venerdì 9 marzo 2012

A Spark in the Dark: The Earth Liberation Front (ELF) in Southern Ontario from 2005 to 2007


By Anonymous

"There are so many things of beauty, in this world to see. A wild, running river, or an old-growth redwood tree. But in such an ugly situation, so sinister and dire, there's nothing quite as lovely, as a development on fire.”.

- E.L.F. Communique for development arson at Summit Ridge road, Guelph June 27th, 2006

What would it look like to have moose come back to Southern Ontario? Can you imagine a pack of Grey wolves re-inhabiting their territory feeding on a deer carcass at the mouth of the Don River? What would it feel like to touch the chestnut trees and towering Oak trees four meters wide in the Carolinian forests around Lake Ontario two hundred years ago. Imagine a clean river, a continuous forest, an undisturbed ecosystem. In Southern Ontario these are memories of our collective past. Like a photograph of a lost love, we lose perspective of the contours, the nuances and eventually the picture, until someday even the memory is gone. The act of remembering, of knowing what we lost, and what there still is to lose, is a struggle in itself. In short, we have everything to gain when we struggle for the land. Our lives depend on it.


There are three letters which turn a singular act of sabotage into a threateningly organized attack on environmentally destructive development. The letters are E, L, and F,-an acronym for the Earth Liberation Front. If these letters accompanied an arsoned ski resort in Vail, Colorado, a destroyed housing development on the edge of Mexico City, or a newly-built Zellers in Guelph, Ontario, it meant a guarantee of war on developers. The E.L.F. was founded in Brighton, England in 1992 and E.L.F. actions spread throughout England by 1994. By 2011 the E.L.F. had attacked developments in 17 countries with the majority of actions happening in North America. The main goal of the Earth Liberation Front actions was to do economic damage that would remove the profit motive from environmentally-destructive corporations.

In 2001, the Earth Liberation Front was called, “The number one domestic terrorist organization in America,” by FBI, despite having never injured anyone in their acts of sabotage. The E.L.F. in Southern Ontario was active from 2005 until 2007, with the majority of actions claimed by the group in Guelph. The first E.L.F. arson of a Zellers on Stone Road in 2005 marked a new era of corporate and anti-government sabotage in Guelph. Between 2005 and 2006 there were approximately fourteen direct actions carried out by the E.L.F. Between 2005 and 2010 there were over fifty attacks around Southern Ontario, that targeted new developments, construction equipment, banks, the police, the military, politicians, and large corporations, many of which were carried out anonymously, or by anti-authoritarians and anarchists. The spark of sabotage initiated by the E.L.F., changed the terrain of struggle for the radical left, anarchists, and environmentalists as it seems the tactic of sabotage was embraced by many.

The origins of land defense and sabotage
"The white man seeks to conquer nature, to bend it to his will and use it wastefully until it is all gone and then he simply moves on, leaving the waste behind him and finding new places to take. The whole white race is a monster who is always hungry, and what he eats is land."

-Chiksika to his brother Tecumseh, March 19, 1779

Sabotage was used as a tactic of environmental defense long before the first E.L.F. arson in Guelph. Instances of environmentally-based sabotage and land defense in the west date back to the Digger attacks and communalisation of private property in England in 1649. The anti-technological Luddite attacks on factories in England beginning in 1811, spurred by factory mechanization and mass-unemployment. In more contemporary history, sabotage as a tactic was used by the Animal Liberation Front and Earth First before the Earth Liberation Front was formed.

There are also countless acts of territorial defense by Indigenous Nations in North America to settler encroachment, development and genocide spanning the last 500 years of colonization. The “Oka Crisis”, the Kanesatake land defense of their traditional burial ground from a Golf Course development in 1990, in which indigenous nations from across Canada set up blockades and downed power-lines to pressure the Federal government to remove its military siege of 50 Mohawk warriors and children. The Grassy Narrows blockades of logging trucks in Anishenabeg Territory beginning in 2002, and the 2006 Kanenhstaton reclamation of Six Nations land from a housing developer, in which roads were blocked, burning barricades were erected and a power generating station was lit on fire after unwarranted O.P.P violence on the Reclamation site all are examples of the use of land defense sabotage to further a struggle. It is a common cross-cultural idea that individuals and whole communities defend their land-bases and resist predatorial development.

Green Anarchism catches fire
The destruction of everything is the beginning of something new / Your new world is on fire and soon you'll be too / Sabotage will set us free, throw a rock in the machine.

-Refused

At the turn of the millennium, peak oil became a mainstream concept, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was giving yearly updates on a swift and violent mass extinction through the dangers of global warming. Kyoto was failing and the only political solutions offered involved government collusion with developers, from the tar-sands down. An appropriate solution was offered by the radicals: mass resistance to capitalist development and an attempt to defend traditional earth based cultures and build new thriving counter-cultures.

