Tag: Rodney Coronado

Center for Consumer Freedom on SHAC

The Center for Consumer Freedom published an excellent report this month on Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty’s recent protests against Huntingdon Life Sciences designed to coincide with the company’s 50th year in business (though, the activists got it wrong and it was, in fact, Huntingdon’s 51st anniversary).

The report included the following “unedited quotes, taken directly from videotapes of the recent SHAC protests,”

“Animal liberation is not a campaign. It is not a struggle. It is a war! It is an all-out bloody war!”
-Robin Webb

“As long as we emptied the labs of animals, they are still easily replaced. So that’s when the ALF in this country, and my cell, started engaging in arson.”
-Rodney Coronado

“We’re a new breed of activism. We’re not your parents’ Humane Society. We’re not Friends of Animals. We’re not Earthsave. We’re not Greenpeace. We come with a new philosophy. We hold the radical line. We will not compromise! We will not apologize, and we will not relent! Vivisection is not an abstract concept. It’s a deed, done by individuals, who have weaknesses, who have breaking points, and who have home addresses!”
-Kevin Jonas

“We’ll sweep the police aside. We’ll sweep the government aside. We’ll sweep Huntingdon Life Sciences aside, and we’ll raze this evil place right to the ground.”
-Robin Webb

Source:

Special Report: The New ‘Nonviolence’. The Center for Consumer Freedom, December 5, 2002.

Center for Consumer Freedom Highlights PETA's Financial Support for Eco- and Animal Rights Terrorism

The Center for Consumer Freedom continues its excellent investigative look at the animal rights movement with a press release outlining People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals‘ extensive financial support from 1995-2000 for individuals and groups who are connected with and advocates of animal rights and environmental terrorism. The entire press release is reproduced below, but the most damaging items are that PETA donated $1,500 to the Earth Liberation Front in April 2001 as well as a $1,500 donation in 1999 to then-ALF spokesman David Wilson.

Here’s the full press release:

Arsonist “Support Committees” Funded By PETA

Washington, DC – In the wake of this weekÂ’s congressional hearings on eco-terrorism,
new evidence shows a close relationship between the animal rights group People
for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the violent Earth Liberation
Front (ELF). The FBI has labeled ELF as “the largest and most active U.S.-based
terrorist group.”

Richard Berman, Executive Director for the Center for Consumer Freedom, said
the financial links between PETA and ELF are very disturbing. “An investigation
of IRS documents shows that over the past 6 years PETA has given significant
money to the legal support funds of criminals with close affiliations to both
ELF and Animal Liberation Front (ALF),” Berman said. “More shocking is our most
recent discovery of a direct donation to Earth Liberation Front from PETA in
April 2001.”

PETAÂ’s 1995-2000 IRS tax filings show the following:

  • In FY2000, PETA gave a direct contribution of $1500 to the Earth Liberation
    Front (ELF) to “support their program activities.”

  • In FY2000, PETA gave $5000 to the “Josh Harper Support Committee.” Josh
    Harper is an ALF-affiliated criminal arrested numerous times and convicted
    for assaulting a police officer. In 1998, Harper told Eugene Weekly newspaper
    “weÂ’re going to continue to be confrontational, weÂ’re going to continue to
    be militant. If people see that as extreme, then so be it.”

  • In FY1999, PETA gave $2,000 to David Wilson, a Utah-based animal-rights
    extremist who was then a national “spokesperson” for the ALF. In March of
    that year, Wilson bragged to Mother Jones magazine: “We started with animal
    rights, but we’ve expanded to wildlife actions like the [October 1998 ski
    resort arson] one in Vail. We’re the ones bridging the environmental gap.”

  • In FY1995, PETA gave a $45,200 contribution to the “support committee” of
    Rodney Coronado, a convicted arsonist who firebombed a research facility at
    Michigan State University. PETA also gave an unreturned $25,000 “loan” to
    Rodney CoronadoÂ’s father.

