by DGR News Service | Mar 27, 2014 | People of Color & Anti-racism, Property & Material Destruction, Strategy & Analysis, White Supremacy
By Deep Green Resistance UK
We have had several months to reflect on the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela. Since his death, world leaders have attempted to coopt this legacy. It is especially interesting to see how many who once branded Mandela a terrorist are rushing to pay their respects. [1]
His freedom fighter past has been quietly forgotten. Mainstream writers, intellectuals, and politicians prefer to focus on his life after prison. A simple Google search for Mandela is dominated by articles about tolerance and acceptance.
But often lost in discussions of Mandela are the details about why he was sent to prison by the Apartheid Government. He rose to leadership in the African National Congress (ANC) against Apartheid and his role in the creation of its militant wing, the Umkhonto We Sizwe (MK) which means “Spear of the Nation” in Zulu and Xhosa.
Mandela’s autobiography Long Walk to Freedom is very well written bringing the reader on Nelson’s journey with him. He dedicated his life to the struggle to create a South Africa where all are equal.
For a detailed summary of Mandela’s path to militant resistance see the DGR Nelson Mandela Resister Profile.
Mandela came from a privileged background and was groomed to council the leaders of his tribe. He received an excellent ‘western’ education. He moved to Johannesburg and trained as a lawyer. In Johannesburg, he came into contact with ANC members. His radicalisation began as he attended ANC meetings and protests.
On page 109 of Mandela’s autobiography he explains that he cannot pinpoint the moment when he knew he would spend his life in the liberation struggle. He states that any African born in South Africa is politicised from birth with the oppression and inequality Africans in South Africa suffer. “I had no epiphany, no singular revelation, no moment of truth, but a steady accumulation of a thousand slights, a thousand indignities and a thousand unremembered moments that produced in me an anger, a rebelliousness, a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people.”
In 1948, the Nationalist (Apartheid) Party won the general election and formed a government that remained in power until 1994. Following the election, the ANC increased activities resulting in deaths at protests by the police. In response, the government introduced legislation that steadily increased the oppression on Africans in South Africa.
The ANC National Executive including Mandela discussed the necessity for more violent tactics in the early 1950s but it was decided the time was not yet right. Mandela consistently pushed the ANC to consider using violent tactics. During the forced eviction of Sophiatown in 1953, Nelson gave a speech.
As I condemned the government for its ruthlessness and lawlessness, I overstepped the line: I said that the time for passive resistance had ended, that non-violence was a useless strategy and could never overturn a white minority regime bent on retaining its power at any cost. At the end of the day, I said, violence was the only weapon that would destroy apartheid and we must be prepared, in the near future, to use that weapon.
The fired up crowd sang a freedom song with the lyrics ‘There are the enemies, let us take our weapons and attack them’. Nelson pointed at the police and said “There are our enemies!”
Mandela saw that the Nationalist government was making protest impossible. He felt Gandhi had been dealing with a foreign power that was more realistic than the Afrikaners. Mandela knew non-violence resistance works if the opposition is playing by the same rules but if peaceful protest is met with violence then tactics must evolve. For Mandela “non-violence was not a moral principle but a strategy; there is no moral goodness in using an ineffective weapon.”
This is a lesson that should be learned for the current resistance to the destruction of our world. The current strategy of non-violence in the environmental movement is simply ineffective.
The Sophiatown anti-removal campaign was long running, with rallies twice a week. The final eviction was in February 1955. This campaign confirmed Mandela’s belief that in the end there would be no alternative to violent resistance. Non-violent tactics were met by ‘an iron hand’. “A freedom fighter learns the hard way that it is the oppressor who defines the nature of the struggle. And the oppressed is often left no recourse but to use methods that mirror those of the oppressor. At a certain point, one can only fight fire with fire.”
Following the Sharpville massacre in March 1960, where 69 people were murdered by the police and then the ANC was declared an illegal organisation in April 1960, the National Executive agreed that the time for violence had come:
At the meeting I argued that the state had given us no alternative to violence. I said it was wrong and immoral to subject our people to armed attacks by the state without offering them some kind of alternative. I mentioned again that people on their own had taken up arms. Violence would begin whether we initiated it or not. Would it not be better to guide this violence ourselves, according to principles where we saved lives by attacking symbols of oppression, and not people? If we did not take the lead now, I said, we would soon be latecomers and followers to a movement we did not control.
This new military movement would be a separate and independent organisation, linked to the ANC but fundamentally autonomous. The ANC would still be the main part of the struggle until the time for the military wing was right. “This was a fateful step. For fifty years, the ANC had treated non-violence as a core principle, beyond question or debate. Henceforth the ANC would be a different kind of organisation.”
The parallels with the modern environmental movement’s commitment to non-violence over the last fifty years are uncanny.
The military organisation was named Umkhonto we Sizwe (The Spear of the Nation) or MK for short. Mandela, now underground hiding from the authorities, formed the high command and started recruiting people with relevant knowledge and experience. The mandate was to wage acts of violence against the state. At this point, precisely what form those acts would take was yet to be decided. The intention was to begin with acts least violent to individuals but more damaging to the state.
