WISE-USE WISEGUYS

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1999:

“Powerful crime syndicates
including the Cali Cartel, the Sicilian
Mafia, and the Tijuana Cartel, have
bought up most of the tuna fleets and
canneries in Latin America in order to
smuggle cocaine and heroin by sea and
to launder billions in narco profits,”
Craig Van Note of TRAFFIC charged
in a recent address to the T u f t s
University Symposium on Global
Crime, Corruption, and Accountability.
“Tuna was an ideal product to
use as a cover for narcotics: the prime
markets for the high-priced fish are the
U.S., the European Union, and Japan,
also the wealthiest consumers of drugs.”

The traffic was hindered from 1990
until April 1999, however, by the U.S.
embargo on imports of tuna netted “on
dolphin,” which was dismantled, Van
Note explained, “after Vice President
Albert Gore helped sell out the dolphins
by personally lobbying dozens of
Senators and Representatives over a
period of more than two years. Why,”
Van Note asked, “is the Clinton/Gore
administration so actively aiding the
tuna industries of Mexico, Colombia,
Panama, and Venezuela–– and by
extension the drug gangs––to the detriment
of the dolphins, who are still
drowning by the thousands in tuna
nets,” even as Mexico, the largest
exporter of tuna to the U.S., continues
to bar international observers from
Mexican tuna fishing vessels and canneries.
Van Note’s address was published
in the spring 1999 edition of the
Animal Welfare Institute Quarterly.
The wise-use group People
For The USA has reportedly formed
four new Utah chapters and expects to
have nine chapters in Utah “soon,”
mostly near the Grand Staircase
Escalante National Monument, a 1.7-
million-acre preserve designated in
1996. Begun in Oregon in 1988 as the
Western States Public Lands
C o a l i t i o n, the group initially lobbied
against protecting spotted owl habitat
A 1991 internal split produced the
Oregon Lands Coalition, which tool
logging industry support with it.
Having already moved first to Denver
and then to Pueblo, Colorado, the core
group became the National Coalition
for Public Lands and Natural
R e s o u r c e s. That became People For
The West, and then, seeking a broader
base, People For The USA.
“They did not prosecute
Kip Kinkel out in Oregon after he was
blowing up cats, threatening people,”
National Rifle Association e x e c u t i v e
director Wayne LaPierre c o m p l a i n e d
in the May 17 edition of N e w s w e e k,
arguing that lax law enforcement rather
than easy access to guns is responsible
for school shootings. The NRA continues
to push gun-related school activities,
claiming triumph when the New
York legislature in June passed a bill to
expand school-based hunter education.
But in Alabama, an NRA stronghold,
representatives Andrew Hayden ( D –
Uniontown) and Laura Hall ( D –
Huntville) blocked a bill to allow hunter
education in public schools.