Animal Liberation Front

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Beagles removed by British ALF activists from a testing laboratory owned by the Boots Group. The ALF action ended with Boots deciding to sell the lab. Linda McCartney, first wife of Beatle Paul McCartney, bought the remaining beagles from the company and found homes for them.

The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) is a name used internationally by animal liberation activists who engage in direct action/terrorism on behalf of animals, which includes removing animals from facilities, or sabotaging facilities in protest against the animal testing, fur, meat, egg, or dairy industries. Any direct action that furthers the cause of animal liberation, and that "take(s) all reasonable precautions not to endanger life of any kind," may be claimed on behalf of the ALF, so long as it is consistent with the organization's other stated aims.

ALF activists use a model of leaderless resistance. Covert cells, currently active in 20 countries, operate clandestinely and independently of one other, with activists working on a need-to-know basis. A cell can consist of just one person. Robin Webb, who runs the Animal Liberation Press Office in the UK, has said of this model of activism: "That is why the ALF cannot be smashed, it cannot be effectively infiltrated, it cannot be stopped. You, each and every one of you: you are the ALF."

Actions are claimed anonymously by contacting one of the animal liberation press offices, which posts some of them on its website or are posted on Bite Back, the direct-action website. The press offices are run by Webb in the UK and by physician Jerry Vlasak in North America. Although the ALF has no formal existence, the Animal Liberation Front Supporters Group (ALFSG) exists to support activists who are jailed for actions performed on behalf of the ALF, and some leading ALF activists run an Animal Liberation Front website.

The ALF was named as a "terrorist threat" by the United States Department of Homeland Security in January 2005. [2] [3] (See below.)

Origins

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Philosophy professor Steven Best was once an Animal Liberation press officer in North America.

The ALF's roots can be traced to 19th century England, and a small group of activists called the Bands of Mercy, which was set up in 1824 to thwart fox hunters (Best, 2004). In 1965, the group was re-created, this time called the Hunt Saboteurs Association; it laid false scents, blew hunting horns to send the hounds in the wrong direction, set off smoke bombs, and members lay down between the hunters and the fox. In 1972, activists Ronnie Lee and Cliff Goodman revived the 19th century name and set up the Band of Mercy, a more militant group, which attacked hunters' vehicles by slashing tires and breaking windows. They progressed to attacking pharmaceutical laboratories and seal-hunting boats. On November 10, 1973, they set fire to a building in Milton Keynes, as part of a strategy to make insurance prohibitive for what they saw as exploitative industries, and thus began a campaign of arson that continues to this day.

In August 1974, Lee and Goodman were arrested for allegedly taking part in a raid on Oxford Laboratory Animal Colonies in Bicester, which earned them the name the "Bicester Two." They were sentenced to three years in prison, but released after serving one.

After his release, Goodman allegedly became the first-ever police informer on the animal liberation movement (Best 2004, p. 20), whereas Lee emerged from prison more militant than before. He organized 30 activists to set up a new liberation campaign, and in 1976, in order to show that the new campaign was prepared to intimidate but was also compassionate, he named it the Animal Liberation Front (ibid).

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Britches was a five-week-old macaque who was separated from his mother and left alone with his eyes sewn shut as part of an experiment conducted by the University of California, Riverside. The ALF removed him from the laboratory in April 1985 then released a videotape of their raid. [1]

There are conflicting accounts of when the ALF first emerged in the United States. Freeman Wicklund and Kim Stallwood (Best 2004) say the first ALF action there was in 1977, when activists released two dolphins from a research facility in Hawaii. Others say the first action was a raid on the New York University Medical Center on March 14, 1979, when activists removed one cat, two dogs, and two guinea pigs. Ingrid Newkirk, the president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, says that the first ALF cell in the U.S. was set up in late 1982, with the first raid taking place on December 24 that year on Howard University, when 24 cats were removed, some of whose back legs had been crippled in an experiment (Newkirk 2000, and Best 2004:21).

One of the most important ALF actions in the U.S., according to Best, was the May 1984 raid on the University of Pennsylvania's head-injury laboratory, where primates were being struck in the head with pneumatic devices, and subjected to g-forces up to 3,000 g, in order to develop safer American football helmets. The ALF caused $60,000 worth of damage and stole 60 hours of research tapes that documented what had been done to the animals, and which was used to make the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals film Unnecessary Fuss, which helped to shut the laboratory down. [4]

On April 20, 1985, the ALF raided the University of California, Riverside laboratory to remove Britches, a five-week old macaque monkey who had been separated from his mother and left alone in a wire cage with his eyes sewn shut as part of a maternal- and sensory-deprivation experiment [5] (video). As a result of the ensuing publicity, eight of the 17 research projects active at the laboratory at the time of the raid were shut down (Best 2004:22).