Mandela began reading and talking to experts especially on guerrilla warfare. In June 1961, Mandela released a letter to the press explaining he continued to fight the state and encouraged everyone to do the same. In October 1961, Mandela moved to Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia, where the Umkhonto we Sizwe constitution was drafted.
In planning the direction and form that MK would take, we considered four types of violent activities: sabotage, guerrilla warfare, terrorism and open revolution. For a small and fledgling army, open revolution was inconceivable. Terrorism inevitably reflected poorly on those who used it, undermining any public support it might otherwise garner. Guerrilla warfare was a possibility, but since the ANC had been reluctant to embrace violence at all, it made sense to start with the form of violence that inflicted the least harm against individuals: sabotage.
Because Sabotage did not involve loss of life, it offered the best hope for reconciliation among the races afterwards. We did not want to start a blood-feud between white and black. Animosity between Afrikaner and Englishman was still sharp fifty years after the Anglo-Boer war; what would race relations be like between white and black if we provoked a civil war? Sabotage had the added virtue of requiring the least manpower.
Our strategy was to make selective forays against military installation, power plants, telephone lines and transportation links; targets that would not only hamper the military effectiveness of the state, but frighten National Party supporters, scare away foreign capital, and weaken the economy. This we hoped would bring the government to the bargaining table. Strict instructions were given to members of MK that we would countenance no loss of life. But if sabotage did not produce the results we wanted, we were prepared to move on to the next stage: guerrilla warfare and terrorism.
DGR is following a similar strategy in the hope that we can transition to a truly sustainable society. We think that its unlikely that those in power will allow this. So phase four of the DGR strategy Decisive Ecological Warfare calls for decisive dismantling of all infrastructure.
On December 16th 1961, MK carried out its first operation. “Homemade bombs were exploded at electric power stations and government offices in Johannesburgh, Port Elizabeth and Durban. On the same day, thousands of leaflets were circulated around the country announcing the birth of Umkhonto we Sizwe. The attacks took the government by surprise and “shocked white South Africans into the realization that they were sitting on top of a volcano”. Black South Africans now knew that the ANC was no longer a passive resistance organisation. A second attack was carried out on New Year’s Eve.
Nelson was arrested in 1962 for inciting persons to strike illegally (during the 1961 stay-at-home campaign) and that of leaving the country without a valid passport. During this trial he gave his famous ‘Black man in a white court‘ speech. Nelson was sentenced to five years in prison.
In May 1963, Nelson and a number of other political prisoners were moved to Robben Island and forced to do long days of manual labour. Then in July 1963, Nelson and a number of other prisoners were back in court, now charged with sabotage. There had been a police raid at the MK Rivonia farm during a MK meeting where they had been discussing Operation Mayibuye, a plan for guerrilla warfare in South Africa. A number of documents about Operation Mayibuye were seized.
What become known as the Rivonia Trial begin on October 9th, 1963 in Pretoria. Huge crowds of supporters gathered outside the court each day and the eleven accused could hear the singing and chanting. The Crown concluded its case at the end of February 1964, with the defence to respond in April.
Right from the start we had made it clear that we intended to use the trial not as a test of the law but as a platform for our beliefs. We would not deny, for example, that we had been responsible for acts of sabotage. We would not deny that a group of us had turned away from non-violence. We were not concerned with getting off or lessening our punishment, but with making the trial strengthen the cause for which we were struggling – at whatever cost to ourselves. We would not defend ourselves in a legal sense so much as in a moral sense. We saw the trial as a continuation of the struggle by other means.
Then on April 20th, 1964, Nelson gave his famous ‘I am prepared to die’ speech. Three important sections are:
“I must deal immediately and at some length with the question of violence. Some of the things so far told to the Court are true and some are untrue. I do not, however, deny that I planned sabotage. I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness, nor because I have any love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had arisen after many years of tyranny, exploitation, and oppression of my people by the Whites.”
“We of the ANC had always stood for a non-racial democracy, and we shrank from any action which might drive the races further apart than they already were. But the hard facts were that fifty years of non-violence had brought the African people nothing but more and more repressive legislation, and fewer and fewer rights.”
“During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
Eight of the eleven, including Nelson were sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island. These eight had been expecting the death sentence. Nelson was released after 27 years in prison on February 11th, 1990.
He was aware that his family suffered because of his focus but knew that the needs of the many in South Africa were more important than the needs of the few. It is important to remember that Nelson Mandela and his family are only human, with faults and issues. His first wife accused him of domestic violence, which he always denied. His second wife is accused of ordering a number of brutal acts while Mandela was in prison. And some of Mandela’s children found him difficult. [2]
It is true that Mandela embraced non-violence upon his release from prison in 1990. But, he did this once he felt the disintegration of Apartheid was inevitable. Despite what the vast majority of media coverage would have us believe, a combined strategy of violence and non-violence were necessary to bring down Apartheid.
