Neo-Nazi Groups Plan Pennsylvania Weekend Gathering

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - American neo-Nazis and white supremacists, stung by the death of one top leader and the serious illness of another, will try to regroup at an Aryan Nations World Congress this weekend in Pennsylvania.

The meeting, to be held in Ulysses Township on the property of white supremacist August Kreis, is the first to be convened in the eastern United States for many years, according to the Anti-Defamation League, which monitors extremist hate groups.

The group's Web site listed a number of white supremacist rock bands and speakers scheduled to appear at the gathering in a rural county of north-central Pennsylvania.

The group did not answer telephone calls. However, on its Internet site, it defines its ideology:

"Aryan Nations supports any and all efforts that disrupt the system and lead to system breakdown. Worse is better for now, and societal breakdown is absolutely necessary. ... We are not a non-violent organization. We support the coming of a New Dawn in which white power will be a fact of life. Our soil will be cleansed, of this there is zero doubt," it said.

Such groups have suffered significant setbacks in the past two years. On Tuesday, one of their top leaders, William Pierce, died of cancer at age 69.

Pierce, described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as the "America's number one neo-Nazi," was leader of the National Alliance, which boasts 51 chapters nationwide. His novel, "The Turner Diaries," helped inspire Timothy McVeigh ( news - web sites) to blow up the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people.

Another prominent extremist leader, Richard Butler, is said to be terminally ill. Butler, who heads Aryan Nations, was forced to sell his 20-acre compound in Hayden Lake, Idaho, last year to pay a $6.3 million court verdict in favor of a woman and her son who were attacked and terrorized by Aryan Nations security guards.

The compound is being transformed into a human rights education center and museum.

FAR FROM DEAD

But the Pennsylvania meeting is a sign that the Aryan Nations and groups like them are far from dead, said Mark Pitcavage, director of fact-finding for the Anti-Defamation League.

"The Aryan Nations has now split into three factions which are trying to outdo each other in their radicalism. They are preaching a very violent, dangerous ideology," he said.

"Their numbers may be small but it doesn't take many people to cause a lot of damage. There's a wide range of criminal activity associated with this movement, ranging from minor assaults and desecrating cemeteries to murder and terrorism," Pitcavage said.

He said the organizers of the weekend would probably be satisfied if 200 people showed up and delighted with 400. The organizers had invited "white power" rock bands to attract young people and reached out locally and nationally to Ku Klux Klan groups to build attendance.

The ADL recently notified local and national law enforcement of the presence of new groups emerging out of Aryan Nations, several of which have issued calls to violence and intimidation on the Internet based on a concept known as "Phineas Priest."

The "Phineas Priest" ideology, based on an incident in the Old Testament in which the son of Aaron killed an Israelite man and a Midianite woman while they were having sex, encourages followers to strike out violently against "race mixers," abortion providers, homosexuals, Jews and other perceived enemies.

The Southern Poverty Law Center estimated there were 676 active hate groups in the United States in 2001. It divided them into 109 Ku Klux Klan chapters; 209 neo-Nazi groups; 43 "racist" skinhead groups; 31 "Christian identity" groups; 124 neo-Confederate groups; 51 black separatist groups and a few other miscellaneous factions.

The center is particularly concerned by the spread of so-called "white power" music disseminated on compact discs, short-wave radio and over the Internet, which has grown into a more than a million dollar a year business.

Extremist groups have organized a number of outdoor white power concerts this summer, including "Rudolph Hess memorial concerts" next month in Portland, Oregon and Orange County, California. Hess was a deputy to Adolf Hitler who committed suicide in prison in 1987, aged 93

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