Structure and aims

The ALF is entirely decentralized: an example of so-called leaderless resistance, with no formal membership or hierarchy, which acts as a formal firebreak in issues of legal and moral responsibility or accountability. There are active ALF cells in 20 countries: most European and Scandinavian countries, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, and South Africa.

According to Robin Webb, the ALF's British press officer, the ALF's stated aims are:

• To liberate animals from suffering or potential suffering and place them in good permanent homes or, where appropriate, release them into their natural environment.
• To damage or destroy property and equipment associated with animal abuse by
  1. taking that property out of the arena of animal abuse so it can no longer cause harm, and
  2. inflicting economic loss on the abusers with the intention of driving them out of business.
• To take all reasonable precautions not to endanger life of any kind (Best 2004).

In an undated interview with No Compromise, the animal-liberation magazine, Webb said that any vegetarian or vegan who carries out an action that falls within the ALF's policies may claim that action on behalf of the ALF.

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Robin Webb is the ALF press officer in the UK.

Activists who have engaged in direct action that could endanger life have acted using the names Animal Rights Militia, or the Justice Department, which has sent out letter bombs and envelopes containing blades dipped in rat poison.

Regarding the difference between the ALF, ARM, and the Justice Department, Webb has said: "[If] someone wishes to act as the Animal Rights Militia or the Justice Department? Simply put, the third policy of the ALF [to take all reasonable precautions not to endanger life] no longer applies." [6]

He has said elsewhere that: "The only difference between ALF and the more radical ones is that ALF basically takes every precaution not to endanger life at any time. The Animal Rights Militia are prepared to twist the arm of animal abusers".

Actions

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An ALF raid on a mink farm in Rome, Italy, on March 16, 2005 saw 2,000 mink released.

Early ALF covert operations tended to centre on the removal, or liberation, of animals from vivisection laboratories. However, in recent years, these have extended to vandalism, arson, and making threats against individuals who directly or indirectly work for organizations the ALF has targeted.

There were 1,200 fire bombings, acts of vandalism, and physical attacks in the UK in 1999 connected to animal-rights activism, according to the BBC. [7]

One of the most highly publicized actions, which was claimed by the Animal Rights Militia, was the 1984 "Mars Bar campaign" in Britain, during which activists issued statements claiming Mars Bars in supermarkets had been contaminated with bleach, in protest at the Mars Corporation's funding of dental research using monkeys. The incident was revealed to have been a hoax, but it led to widespread criticism of the ALF and caused a split with the pacifist magazine Peace News, which had previously allowed the ALF to use its Nottingham office as a mailing address.

In 1998, the ALF claimed responsibility for releasing into the wild up to 6,000 mink from a mink farm in Ringwood, UK. [8] The action was described by a Royal Society for the Protection of Birds spokesman as an "act of monumental stupidity," [9] amid fears that the minks would cause ecological damage. The ALF said it would continue its campaign until the British government introduced new animal-welfare legislation for animals used by the fur industry. [10]

In 1999, British documentary-filmmaker Graham Hall, himself an animal-rights activist, told the police and the Mail on Sunday [11] that he was kidnapped and branded with the letters "ALF" across his back after filming ALF activists, including Robin Webb, "boasting about bomb making and choosing sites for violent attacks." [12] His film was shown on Channel 4 in the UK during the 1998 hunger strike of Barry Horne. Hall said he was taken by several masked men, one of whose voices he said he recognized from a previous gathering of activists, to an unknown house, then was tied to a chair for several hours and branded. No charges were laid as a result of his complaint [13] [14]. In response to the attack, Robin Webb stated "People who make a living in this way have to expect from time to time to take the consequences of their actions" [15].

In June 2005, a Vancouver-based brokerage announced that it had dropped a client, Phytopharm PLC, in response to the May 26, 2005 ALF firebombing of a car belonging to Canaccord executive Michael Kendall in London, England. The ALF stated on its website that activists had placed an "incendiary device" under the car, which was in Kendall's garage at home when it caught fire. Phytopharm was targeted, as were those doing business with it, because it, in turn, had business links with Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), the largest animal-testing company in Europe, which has laboratories in the UK and New Jersey. Since 1999, HLS has been the subject of an international animal-rights campaign, Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC), which ALF activists have been heavily involved in.