DGR is committed to stopping the destruction of the world. We recognize that combined tactics are necessary. As Mandela did, we need a calm and sober assessment of the political situation. It is a situation that is murdering the world. We need to leave every tactic on the table whether it is violent or non-violent. There simply isn’t enough time to restrict ourselves to exclusively non-violent tactics.
References
[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2013/12/06/when-conservatives-branded-nelson-mandela-a-terrorist/
[2] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2349335/Nelson-Mandela-death-ballroom-dancing-ladies-man-tempestuous-love-life.html
Time is Short: Reports, Reflections & Analysis on Underground Resistance is a bulletin dedicated to promoting and normalizing underground resistance, as well as dissecting and studying its forms and implementation, including essays and articles about underground resistance, surveys of current and historical resistance movements, militant theory and praxis, strategic analysis, and more. We welcome you to contact us with comments, questions, or other ideas at undergroundpromotion@deepgreenresistance.org
by DGR News Service | Mar 10, 2014 | Indigenous Autonomy, Male Violence, Obstruction & Occupation
By Canadian Press
Police say three people will be charged after Mohawk protesters calling for an inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women occupied CN Rail tracks in eastern Ontario.
Provincial police say demonstrators moved onto the tracks Saturday morning in Napanee, leading to CN issuing a stop order for all trains.
Police say a man struck the window of an unmarked police cruiser, breaking the glass.
Sgt. Kristine Rae says four people were arrested, and that three of them will face charges that have yet to be determined by investigators.
VIA Rail issued a travel advisory on Saturday saying the blockade affects the movement of VIA Rail trains on the Toronto – Montréal and Toronto – Ottawa routes, in both directions.
The stop order was lifted early in the afternoon, and train service is resuming.
Demonstrators had vowed on Friday to step up their protest in response to a parliamentary report into missing and murdered indigenous women that rejected numerous calls for a full public inquiry.
Spokesman Shawn Brant has said that there will be consequences for a national inquiry not being called.
The activists have been blockading a road east of Belleville since last Sunday night.
The release of the missing women report on Friday set off a firestorm of criticism from opposition critics, First Nation leaders and human rights groups.
Liberal and NDP members who sat on the all-party panel issued their own dissenting reports, accusing the federal Conservatives of sanitizing the final report on an ongoing crisis that has caught the attention of the United Nations.
Among its 16 recommendations, the report calls on the Conservative government to work with the provinces, territories and municipalities to create a public awareness and prevention campaign focusing on violence against aboriginal women and girls.
It’s estimated there are hundreds of cases of missing and murdered aboriginal women in Canada dating back to the 1960s – officially as many as 600, and likely hundreds more unreported victims.
Passengers are being told to expect delays. Service recovery measures such as late train travel credits or travel credits for bus substitutions will not be offered for affected trains. Extra charges paid for Business Class tickets will be reimbursed in the case of a bus substitution.
From Global News: http://globalnews.ca/news/1196149/4-in-custody-after-mohawk-protesters-occupy-train-tracks-near-belleville/
by DGR News Service | Feb 17, 2014 | Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy, Obstruction & Occupation
By Richard Arghiris / Intercontinental Cry
Having fought tirelessly against the unlawful Barro Blanco hydroelectric dam, the indigenous Ngäbe communities on the banks of Panama’s Tabasará river are today threatened with forced eviction at the hands of Panama’s notoriously brutal security forces.
The 29 MW dam, built by a Honduran-owned energy company, Genisa, received funding from three development banks: the Dutch FMO, the German DEG, and the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CBIE). The project was approved by the Panamanian government without the free, prior, and informed consent of the affected indigenous communities, who now stand to lose their homes, their livelihoods, and their cultural heritage.
Aside from providing precious sustenance in the form of fish and shrimp staples, and as well as supplying rich silt loam ideal for plantain cultivation, the Tabasará river symbolizes the spiritual lifeblood of the Ngäbe communities on its banks, including the community of Kiadba.
Earlier this year, Kiadba hosted a conference celebrating the 50th anniversary of the ‘discovery’ of the Ngäbe writing system. Bestowed in dreams and visions to the followers of the prophetess Besiko – a young woman who sparked a Ngäbe religious movement called Mama Tata – the written language of Ngäbere is today disseminated in only a handful of schools, including the educational facility in Kiadba.
Attended by hundreds of followers, the conference culminated in a solemn ritual at the site of ancient petroglyphs on the river, whose abstract carvings describe myths and history of the river, including the story of a Tabasará King, who ruled the region prior to the Spanish conquest. Neither the petroglyphs nor Kiadba’s language school are cited in Genisa’s impact assessment – a deeply flawed document according to a UN study in 2012, which concluded that both would be lost forever under reservoir waters if construction of the dam was completed.
Facing the threat of inundation, the Ngäbe have now established blockades and camps on the river bank to prevent Genisa’s machinery from encroaching on their land. The company recently crossed the water to an 800m wide strip dividing the communities of Kiadba and Quebrada Caña, and commenced felling lumber in the gallery forests. The government has now issued a formal warning demanding that the Ngäbe vacate their lands – today, 17 February 2014, is their deadline.
