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Animal activists hold secret training camp

Animal rights activists participate in a self-defence workshop on Sunday as part of a weekend of skills development at an animal sanctuary in East Peckham, Kent. PHOTO: EPA

The small group of middle-aged women waiting patiently outside Tonbridge train station in rural south-east England looked unlikely extremists. As a white minibus pulled up and the group, exchanging jolly remarks about the weather, climbed on board, few of the early morning shoppers gave them a second glance.

But these women are all frontline activists in the animal rights battle, where Dutch anarchists who boast about breaking into police stations and stealing official records work alongside elderly English women who "only care about the animals" and run weekly stalls taking "little interest in politics."

This weekend, more than 300 leading anti-vivisection campaigners from Europe and the US gathered in Kent for what was dubbed an "activists' training camp."

The three-day event at a private animal sanctuary 16km from Tonbridge, which offered workshops on strategy and tactics, "hunt sabbing," self-defense and personal security, was shrouded in secrecy. Activists were instructed to call a mobile phone number advertised on the Internet when they arrived at the train station and wait for further instructions.

"I've come along to find out how to make bombs, or at least how to kick a copper properly, I always end up hurting my foot!"

Anonymous middle-aged activist

Personal mobile phones had to be left at the entrance to the site and campaigners were warned to be on the look out for undercover police and journalists -- who were banned from the site apart from a two-hour press briefing on Sunday morning. The warnings were clearly justified: a Guardian reporter attended the event by posing as an activist to find out exactly what strategy and tactics were being discussed in the closed sessions.

"OK, who's the infiltrator?" asked the driver as the minibus pulled away.

"It's not me," joked one of the women. "I've come along to find out how to make bombs, or at least how to kick a copper properly, I always end up hurting my foot!"

Security and secrecy were recurrent themes over the weekend. In the main tent a lecturer on personal security warned his audience that the police were probably bugging their homes and advised anyone wanting to discuss "private plans" to do so away from the conference site.

"I've seen people off in little groups whispering -- it's obvious what is being discussed ... it's just not secure," he said.

The audience listened attentively as he told them to avoid meeting in pubs, which could be bugged, and advised them to burn rather than shred their mail.

For all the organizers' reassurances that the training camp was solely about legal protest, the more extreme elements of the movement were also there -- and clearly had the support of many of the activists.

A member of the militant Animal Liberation Front, dressed in shorts and T-shirt, drew the largest round of applause when he said: "What we need is more people who are prepared to put on balaclavas and go out in the middle of the night and take real action because this is what has raised our profile, that is why we are getting the media attention.

"There are 20 or so people who carry the direct action movement in this country and most of them are here now. But the police know who we are and watch us -- this isn't a problem, I've been to prison, I've still got the bottle but it limits what I can get away with. But there are people here who I don't know and who I'm sure the police don't know who could do what they want -- get away with murder."

Activists were told the decision to target individual companies involved -- however tangentially -- in vivisection was paying off.

"In the 1980s we turned up for a demonstration outside one company one week then another the next, never putting them under sustained pressure. Now, with organizations like SHAC and SPEAK, we are unrelenting in our pursuit of one organization and we are winning," one speaker said.

Other campaigners questioned the direct action tactics of "home visits" -- where employees of companies are targeted outside work, often having their cars attacked or properties damaged.

"But that is what works," another replied. "I have organized about 20 demonstrations without any interest from the press whatsoever. As soon as we had our first direct action, the phone never stopped ring with the media asking for interviews. I don't make the rules but that is how it works."

Greg Avery, the founder of SHAC (Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty), told the gathering the movement was more successful now than at any stage in its history.

He said once the battle against individual companies had been won the movement needed to move into a revolutionary new phase and take on whole sectors of the "vivisection industry."

But among the rank and file, there were differences of opinion on how the battle should be fought. At the sanctuary, anarchists from Germany and the Netherlands, who dressed in black and wore T-shirts emblazoned with slogans like "Fuck Authority" and "Global Resistance and Revolution," mixed with neatly turned-out women from middle England.

"In the end it is all about the animals, not about us, we mean nothing," said an English woman who ran a stall every weekend in her local high street handing out leaflets.

But one thing that united all activists was the shared conviction that their cause is a righteous one. Speakers repeatedly likened the movement to the anti-apartheid campaign and the fight against the slave trade, with the media blamed for presenting the activists as extremists.

"Look back at the newspapers when those movements were at their peak and there will be the same terms bandied around as there are about us now," one said.
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