The publication Green Anarchy was the largest North American Anarchist periodical with a distribution at its apex of 10 000 copies. Anti-civilization political discourse, primitivism, and green anarchism were also fiercely defended and widely held political positions in various anti-authoritarian milieus throughout the continent. Anti-civilization anarchists advocate a return to non-"civilized" ways of life through de-industrialisation, abolition of the division of labour or specialization, and abandonment of large-scale organization technologies. Most anarchists oppose capitalist technological developments as inherently exploitative, in the harvesting of primary resources and the degradation of labour and the environment during the productive process. This trend re-framed debates in anti-authoritarian circles from human exploitation to the exploitation of the environment.

The Logic of the Earth liberation Front
Mainstream ecological groups have long known that profit margin is the most viable way to stop a corporation's unethical practice and have initiated “divestment campaigns”, and “boycotts”. There is a strong disdain for illegality that is shared by most of the populace, but surely if we know that it is the bottom line that affects development practice, sabotage must be a much quicker and potentially more effective tactic than a mediated boycott campaign. It can create a spectacle of the negative effects of a destructive corporation or corporate practice, because it is aimed at immediately stopping or economically damaging the corporation involved in such practices.

The rise of the North American Earth Liberation Front
“To my friends and supporters to help them make sense of all these events that have happened so quickly: Certain human cultures have been waging war against the Earth for millennium. I chose to fight on the side of bears, mountain lions, skunks, bats, saguaros, cliff rose and all things wild. I am just the most recent casualty in that war. But tonight I have made a jail break―I am returning home, to the Earth, to the place of my origins. Bill, 12/21/05 (the winter solstice.) -Suicide Note of William “Avalon” Rodgers in State custody

Between 1996 and 1999 There were approximately thirty E.L.F. attacks in the United States. A high profile arson destroyed the U.S Forest Industries headquarters causing over one million dollars in damage. In October 1998, a large E.L.F. arson happened in Vail Colorado at a ski-resort expansion causing an estimated twelve million dollars in damages. The communique for the action stated:

“Vail, Inc. is already the largest ski operation in North America and now wants to expand even further. The twelve miles (nineteen km) of roads and 885 acres (3.58 km2) of clear-cuts will ruin the last, best lynx habitat in the state. Putting profits ahead of Colorado's wildlife will not be tolerated.”

The sabotage continued in the early 2000's focusing on Genetic Modification (GM) facilities and university GM research stations, government buildings and vehicles, SUV car lots, upscale condominium developments, upscale suburban developments and a horse slaughterhouse. In December 2005, government agents carried out Operation Backfire and charged fourteen people with a variety of crimes related to eco-sabotage in the Pacific Northwest. Some of the defendants were charged with terrorism enhancements and faced potential life in prison sentencing. Four of the fourteen charged Daniel McGowan, Jonathon Paul, Joyanna Zacher and Nathan Block did not cooperate and received sentences of four to eight years served largely in isolation units. William “Avalon” Rodgers, committed suicide his first night in detention on December 21st, 2005.

Other notable E.L.F. prisoners in the last decade are: Tre Arrow, sentenced to seventy-eight months in prison for two arsons in 2001 and released in 2009; Marie Mason sentenced to 22 years in prison for thirteen counts of arson from 1999-2000; Jeff Luers, sentenced to twenty-two years in prison for the arson of three trucks at a car lot in 2000 and released in 2010; Eric Mcdavid, sentenced to nearly twenty years in 2006 for conspiracy to arson the United States Forest Service, Institute of Forest Genetics; and Rod Coronado, sentenced to over a decade in various American prisons for his role in the Animal Liberation and Earth Liberation Fronts. Rod Coranado, a Yaqui Indian, dedicated his life to environmental defense sabotage. He destroyed many the fur farms in the Northwestern United States with the Western Wildlife Unit, sunk half of Iceland's whaling fleet and sabotaged countless Mountain Lion hunting expeditions and animal testing facilities. In recent years, Coranado has been re-institutionalized in prison for several probation violations. One such violation was answering a question about incendiary devices at a public speech and another was “Friending” an environmental activist on Facebook.

Southern Ontario Earth Liberation Front
"If you build it we will burn it"

-ELF Communique from an arson of suburban sprawl on Summit Ridge Road, Guelph, June 27th 2006.

