THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, May 23, 1996 TAG: 9605230345
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DIANE TENNANT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 91 lines
In the logic of the radical animal rights movement, the equation is simple: The scrawniest broiler chicken has the same right to life as any human.
And that, says the Animal Liberation Front, is reason enough for shattering windows in midnight raids, for vandalizing mom-and-pop shops, for spray-painting ``Meat is murder'' over corporate bricks.
The activists of the ALF say they obey a higher moral code that overrides mere man-made laws. Violence against property is justified, they say, to prevent violence against living beings.
``They will break laws governing property, but they make a distinction between laws governing property and non-violence,'' said James M. Jasper, a New York University professor who has written a book on the animal rights movement.
``They would claim they're not violent because they're not hurting people or other species,'' Jasper said. ``They're obeying a higher law, is what they're saying.''
While they might not kill people, the activists destroy livelihoods, said Tim Lang, a Syracuse, N.Y., restaurant manager whose establishment was vandalized in March.
``It was just senseless,'' Lang said. ``Everyone has a right to their opinions, but they have no right to destroy other people's property.''
ALF captured public sympathy in the early 1980s with high-profile liberations of research lab animals and the resulting withdrawal of government funding from certain researchers.
In 1984, ALF delivered videotapes of its Memorial Day raid on the University of Pennsylvania to a fledging group called PETA - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The resulting publicity propelled PETA to the forefront of the animal rights movement, where it remains, while ALF faded from public view.
But lately, ALF's activities have been increasing. The vandalism this week in Chesapeake comes just a month before PETA moves its national headquarters to Front Street in Norfolk.
PETA co-founder Ingrid Newkirk says the two groups have moved apart in recent years. However, PETA sympathizes with animal liberators, sometimes acts as a spokesman for ALF and maintains a defense fund to defray legal costs of those nabbed while acting in defense of animals.
``Over the last several years we almost never heard from the ALF,'' Newkirk said. ``But periodically kids get caught and they are mostly young people who are extremely frustrated at the incredible suffering that happens to animals. They have a great sense of injustice; they are not patient enough to work within the system.
``Frankly, I sometimes think if we all had the nerve that we might not be as patient, too.''
The ALF began in England as an offshoot of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and it is still most active in that country.
The United States is holding one ALF member prisoner in Arizona; England has jailed many more. When ALF moved to the United States in the early 1980s, it joined with the Native American movement and liberated mostly wild animals from fur ranches and labs: wolves, coyotes, beavers, eagles, minks.
Its raids were well-organized. ALF members lined up homes to adopt the liberated animals and had veterinarians standing by. They did surveillance work on their targets, knew exactly where to go and how to get out - fast.
But once the animal rights movement got rolling with legal, media-savvy groups such as PETA, the ALF quietly faded back into the shadows.
It was easy to do. There is no core of organizers, no headquarters. Any person, any place, who takes any direct action with the goal of liberating animals is welcome to use ALF's name, most often spray-painted across a wall.
PETA says it has not been asked to publicize ALF activities recently. But a listing of ALF's 1995 activities posted on the World Wide Web showed 49 actions in North America, from bombings to releasing 5,000 minks from a fur farm.
A rash of ALF-style incidents in Syracuse this spring was traced to teenage followers of a hard-core band called Earth Crisis that is heard most often on college radio stations. Its songs rail about animal abuse; it advocates the ``straight edge'' - no drugs, no alcohol, no promiscuous sex, no animal products, no compromise.
Newkirk says she thinks some of ALF's most recent activities are also the work of frustrated teens. But both Jasper and Newkirk said the Chesapeake attack - which included cutting gas and electrical lines - showed a degree of sophistication reminiscent of the old ALF.
``Usually it's the kids who say what is wrong with society. They think people won't react unless you inject some fear, or interfere with their insurance or ruin the machinery, slow them down in some way,'' Newkirk says. But, she says, "If you do care about cruelty to animals and find it abhorrent, the big question is not what these young people are doing, but what are each of us doing to change things legally?'' MEMO: News researcher Diana Diehl contributed to this story. ILLUSTRATION: Photo of WWW page site
The radical underground animal-rights group Animal Liberation Front
has a site on the World Wide Web. by CNB