Sadly, there have been episodic clashes between the police and Panama’s indigenous minorities throughout the four year tenure of President Ricardo Martinelli, who is set to stand down after elections in May. All of those incidents have resulted in injuries to unarmed protesters, and in several shameful instances, permanent injury or death. Despite the disturbing ease with which Panama’s security forces commit acts of violence, the Ngäbe are standing firm. They ask solidarity and vigilance from the international community at this uncertain time.
From Intercontinental Cry: http://intercontinentalcry.org/panama-indigenous-communities-face-eviction-22239/
by DGR News Service | Feb 1, 2014 | Lobbying, Obstruction & Occupation
By Inter Press Service
Residents of a town in Argentina have won the first victory in their fight against biotech giant Monsanto, but they are still at battle stations, aware that winning the war is still a long way off.
For four months, activists in Malvinas Argentinas, a town in the central province of Cordoba, have maintained a blockade of the construction site where the U.S. transnational company is building the world’s biggest maize seed treatment plant.
In this previously peaceful town, protestors continue to camp in front of the construction site and to block access to it, even after a provincial court order this month put a halt to the works.
The campaign against the plant, led by Asamblea Malvinas Lucha por la Vida (Malvinas Assembly Fighting for Life) and other social organizations, began Sept. 18 in this town 17 kilometers from the capital of Cordoba.
Tense situations ensued, with attempts by the provincial police to disperse the demonstrators and provocations by construction union envoys, but a provincial labor court ruling on Jan. 8 upheld the activists’ cause.
“The ruling shows that the residents’ arguments are just, because they are claiming basic rights that are recognized and established in the constitution and federal legislation,” Federico Macciocchi, the lawyer representing opponents of the plant, told IPS.
The court ruled that the municipal ordinance authorizing construction of the plant in this mostly working class town of 15,000 people was unconstitutional.
It ordered a halt to construction work and banned the Malvinas Argentinas municipality from authorizing the construction until two legal requirements are fulfilled: carrying out an environmental impact assessment and a public hearing.
“This is a big step forward in the struggle, achieved by working together on institutional demands, along with social activism on the streets,” Matías Marizza, a member of the Malvinas Assembly, told IPS.
“This struggle has resulted in guaranteeing respect for the law,” the activist said.
The Malvinas Assembly and other organizations have decided to continue to camp out at the site and block access until the project is abandoned for good.
Monsanto replied to IPS’s request for comment with a statement that describes local activists as “extremists” who are preventing their contractors and employees from “exercising the right to work.”
The court ruling arose from a legal appeal lodged by local residents and the Club de Derecho (Cordoba Law Club), presided by Macciocchi.
The labor court has ordered an environmental impact study and a public hearing, he emphasized.
The views expressed in the public hearing will be “highly relevant,” he said, although under the General Environment Law, participants’ objections and opinions “are not binding.”
However, the law does stipulate that if the opinions of the convening authorities differ from the results of the public hearing, “they must justify them and make them public,” he said.
Now the Malvinas Assembly also wants a public consultation with a secret ballot.
Such a ballot would comply with the environmental law and “guarantee citizens’ full rights to decide on which model of local development and what kind of social and economic activities they want for their daily life, and what environmental risks they are prepared to take,” Víctor Mazzalay, another resident, told IPS.
“It is the people who should have that information and decide whether or not to accept the costs and risks involved,” said Mazzalay, a social researcher funded by the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) at the University of Cordoba.
“An environmental impact assessment should include a public consultation so that citizens can provide the ‘social license’ necessary for developing any social, economic and productive activity that may affect their environment and health,” he said.
Monsanto’s statement said the company does not agree with the court ruling, but respects judicial decisions and will abide by the verdict.
The company stated that it had already conducted an environmental assessment, which is currently under review by the provincial Secretary of the Environment.
In Macciocchi’s view, the court’s ruling is definitive and “brings the legal conflict to an end.”
“The ruling arose from a legal appeal, so there is no further recourse in ordinary law,” he said.
Monsanto can still appeal to have the decision overturned by the provincial High Court (Tribunal Superior de Justicia, TSJ).
The company has already said that it will appeal. “We consider our right to build legitimate since we have complied with all legal requirements and have obtained authorization to build according to the regulations, as confirmed by the ruling of the Court of First Instance of Oct. 7, 2013,” their statement said.
However, in Macciocchi’s view “this appeal will not overturn the labour court ruling.”
“If we consider how long the TSJ takes to process an appeal, by the time there is a decision, the Malvinas municipality and the Environment Secretariat will have complied with the laws they previously violated,” he said.
According to the lawyer, the high court takes up to two and a half years for appeals lodged by individuals under sentence, and five to seven years in labor or civil cases.
“It would create a real institutional scandal if the TSJ were to deal with this case by leap-frogging all the other cases that have lain dormant in its offices for years,” he said.
The Jan. 8 ruling cannot prevent the definitive installation of the plant, which Monsanto plans should become operational during 2014.
