From Green to Black

When did the ELF first arrive on the eco-terrorist scene?
ELF started in the United Kingdom around the early '90s. Their first action in the U.S. that made us take notice of them here was in 1996; it was a burning down of a U.S. Forest Service lookout post. They're an international underground movement using what have become terrorist activities to try to get their cause across.

How would you characterize that cause?
They want to save the environment. Now, what that means is different things to different people. They have basically gone off the deep end and are not just committing minor criminal acts but are committing major criminal acts that have the potential of violence against people—even though they are not targeting people, so they say.

How do they go about choosing their targets?
Their targets, like [those of] every other terrorist group, are more symbols than they are useful. They'll pick out something that will gain them attention—and, of course, expensive houses in the Seattle area would be something that gains attention. Their targets are not meant to win a war but to get attention. They hope to get the public angry enough at society to change some environmental laws.

If their cause is to save the environment, how does burning houses, and thereby releasing carbon and toxins into the atmosphere, help achieve that goal?
It's just as logical as the radical anti-abortion activists who killed abortion doctors because they're against murder. We're not dealing with logic; we're dealing with emotional feelings.

How deep-seated are these emotions?
To these people the environmental issues have become a religion. It's beyond the mind. It's beyond even emotion. We're talking about something that's become a religious thing to them the same way people would die rather than give up Christianity or the way the Jews at Masada would not surrender to the Romans. This is the same type of fervor that we're dealing with.

You've described the ELF as an underground movement. What do you mean by that?
They follow the cell structure that was characteristic of Mao Zedong, the original leader of the Communist Party in China. In his book on guerilla warfare Mao talks about setting up a cell structure of three to five people, and that group doesn't know anybody in any other group. That way, if someone gets caught they can't give too much information. The ELF is that type of organization, because they don't really have an organization. In fact, what's probably happening right now is the ELF spokespeople are looking at what happened in the Seattle area and deciding whether to take credit for it.