In June 2005, a fire started in a newly developed Zellers causing several hundred thousand dollars damage. “E.L.F.” was left spray painted at the scene. Later in the summer: the sabotage of seven construction machines at a development, followed by a large arson at The Cutten Golf and Country Club in October. Between the summer of 2005 and the summer of 2006 there were at least fourteen separate acts of targeted property destruction in Guelph and Southern Ontario.

On January 30th 2006, The E.L.F burned a development on Gordon Street and Clairfield Road in Guelph's sprawling South-end neighborhood. The action was dedicated to the memory of deceased Earth Liberationist William Rodgers. In the communique they state,
“We are at war, even if the images of spectacular daily life try to make us believe the contrary. We have not chosen these social conditions ourselves, we can only choose from what positions to fight... Our position is that of combatants between two worlds – one that we don't acknowledge, the other that does not yet exist.”

On January 31st, the Guelph Mercury published an article with Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) Spokesperson, Barbara Campion. She said that “there seems to be some attack on Guelph....It's a smaller community, you would never think Guelph would be a hotbed of radical activity.” Through-out the spring and summer of 2006, there were at least six more sabotages of developments and construction machines in Guelph.

In July 2006, the E.L.F. attacks spread to Toronto, Brantford, and London, Ontario. In downtown Toronto on July 14th 2006, a Citiplace Condominium development had over two million dollars in damages inflicted when someone put dirt into the gas tanks and air filters of a dozen pieces of excavating equipment. In Brantford, between July 17th and 19th there were five suburban sprawl sites sabotaged and claimed by the E.L.F. In London, between July 21st and July 24th: a Home Depot, Toyota dealership, and four construction sites were vandalized. “Stop destroying the earth” was written in grease on one of the machines. The last known E.L.F. attributed attack on development in Southern Ontario occurred with the fire of a suburban development at a Reid's Heritage Home construction site on August 3rd, 2006. The president of the company claimed the fire caused 10 000 dollars in damages.

The E.L.F. attacks in 2005 and 2006 in Southern Ontario caused several million dollars in damage to corporations. The sabotage created controversy in the Guelph public about sprawl. It was met by public condemnation, from all mainstream media sources, local politicians, liberal left activist groups and the corporations disturbed. Waves of politically-based sabotage have continued in Guelph, largely practiced by anarchist and anti-authoritarian groups. However, the E.L.F. moniker and attack on suburban sprawl and construction machines has subsided completely.

Chasing a Shadow
“You don't know who you are dealing with and it's hard to deal with a shadow. “

-Guelph City Councilor Dan Moziar, 2006

After an estimated 1300 actions, the Earth Liberation Front has largely ceased activity in North America. The diminishing presence of the cell-structured organization could be attributed to the high-profile repressive sentencing of some of its members, or the decline of green anarchism in the mid 2000's as a political philosophy and identity in favour of insurrectionalism. Insurrectionalism attempts to exploit existing tensions in society and push for large scale social revolt. Even the E.L.F.'s most ardent spokespeople have identified a desire to move away from the tactics of the Earth Liberation Front. In a letter from prison, Rod Coronado wrote:

“In my years past I have argued that economic sabotage was an appropriate tactic for our time. Like all strategists I have also been forced to recognize that times have changed and it is now my belief that the movements to protect earth and animals have achieved enough with this strategy to now consider an approach that does not compromise objectives, but increases the likelihood of real social change.”

At the time of his arrest, six years after his involvement in the Earth Liberation Front, Daniel McGowan was working for an organization called WomensLaw, which helps women in intimate violence situations navigate the legal system. In a letter called Reflections On December 7th, written exactly two years after his initial arrest, Daniel gave analysis of his role in Earth Liberation actions:

“For me, the tactics were not the driving force in my actions but were the means to an end. In fact, the use of fire caused me great anxiety and I felt it was generally used with little strategy as we were trapped in a self-created race to be more “effective.” This led to strategy and ideas taking a back seat to the ‘why,’ which is infinitely more important to any discussion of what we were trying to do.”

A Spark in the dark: The limits of night sabotage with no strong environmental defense movement
Having an active Earth Liberation cell in a small town of activists and anarchists had a peculiar impact on organizing in Guelph. The Earth Liberation Front actions were never connected to a larger environmental defense movement in Guelph and it is hard to imagine the E.L.F. ever being supported by a mass movement. The extreme and dangerous types of actions that were carried out made any kind of communication about the choice of targets or tactics used seem undesirable. Often, large acts of property destruction would be met in the radical community with silence or the occasional, “did you hear another development got burned.” The added law enforcement surveillance and fears of heavy handed repression on subversives caused a communal low-level stress felt by many people involved in radical networks.