  • PETA has used their closely controlled Foundation to Support Animal Protection
    to launder over $500,000 in contributions to the Physicians Committee for
    Responsible Medicine, an organization whose president collaborates with a
    violent animal rights group known as Stop Huntington Animal Cruelty (SHAC).
    SHAC is a special-interest subset of ALF responsible for firebombings, property
    destruction, grand theft and assault.

“People are being deceived by PETAÂ’s self-portrayal as a warm and cuddly animal
rights organization,” Berman said. “PETA should explain to their contributors
why their money is being used to help finance domestic terrorism.”

The Center for Consumer Freedom is a coalition of more than 30,000 restaurants
and tavern operators working together to protect the public’s right to a full
menu of dining and entertainment choices, through education, training and public
outreach. To learn more, visit www.consumerfreedom.com.

-30-

Court Reigns in Rodney Coronado

In a recent newsletter, Americans for Medical Progress reported that the parole conditions for Rodney Coronado have apparently been altered to prevent Coronado from continuing his very public writing and speaking campaign in favor of animal rights. Coronado fire bombed a laboratory at Michigan State University and served almost five years in jail for his crimes before being paroled.

Before being sentenced in 1995 Coronado read a statement saying that, “I have gone from the most vocal proponent to now an open opponent of the ALF. My actions were illegal, radical and extreme and caused great pain to others. It took me years to realize the impact of my actions.”

Coronado quickly repudiated those remarks while in jail and after his release on parole began writing articles for activists publications such as No Compromise extolling the virtues of the Animal Liberation Front and similar groups.

Apparently his activities didn’t go unnoticed by the courts. According to AMP, a communique was recently circulated by activists to the effect that new parole conditions forbid Coronado to “write articles or otherwise work for activists publications, nor can speak out, publicize or support illegal actions or associate with ALF or ELF members for the next 16 months–the remainder of his parole term.”

Source:

ALF’s Rodney Coronado Under Tighter Parole Restrictions. Americans for Medical Progress, April 12, 2001.

Clinton's Clemency Offer Will Only Encourage Animal Rights Terrorists

When President Clinton offered
clemency to 16 Puerto Rican nationalists who waged a campaign of terror
bombing in the 1970s and 1980s, he dramatically increased the danger posed
to Michigan businesses and researchers by the most organized terrorist
groups in the United States today – animal rights terrorists.

Over the last two decades, animal
rights groups calling themselves the Animal Liberation Front and the Justice Department have waged a campaign of terror that includes hundreds of break-ins
and bombings. Michigan businesses and research facilities have often been
frequent targets of such criminals. In August, several Michigan businesses
involved in the fur trade received packages in the mail containing razor
blades and death threats sent by an animal rights organization calling
itself the Justice Department. The threats gave the businesses until the
end of the year to abandon the fur business or face violent reprisals.
The FBI is currently investigating the threats.

Those who firebomb research labs
and destroy meat packing facilities defend their actions by saying they
only target property and never people (although groups like the Justice
Department have no problem hurting people). Like the Puerto Rican nationalists,
they do not even consider their actions violence or terrorism but rather
as acts of liberation.

The Clinton administration and supporters
of clemency for the Puerto Rican nationalists just gave this position
a big boost. Time and again television and newspaper coverage of the controversy
featured people in positions of power and influence arguing it was okay
to free these prisoners because all they did was destroy buildings and
property rather than kill human beings.

These apologists for violence miss
the point; the ultimate goal of terrorism is not to kill but create an
atmosphere of fear. Terrorists kill people only because it is an extremely
effective way to create fear, but such fear can be manufactured just as
easily by destroying property as by outright murder. Racist extremists
often use the threat of arson or other damage to physical property to
intimidate minorities, and some antiabortion extremists have attempted
to use destruction of property at abortion clinics to scare women away
from such facilities. By seeking to create an atmosphere of fear in the
targeted population, such acts of property destruction constitute the
very heart and soul of terrorism.

