The Arctic Sunrise in Prince William Sound.
"The decision to remove these verdicts from the province of the
jury is one that this court does not take lightly," said Miller,
who presided over the jury trial.
If ever there was a trumped-up charge, this was it. The case
stemmed from a voyage the Arctic Sunrise made into Alaskan waters
in 2004 to protest irresponsible forestry practices.
The Arctic Sunrise had, and still has, all of the international
environmental standards certificates required.
Stichting Marine Services (SMS) - the operator of the Arctic
Sunrise - made a clerical error in not getting state confirmation
of an oil spill contingency plan. A representative of SMS admitted
the error, corrected it, and made it clear SMS were ready to accept
the consequences. However, apparently because the ship's operator
didn't provide a juicy political target, the responsible party was
never prosecuted in favour of a target the state prosecutor liked
better: Greenpeace USA.
The fact that three defendants who didn't own or operate the
Arctic Sunrise were forced to stand trial demonstrated just how
politically motivated the charges and the case were. Greenpeace
USA was working to save the Tongass forest against powerful
political and commercial interests. And for that, the authorities
wanted Greenpeace to bear the full brunt of the law. Any law. Even
if the State had to stretch to make it stick.
The decision was the equivalent of fining someone US$ 200,000
for forgetting to have their driver's license in their pocket, when
the person they charged wasn't even driving or in fact required to
have a driver's license. Authorities who didn't want their poor
environmental record exposed became hell-bent on punishing us for
highlighting environmental destruction.
It's become a chillingly familiar pattern. Last year, US
Attorney General Ashcroft
took Greenpeace to court under a century-old law governing "sailor
mongering" (prostitution) in an unprecedented legal harassment
of a public-interest organisation for the peaceful actions of its
supporters. In that case, we were exposing a shipment of Brazilian
mahogany into Miami which was illegal under US law. The destroyers
of the Amazon went free, while the Bush Administration put
Greenpeace on trial.
And in the news currently are revelations that the FBI has
been using anti-terrorism funds and powers to spy on critics of the
Bush Administration like Greenpeace, the American Civil
Liberties Union, and a raft of other public-interest groups.
Reacting to the Alaskan judge's decision to throw out the
charges against Greenpeace, assistant attorney general James
Fayette told the Anchorage Daily News: "I've been a prosecutor in
Anchorage for 12 years and I've never seen this. ... I've never
heard of it happening."
It's called justice, Mr. Fayette.