“But if the citizens’ demonstrations against the plant and the environmental impact assessment are unfavorable to the company, Monsanto will not be able to instal the plant in Malvinas Argentinas,” Macciocchi predicted.
Mazzalay emphasized that the “substance” of the arguments of opponents to Monsanto’s plant was “the defense of the people’s right to decide on the kind of productive activities and the type of environmental risks they wish to undertake.”
The company announced it was planning to build more than 200 maize silos, and to use agrochemical products to treat the seeds. Monsanto is one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of herbicides and genetically modified seeds, and has operated in Argentina since 1956 when it established a plastics factory.
“It is frequently argued that there is a reasonable doubt that this productive activity is harmless to human health,” Mazzalay said.
In his view, “a multiplicity of scientific studies have shown negative effects on health from both seed transportation and handling of and exposure to different agrochemical products.”
“When there is a health risk related to environmental issues, reasonable doubt should bring the precautionary principle into play, that is, an activity should not be developed until it has definitely been proved to be harmless,” he said.
From Upside Down World: http://upsidedownworld.org/main/argentina-archives-32/4669-argentine-activists-win-first-round-against-monsanto-plant
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jan 15, 2014 | Obstruction & Occupation, Repression at Home
By Cal Winslow
Will Parrish needs your support. He now faces eight years in prison; in addition, $490,000 in fines, “restitution”. And for what? For delaying a freeway, the “Redwood Highway” – the California 101.
Parrish is a journalist here in Willits, in Mendocino County. He is also an activist and a teacher. His trial is scheduled for the County Courthouse in Ukiah, at 8:30 AM, on January 28th.
Will’s crime must be peculiarly Californian, a crime against a freeway. It must, from the grave, be raising Ronald Reagan’s hackles, jolting his memory. We’re told, incessantly in the media, this delay also enrages our ordinary travelers; drivers, it seems, now delayed five minutes (or so) along the main street of Willits on the trip to Eureka.
Willits, Eureka, Mendocino, Humboldt, why here? In this wildest corner of the state? “California’s transportation infrastructure – once the freeway wonder of the world – now lags hopelessly behind…”, Mike Davis tells us this, and quite rightly, but you can’t say they’re not trying. The issue here is a bypass.
Mike’s down south, where the people are. Things are different here. There are fewer than 5000 people in Willits, its population in decline; there are just about 90,000 people in Mendocino County, a few more than in new Mayor Bill De Blasio’s Brooklyn neighborhood. But this is a big County, nearly 100 miles south to north. We have lots of elbow room. And that’s Mendocino; take 101 north and there’s hardly anyone at all. The shrewd driver, once in southern Humboldt, can easily make up the time. Then it’s the supermax at Pelican Bay in nothing flat.
But it doesn’t matter, it’s systemic. Caltrans, the state’s mega transportation department is pushing the bypass at Willits; it’s wanted it for a long time. It’s for our own good, of course. And Caltrans has a plan. A master plan? Indeed it’s had this very plan for twenty years (it seems it’s always a good time for a new freeway). Caltrans has proposed and is now building a $200 million, six mile, four-lane freeway the size of Interstate 5.
Willits is “the Gateway to the Redwoods”, drivers learn this from a large arch they pass under (not from actual trees). They also navigate a five mile stretch of two lane traffic, two lights, then an array of shops, etc., few really worth slowing down for. The one real problem, let’s be fair here, is the snag where state route 20, at Safeway and a light, turns off to Fort Bragg and the Coast. It is a bottleneck. I’ve seen rush hour traffic backed up two or three blocks, delays of five minutes or so. But let’s have some perspective on this. We’re out in the country, on our way to the Redwoods, the few remaining. We’re just not talking about the BQE on Monday morning or the Santa Monica Freeway on Tuesday nights.
So $200 million? California is just clawing itself out of the recession. We’ve hardly had time to catch our breath, how will we undo the damage done to our schools, our services, our health and welfare? Costs still figure even here, even in this latest boomlet. Caltrans likes to keep it quiet, but the first stage of the freeway bypass will be only two lanes, though construction will prepare for an eventual four. Back to Mike Davis, there’s something more than meets the eye here, something “primal”.
Good, sensible people in Willits have been fighting the bypass here for twenty years; they’ve challenged Caltrans every foot of the way – they’ve demanded proper public input, attention to environmental regulations, a haven for rare birds, and protection of wetlands, this last elemental, primary in terms of survival here in (too) thirsty California. It’s amazing, the persistence of these people. And they’ve been willing to seek compromises – perhaps a smaller project. But Caltrans has been patient too (and with 22,000 employees, the state’s huge contractors on your side, also the local politicians, building trades unions, etc., I suppose it’s easy to be patient).
Will Parish is a new-comer of sorts to this (a new-comer in California? Is that an oxymoron?). He’s been up here in Mendocino County for just four years, and we’re very lucky for it. Will grew up in Santa Cruz, his parents teachers, his home fronting a Redwood forest, his childhood sanctuary. Will went to UC Santa Cruz, majoring there in Sociology and Journalism. The administration apparently considered the Journalism School a problem (a sure sign it was doing its job), and used the 2003 round of cuts to get rid of it. Will reckons he’s the last of its graduates.