On the other hand the Earth Liberation activity was praised by anarchists and anti-authoritarians from different cities, and many young anarchists visited or moved to Guelph, under the guise that Guelph had a real opposition movement to development. Based on the half-truth, an above ground ecodefense movement was built in later years with the labour of the many new people to Guelph. In other radical networks Guelph anti-authoritarians had developed a reputation for sabotage. At a demonstration against the Atlantica trade deal in Halifax in 2007, the East-Coast anarchists suggested the anarchists should “Guelph it,” presumably turning the demonstration into a riot.

To an outsider radical, it seemed like Guelph was the forefront of radical opposition to development. This in turn made outsiders move to Guelph and form a thriving radical opposition for a few years. The E.L.F. marked an uncomfortable tension for many and mainly existed as a non-existent organization that one only heard about in the newspapers or radical media. Still, there was a recognition by all radicals in Guelph that someone was putting their personal freedom in grave danger to defend the earth from the banal violence of city planners and developers. The E.L.F. sabotages marked a new period of anti-authoritarian sabotage in Guelph and for three or four years, direct action sabotage was a routine occurrence in the city. It is safe to say the E.L.F. actions inspired the sabotage tactics later seen in Guelph, as there was little history of the employment of those tactics before the E.L.F. campaigns began. The problem was that there could be no public support of the E.L.F. No one wanted to associate publicly with a wanted criminal organization.

Potential for large prison sentences
No one in Southern Ontario has been arrested or charged with sabotage-related cases pertaining to the E.L.F. yet. The case history of the RBC bank arson in Ottawa on May 18th, 2010, and prominent E.L.F. prisoner sentences in the United States have left people serving sentences between four and twenty-five years. If someone was convicted for the E.L.F. actions in Southern Ontario, they could face similar sentencing depending on the circumstances of the case(s). The threat of a long-term prison sentence could be emotionally draining on an individual. The indictment and sentencing of allies in struggle has the potential to destroy radical communities with pressure, loss, and fear. Or it can bring them together in support of an imprisoned comrade. Maybe no one will ever be caught for these actions. We must ask ourselves if the long term imprisonment of a comrade was worth the tactics employed for defense of the land. In hindsight, it is easier now to weigh the actions' effectiveness for future struggles as one tactic in a toolbox.

Impact on Development
A primary goal of the Earth Liberation Front in Southern Ontario could have been to significantly slow down the rapidity of sprawling development around Guelph. Did the actions slow down development at all? In the summer of 2008, during the middle of the Great Recession, The Guelph Mercury announced only Guelph and Calgary had a growing percentage of new home construction within Canada. The developments attacked in 2005 and 2006 have been dwarfed by thousands of new units that mark the expanding edge of Guelph. It seems that Guelph, as the epicenter for anti-development sabotage in Canada made very little impact on the process of development or the rapidity in which developments took place.

There are several positive social effects of the E.L.F. actions that have had lasting impacts on Guelph and maybe other parts of Southern Ontario. The E.L.F. sabotage sparked a lot of controversy and dinner table conversations. Many Guelph residents probably formed polarized opinions on sprawl, corporate city planning, sabotage, arson and direct-action based environmentalism during these high-profile attacks. Although it is hard to gauge public opinion over mainstream journalistic condemnation of the E.L.F. sabotage, the concept of the E.L.F., and the frustrations of the E.L.F. with development capitalist development models in Southern Ontario permeated the public consciousness of Guelph.

Public anti-sprawl and anti-development campaigns like Land Is More Important Than Sprawl (LIMITS) and the opposition to the Hanlon Creek Business Park developed with similar motives behind the original E.L.F actions. It was arguably the E.L.F. that did the ground work of introducing anti-development campaigns that reached the public psyche.

It is hard to know the specific social and economic strategies and goals of the E.L.F. in Southern Ontario. It is obvious the tactics of night time sabotage became popular in latter anti-authoritarian actions against corporate and political targets around Guelph. Hopefully, the tactic of sabotage will not be a lost art on future movements aiming to destroy capitalist-democracy, and foster alternative ways to live.
In the end, climate change is still putting our world in a perilous situation, pollution and smog are killing record amounts of people in Southern Ontario every year, and capitalist development models are destroying the planet and eradicating most life on earth. We are living in very scary times and ultimately it is up to us as individuals and communities to create alternative movements to capitalist-democracy while constricting its development; our lives and the lives of the planet depend on it. The person or people who acted under the Earth Liberation banner in Southern Ontario are harbingers of this new world. Struggle is necessary to protect the earth. Even if they are destructive attacks, struggles to defend the planet are in the end an affirmation of life.


From The Peak "Guelph: A History of Resistance" Volume 51, Issue 1

http://guelphpeak.org/volume51issue1/sparkinthedark

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