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The aftermath of an ALF attack on a pork producer in Oxfordshire

The ALF and SHAC have declared they will target anyone doing business with HLS. The ALF warned Phytopharm to stay away from Huntingdon or "see your share price crash and your supporters property go up in flames," [16] and issued the following statement:

A new era has dawned for those who fund the abusers and raise funds for them to murder animals with. You too are on the hit list: you have been warned. If you support or raise funds for any company connected with Huntingdon Life Sciences we will track you down, come for you and destroy your property with fire. [17]

Attitude toward violence

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Brian Cass, the manager of Huntingdon Life Sciences, was attacked by three men with pickaxe handles in February 2001, one of whom had previously acted under the ALF name.

The ALF defines "violence" to include acts of aggression directed at human and non-human animals, [18] (pdf) and using that definition defines itself as non-violent. [19] However, ALF spokespersons typically won't condemn the use of violence by people who have previously acted in the name of the ALF, so long as they attempt no attribution of their violent acts to the ALF. When David Blenkinsop, together with two other men who remain unidentified, attacked HLS director Brian Cass outside his home with pick-axe handles, ALF founder Ronnie Lee said: "He has got off lightly. I have no sympathy for him," [20] and Robin Webb said: "The Animal Liberation Front has always had a policy of not harming life, but while it would not condone what took place, it understands the anger and frustration that leads people to take this kind of action." [21] The Animal Liberation Front Supporters Group lists Blenkinsop as one of its prisoners of conscience. [22] ALF activist Vivien Smith was quoted in 1992 as saying: "I would be overjoyed when the first scientist is killed by a liberation activist." [23]

Webb has written that during the 1970s and early 1980s, the media portrayed animal-rights activists in a positive light, as animal lovers who were merely eccentric and who were taking things a little too far: the "Robin Hoods of the animal welfare world" (Best 2004). But by the mid-80s, activists realized that economic sabotage was more effective than demonstrations and handing out leaflets. Activists moved on to smashing butchers' shop windows and setting fire to department stores that sold fur coats. In 1985, the Animal Rights Militia first emerged, taking responsibility for sending letter bombs to those involved in animal testing, and setting fire to stores on the Isle of Wight in 1994, causing $6 million worth of damages. Barry Horne, who was a close friend of Webb's, was subsequently jailed for 18 years for the attacks, later dying in jail during a hunger strike, and Webb himself was almost charged with conspiracy in connection with them.

In response to the emergence of a more violent strain of protester in the UK, the British police set up the Animal Rights National Index (ARNI) in or around 1985, which was intended to act as a liaison between the police and MI5, the internal security service, which had started to monitor activists. Violence against property began to increase substantially after several high-profile campaigns managed to close down a number of facilities perceived to be abusive to animals: Consort, a facility breeding beagles for animal-testing, followed by Hillgrove Farm, which bred cats, and Newchurch Farm, which bred guinea pigs. The financial year 1991-1992 saw around 100 refrigerated meat trucks destroyed at a cost of around $10 million. Butchers' locks were superglued, shrink-wrapped meats were pierced in supermarkets, and slaughterhouses were set on fire (Webb, in Best 2004).

The latest international campaign, Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, which ALF activists are involved in, aims to close Huntingdon Life Sciences, Europe's largest animal-testing laboratory. In response to the campaign, which operates as a leaderless resistance using direct-action tactics, the British government set up the National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit in May 2004, either to replace or complement the work of ARNI, and has declared it will do whatever it takes to ensure that the animal-rights lobby will not succeed in closing down HLS, though the company's future is looking increasingly bleak as investors sell their shares, and business partners and clients distance themselves for fear of reprisals.

In Terrorists or Freedom Fighters, a collection of essays by animal-rights activists edited by philosopher Steven Best, an ALF press officer, Webb quotes Gandhi, saying: "Where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence." Webb argues that:

"[W]hile politicians talked and negotiated, Nazi Germany invaded neighboring countries and began building the concentration camps. It took the overwhelming violence of World War II ... to rid the world of that evil. Such an example suggests that short-term violence may be justifiable in pursuit of a longer-term peace," (Best 2004).

