HATE, GUNS AND Y2K; 2000 BUG PARANOIA MAY FEED VIOLENCE.

Byline: David R. Baker

IN the alternate world of white supremacy, the Y2K computer bug looms like Armageddon.

It can be no glitch, no programmers' oversight. On the Web sites where racists have fashioned their own reality, Y2K is a tool crafted by a Jewish-led government to paralyze society and justify martial law.

It is the climactic act in a long-running plot against white people that ends with ``white patriots'' thrown into concentration camps or killed. And the more government officials warn of the bug's very real disruptive potential, the stronger the alternate belief grows.

That chills the researchers who monitor hate groups. Fears of an impending government crackdown pegged to a specific date, they warn, could push some extremists to strike first, lashing out in attacks like the one at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills last week.

``Some believe that the end is coming, that martial law is going to be declared, so they'd better defend themselves,'' said Rick Eaton, a researcher with Simon Wiesenthal Center who has infiltrated white supremacist groups. ``Does the possibility exist that we'll see more of these attacks as the millennium approaches? Unfortunately, I think it does.''

Even white supremacists who publicly disavow violence say fear of Y2K runs throughout the movement. Neuman Britton, national chaplain for the Aryan Nations, calls a government plot behind the computer bug a real possibility, even if he isn't quite convinced. He has little doubt, however, whom the government would target if the plot turns out to be true.

``If we do have martial law, I think the first people they'll arrest and throw in concentration camps are people like me,'' he said. After a moment's consideration, he added, ``I don't fear that.''

For a movement steeped in apocalyptic imagery, the millennium's end may hold an irresistible fascination. Web talk of an impending race war bleeds effortlessly into Christian prophesies of a final battle between good and evil. Viewed through the lens of ``Christian Identity,'' which holds that Aryans are God's children and Jews are Satan's, the end of a century marked by growing ties between racial and ethnic groups looks a lot like biblical ``End Times.''

Jordan Kessler, a research analyst with the Anti-Defamation League in New York, said that for some on white supremacy's mystical fringe, 2000 may literally be Armageddon.

``The millennium is perhaps the time when this final battle will take place, between God and the white people and Satan and his horde - the Jews,'' Kessler said.

Eaton, the Wiesenthal Center researcher, doesn't think anyone preparing to ignite a race war is operating on any kind of millennial timetable.

``With the religious zealots, any time's a good time to start the race war,'' he said.

Instead, he said, fears of a computer meltdown sparked by the Y2K bug have tapped into long-standing fears of a federal crackdown. The belief lives most fervently at the intersection of white supremacy and the militia movement, which shares the same reflexive distrust of government.

The theory has many versions. While many describe the bug as a time bomb deliberately planted by the government, some cast it as just an opportunity federal authorities will seize.

Some Web sites offer multiple explanations.

The Jubilee Newspaper, which on its Internet site bills itself as the paper of record for the American Christian Patriot, first warns of ``an instigated civil war in America - deviously related to Y2K,'' but then turns to another view.

``Yes, the One World Commercial Kingdom of the Bankers, and its Corporate Confederacy with all the merchants and the greedy kings of the earth IS being Destroyed by an angry God,'' Paul Hall Sr. wrote in an article on the Y2K bug. ``Babylon is teetering . . . falling . . . and soon, will be no more.''

So evolved is the belief that government will take advantage of the millennium hysteria to destroy their organizations, some in the movement have already spotted locations they believe are being prepared as concentration camps.

Eaton received a note listing one San Fernando Valley site where the government had supposedly built hundreds of structures to imprison the ``white patriots.'' The site, at the intersection of the San Diego and Golden State freeways in Sylmar, is actually a Los Angeles Police Department training facility.

Still, the seriousness with which the government takes Y2K can't help making the threat seem more real, researchers say. White supremacist Web pages offer a running commentary on the federal government's pronouncements, imparting their own spin on everything from the Kosovo conflict to obscure Congressional votes.

Even though the groups have an extreme distrust of the government, they hang on every word the federal government says about Y2K.

``The Y2K crisis, which in some ways is very real, lends credibility to the idea that the end is near,'' said Jack Levin, director of the Brudnick Center on Violence at Northeastern University in Boston. ``When they hear a Senate committee advising the average citizen to stock up on food or water and carry extra cash for a few days, that verifies all their suspicions.''

Levin and others point out that millennial worries are only one of the factors that can push racist extremists to lash out.

America's growing multiculturalism, the multiplying ties of business, friendship and marriage binding different racial and ethnic groups, is perhaps a stronger incitement to violence. The push for gun control in the wake of recent shootings exerts its own pressure, threatening what many in the movement consider one of their most important freedoms.

The approaching millennium and its threat of computer failure, then, could be just one last, ill-timed straw.

``It may reach a boiling point for some people,'' Kessler said. ``And I think we're seeing that now.''

CAPTION(S):

4 Photos

Photo: (1--2--Color) Children from the North Valley Jewish Community Center are led to safety Tuesday by LAPD officers, above, after a shooting at the day-care center left three children, a teen counselor and the receptionist injured. Worried parents and onlookers, left, wait for news about the children's safety as the drama drags on throughout the day.

Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer

Gus Ruelas/Staff Photographer

(3) LAPD SWAT team members take cover behind a wall as they search for the gunman who opened fire Tuesday on children and adults in the Jewish Community Center.

Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer

(4) Buford O'Neal Furrow Jr. is led out of federal court in Las Vegas on Wednesday after surrendering.

Laura Rauch/Associated Press