Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 22, 1990 TAG: 9007220173
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: SAN FRANCISCO LENGTH: Medium
"I didn't have any will to keep going after this happened," she said, referring to the May 24 car bombing that broke her pelvis and partially paralyzed her right leg.
Bari spoke about the bombing in Oakland and about what she considers an earlier attempt to kill her in an interview Thursday at the rehabilitation center where she is undergoing therapy.
She said that when a logging truck once ran her off a road, "I was able to reach inside of myself and find the courage to go on. But this time I didn't have anything left. It was the support of the movement that enabled me to go on."
Supporters suspect the bomb that injured Bari and passenger Darryl Cherney was planted by timber interests in retaliation for their roles organizing Redwood Summer, a series of protests against the logging of old-growth redwood forests.
Bari said she had received several written death threats.
She said she is kept awake nights by severe pain and fear that whoever planted the bomb might strike again.
But most frustrating, she said, was that authorities suspected her and Cherney in the bombing. They were arrested for investigation of explosives possession and transportation because police suspected they were carrying a bomb that went off accidentally.
"I feel persecuted by the police. I don't feel protected by the police," Bari said. "I'm the victim of a horrible crime, and I think I'm in a position where I need the police to protect me and find who did it.
"They have not for one minute dropped their view of me as a criminal simply because of my political views."
Bari and her supporters felt vindicated last week when prosecutors said they would file no charges against the pair - for the time being at least. But investigators insist no one has been exonerated and that their investigation of the explosion is continuing.
Investigators have been hampered by the refusal of some Earth First! supporters to cooperate, said Oakland police Lt. Mike Sims.
"People who may support Bari and Cherney's side of the story have been directed by attorneys to refuse to talk to us," he said.
Bari has a simple response.
"As long as they are presuming me guilty, then we are foolish to cooperate with them," she said.
At issue: the tactics favored by some Earth First! members, including "monkey-wrenching" - acts of sabotage against those who, they feel, are damaging the environment.
Such sabotage has included tree spiking - driving large nails into trees, which can damage power saws and risk injury to timber and mill workers. Earth First! activists also have chained themselves to tree-cutting machines, blocked logging roads and occupied road-building equipment.
But members say the group takes no official stance on such activity and that its members are mostly involved in acts of civil disobedience.
Bari herself has rejected the use of sabotage, although she does not condemn all of it.
The bombing has helped change the movement to save the redwood forests, she believes.
"Obviously, it has galvanized a lot of attention," she said. "But on the other hand it knocked out the experienced leadership. So I think it had both a negative and a positive effect."
Although more moderate environmental groups have joined Earth First! in calling for an independent investigation of the bombing, most have not spoken out in favor of the Earth First! movement itself.
Bari is pleased by reports of anti-logging protests, although none of the protests yet this summer has attracted the many thousands of people organizers boasted would flock to the region.
by CNB