Skip to main contentCraig Rosebraugh has an incendiary message for fellow activists: Violence may be necessary to achieve political change in America.
"We must use a range of tactics, legal and illegal, violent and nonviolent," the former spokesman for the Earth Liberation Front told WW.
Rosebraugh is scheduled to speak on "The Legitimacy of Political Violence: Lessons in Reform and Revolution" at Laughing Horse Books at 7 pm Friday, Jan. 10. The lecture will draw on his master's thesis on the history of political violence in America. He received his degree in December from Vermont's Goddard College.
Bombing and assassination, Rosebraugh says, can in some circumstances be legitimate forms of self-defense against political oppression: "Terrorism can be OK, can be justified. We use terrorism in the U.S. every day. Our government does it every day. It can be effective. But I do believe you have to have letter writing. You can't draw a line between nonviolence and political violence."
Rosebraugh, 30, is one of Portland's most prominent political activists. He spent four years as the spokesman for ELF, a band of anonymous environmental activists who last week claimed responsibility for torching four SUVs at a Pennsylvania dealership on New Year's Day. Since 1997, ELF has claimed responsibility for more than $45 million worth of property destruction; a dozen such attacks took place in Oregon.
The FBI has raided Rosebraugh's home and the vegan baking company he used to run. He has also been called to testify before several federal grand juries. In 2000, he told jurors that he couldn't remember anything pertaining to a 1999 Christmas Day fire at Boise Cascade that caused $1 million worth of damage. Last year, he pleaded the Fifth Amendment over and over again while testifying before Congress on ecoterrorism.
Rosebraugh, who resigned his position as spokesman for ELF six days before Sept. 11, 2001, says he struggled to present a nonviolent message on behalf of the group while privately questioning the stance.
"An internal dilemma," he says with a self-deprecating laugh. "I began to wonder if there is credibility involved in nonviolence at all."
Thomas H. Nelson, a Portland lawyer active in the Palestinian human-rights movement, was surprised by Rosebraugh's attitude. To him, nonviolence isn't just one tactic; it's the only tactic.
"The idea of nonviolence is to appeal not to the powers or muscles but to the sense of conscience," Nelson says. Still, he thinks a discussion of the origins of nonviolence is useful. "I'm glad somebody's asking that question."
Just as his study and the events of Sept. 11 have further radicalized Rosebraugh, the ELF appears to also have become more strident.
In September 2002, the ELF released a communiqué warning that the group "will no longer hesitate to pick up the gun to implement justice." But Rosebraugh suggests the statement may have been the work of a single "cell" within ELF and does not necessarily represent the group's "entire policy."
Nonetheless, Rosebraugh endorses the work of the ELF, including the actions of fugitive Tre Arrow, who is wanted on charges of arson and the firebombing of trucks from Ross Island Sand and Gravel, both of which occurred in 2001.
"I support his decision to not come forward," Rosebraugh says. "Anybody in their right mind, facing those charges, especially post-2001, anybody facing those kind of charges is screwed, whether they are guilty or not."
Rosebraugh has fought the law--and won. After a Portland Police officer broke his arm during a skirmish at a 1999 protest, he won a $47,500 settlement from the city.
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