Will, as a journalist, sought out issues of power and war; he dug into the roots of the Bay Area’s war connections, in particular those in the UC system – no shortage of material there. Nuclear weapons, nuclear power appalled him. And he combined writing with activism; he is a journalist in the best tradition of our muckrakers, a writer “with his boots on the ground”. This is a good expression, I think; I’m taking it from my mentor, the late Edward Thompson, in his own time a relentless opponent of the war machine, of nuclear weapons in particular, writer and activist.
Close Counterpunch readers will remember Will’s many contributions including: How Imperial San Franciscans Loot the Planet (February 26-28 2010 with Darwin Bond-Graham) and Who Runs the University of California? (March 01, 2010 with Bond-Graham). And here in wine country his focus has been the burgeoning wine industry: see pieces including In the Shadow of the Gallos; Sonoma County, Banana Republic of Wine Grapes (January 21-23, 2011).
In Mendocino Will began with a focus has been the burgeoning wine industry, its owners, its workers and its place in the economy (see, for example, In the Shadow of the Gallos; Sonoma County, Banana Republic of Wine Grapes, Counterpunch, January 21-23, 2011). And on the wetlands of the Little Lake Valley.
“When I first came here, Willits, I fell in love with the tranquility here, with the mountains, the boggy marshes, the grasslands, the eco-diversity, the space. And no freeway. The 101 stops just south of Willits – that makes it a different world here.
“My journalism, my practice, has always been to scan the horizon, to look for the most pressing problems, to look for the problems that most need addressing.
“The bypass issue struck me as a really big problem, a thing that really needed addressing. And that meant getting involved; I can’t write and not be involved.” (See “The Insanity of the Willits Bypass”, in the Ukiah Blog, January 8th, 2013)
Here’s an example:
“As Willits’ settlers set about gridding the land and marketing it to cattle ranchers and timber merchants, they rapidly removed the wetlands. They did the same to the Pomo villagers and wildlife — waterfowl, pelicans, vast herds of Tule elk and antelope, etc. — that had dwelled among the marshes and springs for so long. The early Euroamerican pioneers incised streambeds, redirected creeks, constructed artificial drainage ditches, and ripped apart the hardpan layers of topsoil that contained the water, allowing it to seep slowly into the ground.
“Some of the moisture that time had stored on the land remains, though, most notably within the marshy area on the north end of the valley, extending across Route 101 on the west and Reynolds Highway on the east. The area acts as a collection point for three creeks that flow through the valley. It is then drained by Outlet Creek, a tributary of the Eel River. Among its other contributions to what might be called the “real world” of inland Mendocino County, Outlet Creek provides the longest remaining run for the endangered Coho salmon of any river tributary in California.
In June, Will climbed a wick drain “stitcher”, a giant machine there to plant tens of thousands of drainage tubes along the path of freeway construction, tubes to drain the wetlands and stabilize the earth upon which the highway will be built – in the process destroying Little Lake Valley wetlands, the largest Northern California wetlands to be drained in any single project in the past fifty years. So David and Goliath again. Will: “Caltrans is a scofflaw agency that, by virtue of a failed political and regulatory system, is facing no other forms of real accountability for causing immense and probably irreversible destruction of Little Lake Valley.”
An important argument in this entire conflict is that the whole project is illegal, Caltrans having violated nearly every regulation possible.
“I threw myself in because the more I came to understand this the more upset I became. The Willits project epitomizes so much of everything that is wrong; it epitomizes the power dynamics that underlie all the problems I see in society.”
Will lived on a platform, more than fifty feet up, for eleven days. Will is six foot five, no, not a basketball player, rather tennis, a large, attentive, kind man, hair flowing like Clay Matthew’s, only dark brown. Gentle, yes. Passive, no. Will on the stitcher was a figure not to be missed. And the California Highway Patrol (CHP) took every precaution in bringing him down – precaution meaning that they overwhelmed him, attacking with swat teams, climbing specialists (a career path), hoisted in giant bucket loaders, prepared with saws specifically designed to cut him loose. But not until the entire project had been halted.
This story has not generated the emotion, the energy of Julia Butterfly Hill’s but it demands our attention, as do dozens of such projects here in California’s Northwest. They are fundamental contests. They are about our future. In the stitcher Will lived in a sort of house arrest, surrounded on the ground by dozens of the small army of CHP troopers brought into Willits. He was deprived of food; the CHP even arrested six people who attempted to bring him supplies. He went six days without food, surviving an unseasonal rain storm, also bitter cold.
Construction started in February, 2013, but was delayed until spring. Will was not the first to be arrested. There were others, tree sitters, people who sat down in the paths of bulldozers (West Bank weapons) – fifty people in all have been arrested, these people too demand our support. They include a core of those who have kept this crusade alive, all these years. In truth, it’s been a small group that has kept this issue alive; many were the young at heart – often 50, 60, even 70 year olds, but tenacious. Against them the troopers, the choppers, the armed vehicles.
