Peace flees somewhere over the Rainbows ...
Forest Service says communal group menaced officers
Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News
Published June 21, 2006 at midnight
It's not starting out with an abundance of peace and love.
Federal forest officials Tuesday clashed with members of the Rainbow Family north of Steamboat Springs, where the free-spirited tribe plans to hold its annual summer gathering of as many as 20,000 celebrants next month.
The 35th annual Rainbow Gathering of the Tribes for World Peace & Healing is to be held July 1-7 in the Routt National Forest but so far hasn't gotten a special-use permit.
Denise Ottaviano, an information officer for the National Incident Management Team, said about 15 U.S. Forest Service law enforcement officers were forced to abandon a safety-and-information checkpoint after being encircled in a hostile manner by more than 200 Rainbows.
The conflict was sparked by the U.S. Forest Service's decision to start issuing citations to early-bird Rainbow campers entering the Hahns Peak-Bears Ears Ranger District - roughly 30 miles north-northeast of Steamboat Springs - without a special-use permit.
Ottaviano said the permit is required for a gathering of more than 74 people on Forest Service land.
About midday Tuesday, Ottaviano said, "a group of between 60 to 80 Rainbows started approaching the law enforcement officers from the interior of the gathering area in a very hostile manner.
"They broke up into groups and started surrounding the law enforcement officers at the checkpoint, and that incited the group of about 200 that was outside of the gathering area to then also approach and join in with the group that was already there, and start surrounding the law enforcement officers."
Ottaviano said that when the officers saw they were encircled, they drew their weapons but did not fire. They were then able to get into their cars and leave.
News of trouble in a planned paradise 10 days before the start of the Rainbows' mass summer reveries didn't sit well with Rob Savoye. He's a 47-year-old Rainbow Family member who lives near Nederland and helped locate this year's gathering site. He wasn't present at Tuesday's confrontation.
The problem with securing the required permit for the use of the federal land, Savoye said, is "nobody is in charge (of the Rainbows), and so nobody can sign a permit.
"We always say, anybody who looks like they're in charge, obviously isn't."
That reasoning won't wash with the feds.
"They have the constitutional right to gather on national forest system land, as does any group for any reason," Ottaviano said. "But they also have the legal responsibility to obtain the free special-use permit."
The Rainbows' permitting conflict has been played out for several years in a row, Savoye said.
"The last several years, somebody - most of the time unbeknownst to the rest of us - typically just jumps out of the woodwork to sign a permit, to save everybody from harassment," said Savoye, who describes himself as the Rainbows' "self-appointed Web site maintainer."
The Rainbows' literature describes the purpose of their annual summer communing with nature and one another as "expressing our sincere desire that there shall be peace on earth, harmony among all people."
brennanc@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-2742
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