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Ecotage

Sabotage to save the Earth

generates backlash
Extreme threats require extreme defenses, says Craig Rosebraugh, spokesman for the Earth Liberation Front (ELF). "Life on this Earth is being threatened. This is an issue of self defense."

"What we need now is direct action in the form of economic sabotage to try and take the profit motive out of these various entities that are hell-bent on environmental destruction regardless of the cost," Rosebraugh says.

Since 1997, Rosebraugh has been the Portland-based spokesman for ELF and Animal Liberation Front acts of sabotage throughout the nation. His website (www.earthliberationfront.com) lists 34 separate acts of sabotage for which underground ELF activists have laid claim. The incidents range from up to $26 million in damage from burning down a ski resort in Vail, Colo., in 1998 to $400,000 in damages from burning down the Superior Lumber Co. offices in Glendale, Ore., this past January. He and other panelists spoke to several hundred audience members at a session on "Direct Action" and another on "State Repression" at the PIELC last weekend.

Rosebraugh says direct action is needed because capitalism has corrupted democracy and made "state sanctioned" means of social change ineffective. "The popular environmental movement has not been able to achieve the type of change that will prevent our Earth from being killed." Erin Fullmer of Cascadia Forest Defenders has been part of a three-year tree sit near Fall Creek. She says she understands the frustration. The non-violent action hasn't involved sabotage and has succeeded in protecting a grove of trees so far, educating the public and buying time for the Forest Service to survey for the voles that provide food for spotted owls.

But Fullmer says such a long action "is a very intensive tactic, it's very expensive." She says such tree sits often just protect a "patchwork" of old-growth with clear-cuts all around. Whether such prolonged tree sits are the best tactic is "an open question," Fullmer says. "I really resonate with what Craig [Rosebraugh] is saying. Does it really have to be all gone before we do anything direct about it?" (if ELF keeps destroying it, I guess so)

Rosebraugh says sabotage "will force the economic entities to think twice about what they are doing." The actions also create huge amounts of publicity, says Rosebraugh, citing the "hundreds if not thousands" of news stories generated by ELF actions.

The Vail resort was rebuilt even bigger, Rosebraugh admits, but the arson drew national and international attention to the negative impact of ski resorts on the environment.

Fullmer agrees, "Vail lives on and on; it's kind of a hallmark for many people."

"Every single action generates a lot of publicity," Rosebraugh says.

But with that publicity has come a powerful backlash. The FBI has formed "Joint Terrorism Task Forces" with local police around the nation (including Eugene and Portland) to investigate ELF actions. State legislatures (including in Oregon) are crafting tough new anti-terrorism laws targeting ecological sabotage with stiff penalties.

"As this direct action continues to go on with very few people getting caught and with increasing monetary damage, the state repression is increasing," Rosebraugh says. Rosebraugh says the movement should take on a "security culture" and use software encryption and vigilance against infiltrators to foil FBI efforts to subvert environmentalists. Rosebraugh points to a long history of FBI "COINTELPRO" actions in infiltrating the early U.S. labor, civil rights and peace movements. "This isn't something you get off 'X-Files,' this is something that has gone on throughout history to all different social movements."

"COINTELPRO is basically still happening, just not by that name" Fullmer says.

Alicia Littletree, an Earth First! activist from northern California, told of how the FBI has repeatedly used provocateurs, infiltrators, pepper spray, beatings, pain holds, and false arrests against members of her group. At the same time, the FBI and other law enforcement have refused to investigate threats of violence against environmentalists from right-wing groups and bring charges when activists are seriously injured or killed. For example, activist Judi Bari was severely injured by a car bomb in 1990 and activist David Chain was killed when a logger "intentionally" fell a tree on him in 1998, Littletree says.

Littletree warned environmentalists not to ever talk to the FBI without an attorney present. "This is a political police force and they're not trying to solve crimes, they're out to neutralize our movement."

Geneva Johnson of the Free and Critter Legal Defense Committee describes how the law has come down hard on two Eugene activists accused of an arson at a local car dealership last year. Craig (Critter) Marshall pled guilty and faces five and a half years in prison. A promise of boot camp reducing the sentence to one and a half years that was part of the plea agreement appears to have fallen through, Johnson says.

Jeff (Free) Luers is still in the county jail awaiting a retrial after his lawyer died. He's in a maximum security 9-foot by 6-foot cell where he stays 22 hours a day(WHHAAA!), Johnson says.

Littletree says after an ELF action, the FBI often comes after the more visible mainstream environmental groups with threats of arrest and harassment. Even if there's no evidence of involvement, the FBI may "fabricate the evidence" to win a conviction, she says.

That backlash from law enforcement and sometimes public opinion after an ELF action has lead some mainstream environmental groups to say sabotage actions actually backfire and sabotage environmental causes.

Rosebraugh bristles at other environmental groups that publicly denounce ELF. "There is no excuse for anyone to condemn the actions they don't agree with tactically."

Fullmer says ELF actions can create heat for more mainstream groups, but also attract media attention to causes. "If we get a little burnt by that [heat] I would say, personally, that I welcome the burn." Fullmer says when a reporter calls an environmental group after an ELF action, "use that occasion to talk about the issues rather than disavowing what happened."

Marshall Kirkpatrick of the Eugene Anarchist Action Collective says ELF activists should, nevertheless, use their judgment in picking their targets and "not be totally alienating to everyone out there." Sometimes, not very often, ELF actions, "make me cringe," the anarchist says.

ELF has redefined what it is to be radical, Rosebraugh says. "Years ago a group called the Sierra Club used to be very, very radical, but now, they're seen as mainstream," Rosebraugh says. "ELF, I see out on this arrow bringing these other mainstream [environmental] groups along." -- Alan Pittman