Will is charged with trespassing, “unlawful entry”. (He is also charged with two “resisting arrests”.) So Will and his supporters expected him to be charged with two or three two misdemeanors. Some tree sitters have yet to be charged with anything. The Mendocino County District Attorney, David Eyster, typical of the small town bullies we suffer as DA’s, offered a plea bargain, but this left Will subject to restitution. Will refused, asked for a jury trial. Infuriated, Eyster made a package of the misdemeanors; charging Will instead with 16 misdemeanors, these with a cumulative maximum eight-year jail sentence. As it happens, Caltrans then piled on with a demand for $490.000.02 in restitution. The costs of delay!
I have heard it said that the sentence demanded in this case is unusual, harsh in nominally liberal and eco-friendly Mendocino County. True, this isn’t South Carolina, and it is also true that there is something of a history of tolerance in this County. And there is radicalism of a certain kind; many here are on alert for peak oil, Fukushima, broken bridges, marine protectors, black choppers. And thank heavens for it. But, for the few who will remember, Tony Craver and Norm Vroman are gone. Still, there is a curious way in which Eyster relates to the growers, so he often gets a pass. But he’s not on his own, he’s certainly not the only bully in the County, and he’s not the only one who is happy to not see our biggest industries’ bad behaviors.
Will has lived up to his self-pledge to seek out the most pressing problems, and to get to the bottom of them. In this case he’s found wetlands. And water, fundamentals for all California, and no small concern here in California, now in the grips of an historic drought. Wetlands take us to water and water to the growers. The grape growers here are not mom and pop operations; they are more likely Silicon Valley veterans, wealthy people with more money than they know what to do with. They come here to concoct boutique wines; but premium wine production touches everything, from the price of land to the very structure of labor, and not for the better. They create the groomed landscape that the Anderson Valley has become. But they also consume the water; now, as we await our rainy season, we have dry creeks and depleted rivers. And they bring pesticides, and all the nasty environmental procedures that are the unmentionables in an eco-friendly County. And these are not on David Eyster’s agenda. And salmon that still don’t come back. Will Parrish is our Lincoln Steffens (The Shame of the Cities, 1904). And they don’t like him.
There is a similar story with our biggest industry, that is, with “the crop”, marijuana. Of course it’s an underground economy; of course it has its victims, its innocents. Yet it too is extractive in the worst senses; it too drains our streams, poisons them, it drives up the price of land, it too takes the profits away. It creates our culture of secrecy; ask no questions, it stretches out the class divide while thriving on illusions of community. No wonder Mendocino is still a poor County, its schools struggle, its public services all but non-existent. Our “infrastructure” crumbles – our County roads? No help from Caltrans for these. And Will has had the courage to say this.
So why is Eyster being the bully? I think we have a conspiracy here, but it’s an open conspiracy, its origins, its cast of characters is right here for all to see. Caltrans wants roads, big roads; the builders want to build. Eyster’s job, grease the wheels. It’s systemic. Why would he not be the bully? A few examples will quiet things down, or so he seems to think. He’s got Will Parrish on deck.
The 101 is named the Redwood Highway and for good reason. Its construction began in the twenties – for us in the North it begins on the Golden Gate Bridge; it then passes through a series of lovely valleys until it reaches the mountains of northern Mendocino County, then it follows the South Fork of the Eel toward Eureka and on to the Oregon border. Its initial construction was promoted as a pathway to a tourist’s paradise, that is, the motoring tourist. It opened up a new world, magnificent yet until then inaccessible. The 101 had on offer – for those with cars – giant trees, raging wild rivers, steep canyons, rugged mountains, there to see, yet all without a step out the door.
There was another intention, however. By the twenties, the coastal Redwood forests were all but exhausted; the depression of the thirties put an end to the “harvest”. There remained, however, millions of acres of old growth Redwood, just out of reach of the coastal mills. Not, however, out of reach of the truck, the bulldozer and the chain saw. The 101 cleared the way that led to the final ravaging of the forest; in sheer destruction it far surpassed that of the late nineteenth century, though the old images – man vs. tree – still dominate our imagination of this history. The result, today fewer than four percent of the old growth survives. Second and third growth forests still are cut; there is farming. But the great Redwood forests, once a common of unimaginable value, a true wonder of the world, remain only terribly wounded, and almost all as private property, no trespassing.
This part of California, its “wildest” corner, grabs people, it moves them. It’s got Will and the Willits tree sitters, Warbler and the others, the bulldozer blockaders (I think of Rachel Corrie), its geriatric Wobblies facing down the troopers. And Willits is not the only site of conflict. Caltrans wants the road widened at Richardson Grove; it wants the road up to Oregon straightened. Never mind our remaining giant trees. Never mind the Smith River canyon, the path to the sea of California’s only undammed river.
