Community Residents Challenge Maxxam/Pacific Lumber's Smear Campaign
Timber Company Branding Young Forest Protesters as Terrorists
Humboldt county, California: More than 60 doctors, lawyers, City Council members,
clergy and local residents from this rural community have called for the cessation
of ads broadcast on radio, tv and newspapers by Maxxam/Pacific Lumber. The
ads attack protesters carrying out acts of civil disobedience against unsustainable
logging as terrorists, accusing them of "terrorizing innocent people",
urging those listening to the ads to "protect our fundamental freedoms
and rights". Their attempts to whip up public sentiment against
those who would oppose their management practices have the backdrop of an
already polarized environment, since PL's over-cutting has put many people
out of work in this timber-dependant community.
But as tree-sitters have been plucked from high altitude perches in giant
old growth redwoods by contract climbers hired by PL to essentially carry
out law enforcement activities, using pain compliance holds and binding activists'
ankles and wrists upwards of 150 feet off the ground in the branches of giant
old growth trees, the activists argue it is their rights at risk. In
fact, in an appeal of a judge's siting of an upcoming jury trial over police
use of pepper spray on protesters staging a sit-in protest in Humboldt county,
lawyers argued a fair trial is impossible in a "hotbed of prejudice"
created by the timber company's smear campaign.
Signers of the letter to PL pres. Robert Manne and Maxxam CEO Charles Hurwitz
also decried the use of images of Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi in their
ads as well as rhetoric trivializing the horror of the Sept. 11 attacks by
drawing parallels with non-violent forest defense. Though civil disobedience
actions in the long forest campaign have remained non-violent, the signers
say the protester's tactics are not at issue-it is the highly-charged propagandistic
language attempting to create ill will toward protesters, and some fear, incite
violence. A letter with 60 signers (and growing) asks Manne and Hurwitz "
stop producing media material" making the "claim that civil disobedience
is an act of terrorism."
Tree-sitters are not alone in challenging PL's practices that are laying
bare steep hillsides, causing floods and degrading water quality to the point
where PL was ordered to truck in drinking water to residents whose household
sources had been rendered non-potable. Local residents have traveled to water
quality agency meetings with photos of their flooded-out homes, and pointed
to huge old growth redwoods that have lost their footing and come down in
protected parklands downstream from PL's logging operations, threatening the
other principal economic base on California's north coast: tourism.
In addition, major lawsuits are in the courts challenging the tenants of the
Headwaters deal, which netted what PL pres. Manne called "regulatory
certainty", making their logging operations more difficult to challenge.
In a move that stunned the company and garnered widespread community support,
the county's newly elected District Attorney in February filed a $250 million
lawsuit against PL alleging fraud in eleventh hour negotiations of the Headwaters
deal, yeilding PL a higher rate of harvest than would have been the case if
all pertinent data was taken into account.
PL has reacted to D.A. Paul Gallegos' lawsuit by launching a recall campaign
against him, and to the tree-sitters by flooding media with smear ads. The
tv, radio and print ads and the letter can be accessed at http://htiac.tripod.com,
and footage of risky extraction of tree-sitters by PL contract climbers can
be viewed at www.homepage.mac.com/davidhowitt/menu5.html. Click on "Safety
Concerns". |
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