In defense of the clemency offer,
defenders of the Puerto Rican nationalists claim those convicted have
since renounced violence. Such renunciations are next to worthless as
the case of Rodney Coronado illustrates. Coronado was the first animal
rights activists convicted in federal court for a terrorist bombing. In
1992 Coronado firebombed a research lab at Michigan State University,
causing more than $1 million in damages. Despite a long history of other
violent activities, Coronado received only a 5 year prison sentence.
One of the factors leading to the light sentence was Coronado’s vehement
denunciation of both violence and the animal rights movement at his pre-sentencing
hearing. Once he was sentenced, however, Coronado simply ignored his previous
renunciation of violence and regularly wrote articles from prison justifying
and encouraging acts of destruction against research labs and other facilities.

Renunciation is a poor substitute for incarceration.

Violence from the animal rights
community is likely to increase in the coming years. After some initial
success in gaining public acceptance in the 1980s, the movement experienced
something of a backlash in the 1990s. Today influential members of even
relatively mainstream groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals defend illegal actions as the only way the movement will be
able to change society.

With his clemency offer to convicted
terrorists, the president gave the violent side of the animal rights movement
notice that so long as they cannot be linked to murder their actions will not
be considered “real” terrorism. Michigan businesses and research
facilities may have to pay the price for Clinton’s soft spot for terrorists.

No Compromise publishes tirade by Rod Coronado

The extremist pro-Animal Liberation Front zine No Compromise recently published
a lengthy tirade by animal rights terrorist Rodney Coronado. Coronado is currently serving
a 57-month sentence for aiding and abetting arson and handling stolen
property. Coronado helped fire-bomb a Michigan State University laboratory
in East Lansing, destroying decades of research into protecting wild mink.

So what does this convicted arsonist have
to say — the government is repressing him. That’s right. In Coronado’s
mind the only reason authorities wanted to jail him for arson was because
ALF activities “threaten big business and the government itself.”
Coronado describes the federal indictment of Josh Ellerman as having a
“political motivation” and complains about continuing “government
harassment and prosecution” of animal rights activists.

Coronado, like other ALF activists
and their supporters, believes that because ALF only firebombs buildings
and automobiles that they aren’t terrorists (or even violent). This
has to set a precedent for self-deception. Of course what ALF engages
in is terrorism. As my dictionary defines it, terrorism is “the unlawful
use or threatened use of force or violence to intimidate or coerce societies
or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.”

In his tirade Coronado admits this
is exactly the purpose of ALF actions, writing “when every new animal
abuse enterprise must factor into their prospective budgets the possibility
that they might be targeted by our less passive forces … then and only
then will they begin to see the need to change.” ALF’s purpose
is to intimidate laboratories and researchers into abandoning their activities.
As Coronado puts it, “our opposition [will] eventually be forced
to reckon with us in a civil manner.”

How people are to be expected to
reckon with arsonists “in a civil manner” is a subject Coronado
doesn’t choose to address.

The most ironic part of Coronado’s
diatribe is his complaint that law enforcement agencies are busy tracking
down ALF members “rather than violent offenders targeting women,
children and senior citizens.” Maybe Coronado didn’t notice
that every time he and his compatriots firebomb an installation or commit
other acts of violence, police and fire officials have to commit large
resources to solving those crimes that otherwise might be used solving
other crimes. This is not, however, the fault of the police and fire officials
but of Coronado and his compatriots.

In addition, while Coronado seems
to be under the delusion that setting fire to an empty building causes
no physical harm, in fact he and other ALF terrorists are endangering
the lives of fire and police officials who must put out these blazes.
Every year too many fire fighters lose their lives battling fires started
by arsonists. It is only a matter of time before the animal rights terrorists
add to this total.

If Coronado really wants police
to stop investigating ALF arsons he should convince his fellow activists
to stop setting fires in the first place. Until then, police and fire
officials will continue to expend resources tracking down animal rights
terrorists.

Source:

Government sanctioned repression at all time high – fight back. Rod Coronado, No Compromise, 1998.