of Montana, one of the first of the citizens' militia groups founded - recited "proof" of a New World Order running the United Nations and in power in the U.S. government that wants to take over America and the rest of the world:
The "Gulf War Syndrome" that has sickened troops since their return from fighting in Kuwait is the result of chemical agents injected into them by the United States before they fought. It was part of an experiment to "wipe out the health of our good soldiers" when the U.N. invades the United States.
The elite few behind the New World Order control global weather patterns and have used this control to cause droughts in Ethiopia that kill 8,000 a month and to cause earthquakes elsewhere.
Henry Kissinger was responsible for bringing the World Cup soccer games to the United States last year, as a pretext to install closed-circuit cameras in stadiums in nine of the country's largest cities. The stadiums will be used as temporary prison holding centers after martial law is declared.
The CIA took a barge loaded with chemical agents up the Mississippi River to see how many people would get sick.
To many in the crowd, the allegations were not new. Being able to come together with like-minded people was the draw.
"I've been waiting for something like this for 22 years," said Joey Zamorski, a Salem resident. "The vast majority don't understand what the New World Order is. It's hard to find people aware of what's going on."
Since the Oklahoma City bombing brought citizen militias into public consciousness, the collection of fervid Constitution supporters, gun-rights advocates and right-wing Christians known as the patriots movement has become more visible and more active.
Representatives from the John Birch Society, the Virginia Citizens Militia, the American Party and anti-abortion groups attended the rally, passing out literature to the crowd. Men and women in the virtually all-white crowd wore shirts with American flags on them and waved flags and placards.
Their poster child was Michael New, a U.S. soldier stationed in Europe who recently refused to wear the colors of the United Nations on his uniform and faces possible court-martial.
Donald Doyle, a Vinton resident who is head of the rally's sponsor, Citizens in Action, set a U.N. flag on fire at the end of the rally as the crowd chanted "Get us out."
After his speech, Fletcher said that, as part of the Militia of Montana, he hopes speaking around the country results in "solidarity and awakening about what's going on with corrupt people in government." Already, he said, they have 8 million people on board.
Government is not the enemy, he stressed, but the corrupt in power want to declare martial law across the country.
"It's liable to reach the point of shooting in America," Fletcher said.
"I felt like everything he said was true," said one man in attendance, who asked that his name not be used. "He was preaching to the choir."
by CNB