ELF Guerrillas Fight Ecocide

A new West Coast guerrilla group has declared “war on all who... persist in the manufacture and application of pesticides and similar poisons.”

The Environmental Life Force stresses that it is “strongly committed to anti-authoritarian goals,” and that “the ELF has no political ambitions and seeks no dominion over the people”

The ELF first appeared in May, when it made an abortive effort to blast away crop dusters near Santa Cruz, Calif. Then, in an August communique (signed the Rachel Carson Ecommando Unit of ELF), they claimed responsibility for a bombing at the Publishers Paper Company in Oregon City, Ore.

The bombing was in response to the company’s aerial spraying of Tordon, a chemical defoliant used in Vietnam as part of the ‘scorched earth’ program (it’s known to cause cancer, and birth defects), on people protesting the use of a dangerous herbicide on land owned by the firm. Twelve demonstrators, part of a group occupying the land, have become sick since the spraying.

In the communique, the eco-guerrilla ELF demanded that the company hire five physicians (acceptable to those sprayed) to treat the protesters and that these doctors “be willing to testify in court with regards to their findings.”

The ELF writes that it will continue its armed actions.