I see the conspiracy when I drive home from the City, up the 101 to Cloverdale. It’s not hidden. The traffic on an afternoon is of course catastrophe in Northern Marin and on through Sonoma to Santa Rosa. So the solution? There are massive projects now in place, ever widening the highway, knocking down whatever is left in its path, so far almost to Windsor.
In its path, strip malls and giant box stores follow, one after another; sometimes it’s as if we’re in a tunnel of Mall. Then comes the sprawl.
And so it continues, the highways will soon be jammed again; Caltrans will push on northwards. Development. Plunder. Profit. It’s a “primal scene”, Mike Davis (Ecology of Fear) again. The widenings, the bypasses, these are “the familiar tremors heralding an eruption of growth that will wipe away human and natural history”.
Will and his comrades see this, the insanity of it all. They understand that this will not stop at Cloverdale or Ukiah. They understand the damage being done – “to human and natural history”.
The wetlands in Little Lake Valley are small, really; they have already been damaged by the agriculturalists of a century ago. Are they worth saving? I wondered if the Willits fighters had not perhaps exaggerated.
Counterpunch readers will recognize Ignacio Chapela as the microbial ecologist and mycologist at the University of California, Berkeley, known for exposure of the flow of transgenes into wild maize.
Ignacio explains, “The highland wetlands are the basis of the health of the whole environment, this includes all the ecosystems downstream, they are the basis for everything, our water, the diversity of species, everything is at stake.”
“Will is a young investigative reporter, one of a kind. He’s not afraid of pursuing questions to their ultimate consequence. It’s not surprising at all to me that he’s working on wetlands, he understands environmental problems deeply and has the unique capacity to make these clear in his writings.
“It would be a terrible loss for California, also for environmental journalists everywhere, if he is silenced – even slowed down.
“I want to do whatever I can to do to support him and I want invite everyone to join us.”
So do I.
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Support Will in Court. Ukiah County Courthouse, 8:30 am, January 28, 2014
Send messages to: Mendocino District Attorney David Eyster at Eysterd@co.mendocino.ca.us
or to
Supervisor Fifth District, Dan Hamburg at Hamburgd@co.mendocino.ca.us
Contributions can be sent to: Little Lake Valley Legal Fund/Will Parrish, Box 131, Willits, CA 95490
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jan 6, 2014 | Defensive Violence, Property & Material Destruction, Repression at Home, The Problem: Civilization
By The Women’s Coordinating Committee for a Free Wallmapu
What can only be described as an act of defiance against the State of Siege imposed by the Chilean State was carried out this morning (December 31st), against the Chilean occupation and its Capitalist plunder in the province of Malleco.
The events took place nearby the town of Angol, a small distance away from a police station. It involved the complete arson of a helicopter belonging to Mininco Forestry Inc, and the partial damage of another.
The events also included the alleged assault of a police officer, who was subdued by the “assailants,” according to various media reports.
We should remember that the Chilean government had ordered more police presence to Mapuche territory, in which several reinforcements were brought from various parts of the country. This also included the use of surveillance planes, or drones, with infrared cameras and heat detectors, in order to control and monitor the movement in the area, especially at night.
Nothing worked; the permanent police presence used to prevent unidentified people from entering site proved to be a dismal failure. A private contractor is used to maintain planes and other equipment for Mininco Forestry Inc, where the two planes were set on fire, destroying one and damaging the other.
Second Helicopter Attack in the Area
This is the second time that Forestry planes have been targeted in the area of Malleco. An earlier incident included a helicopter that was shot in a rural area of Ercilla.
Forestry Companies: The Ugliest Face of Capitalism in Wallmapu
The forestry companies represent the worst aspect that Capitalism has shown to Mapuche community members in Wallmapu. Their extreme extractive activities have only generated disaster for communities, including toxic fumes, the disappearance of rivers, brooks and streams, as well as the extinction of the natural flora and fauna of the area which serve as food and medicine for the Mapuche People. These are the main effects, among others, of the industry financed by the Chilean State through Law 701.
Moreover, the enormous extensions of land currently held by the Forestry companies lie on stolen land from Mapuche communities. These corporate properties are directly related to the territorial plunder of the Mapuche People.
Three Families against a People
This business not only is targeted against the Mapuche People; it also excludes the thousands of Chileans that have maintained this industry through subsidized taxes for the last 20 years. The property concentrated by the forestry industry lies in the hands of only three families: Angelini, Matte and Carey, whom own companies such as Bosques Arauco, CMPC and Masisa respectively.
Bosques Arauco alone encompasses almost 1.2 million hectares, with Mininco Forestry Inc at 700,000 hectares, which does not include the many uncertified estates in the area.
According to an official report, the forestry companies posses almost three million hectares in southern Chile – in other words – Wallmapu. This accounts to almost 30% of our traditional Mapuche Territory [south of the Bio Bio River], in comparison with only 700,000 hectares held by Mapuche communities, accounting for only 7% of traditional territory.
From Warrior Publications: http://wccctoronto.wordpress.com/2013/12/31/mapuche-resistance-defies-the-state-of-siege/