Direct action in North America

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Rod Coronado, a prominent ALF activist in the United States who has been convicted of crimes related to damaging research facilities and releasing animals.

Attacks claimed by the ALF in the U.S. have been carried out at:

• University of Minnesota
• Cornell University
• The Cavel West horse rendering plant
• Emory University
• Carolina Biological Supply Company
• Utah State University
• Michigan State University
• Oregon State University
• Washington State University
• University of Iowa
• Texas Tech University
• Louisiana State University
• Stanford University

On January 20, 2006, as part of Operation Backfire, the U.S. Department of Justice announced charges against nine American and two Canadian activists calling themselves the "Family," who are alleged to have engaged in direct action in the name of the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front. The defendants are alleged to have committed what the Justice Department called acts of "domestic terrorism," including arson attacks against meat-processing plants, lumber companies, a high-tension power line, and a ski center, in Oregon, Wyoming, Washington, California, and Colorado between 1996 and 2001. [24] Activists and some media sources have criticised these arrests, calling them a "witch hunt" [25] and "the Green Scare" [26] - an allusion to the anti-Communist Red Scares of the 20th century.

Listing as a terrorist threat

The ALF was named as a terrorist threat by the United States Department of Homeland Security in January 2005. [27] In hearings held May 18, 2005, before a Senate panel, officials of the FBI and ATF stated that "violent animal rights extremists and eco-terrorists now pose one of the most serious terrorism threats to the nation," adding that "of particular concern are the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and the Earth Liberation Front (ELF)." [28] The Daily Telegraph called the ALF "the most active terrorist organisation in Britain." [29]

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which takes a critical view of the ALF, nevertheless criticized the DHS for concentrating on the Animal and Earth Liberation Fronts rather than on white supremacists, writing that "for all the property damage they have wreaked, eco-radicals have killed no one — something that cannot be said of the white supremacists and others who people the American radical right." [30] Senator James Jeffords said that the "ELF and ALF may threaten dozens of people each year, but an incident at a chemical, nuclear or wastewater facility would threaten tens of thousands." [31]

See also

• Animal Liberation Front Supporters Group
• Animal liberation movement
• Earth Liberation Front
• Rod Coronado, Keith Mann, Steven Best, Robin Webb, David Barbarash
• Justice Department (animal rights), Animal Rights Militia
• Barry Horne, Henry Spira
• GANDALF trial
• Animal testing, Vivisection, Animal rights
• Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, SPEAK
• People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
• Peter Singer, Tom Regan
• Vegetarianism, Veganism
• Operation Backfire (FBI)
• Green Scare
• Britches (monkey)
• Silver Spring monkeys
• Pit of despair
• Unnecessary Fuss

References

• AnimalLiberationFront.com website
• "Researcher Vows To Continue Work", The Scientist (requires free registration)
• Animal Liberation Front (ALF) Frequently Asked Questions by the North American ALF Supporters Group.
• "Animal rights, terror tactics", BBC, August 30, 2000
• "Animal rights extremists in arson spree" by Sandra Laville and Duncan Campbell, The Guardian, June 25, 2005
• "Staying on Target and Going the Distance: An Interview with U.K. A.L.F. Press Officer Robin Webb", No Compromise, Issue 22, undated
• "From Push to Shove", Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Report, fall 2002
• Ingrid Newkirk, Free the Animals: The Story of the Animal Liberation Front, Lantern Books, 2000, ISBN 1930051220
• Steven Best (ed), Terrorists or Freedom Fighters?, Lantern Books, 2004, ISBN 159056054X (a collection of essays written by animal liberationists, including ALF activists)

Further reading

• AnimalLiberationFront.com website
• Animal Liberation Front Press Office website
• "What is the ALF?", Animal Liberation Front, undated, retrieved October 27, 2005
• Arkangel magazine, a magazine dedicated to animal liberation
• Bite Back a magazine and diary of Animal Liberation Front actions
• FBI testimony on the ALF, James F. Jarboe before the House Resources Committee, Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health, February 12, 2002.
• "Interviews with AR activists and supporters of AR activists", Animal Liberation Front, retrieved October 27, 2005
• Animal Liberation Through Trade Unions?
• SourceWatch article on ALF
• Videotape of an actual Animal Liberation Front raid on the University of California, Riverside, raid filmed on April 20, 1985, released by the ALF and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, retrieved February 13, 2006