POLITICS-UNITED STATES: Abortion Bomber Linked to Olympics Blast

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

NEW YORK, Oct 14 1998 (IPS) - U.S. authorities Wednesday stepped up their manhunt for a suspected abortion-clinic bomber whom they now say was responsible for a bomb blast at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.

The suspect, Eric Rudolph, was already on the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) list of 10 most wanted fugitives for his alleged involvement in the bombing of a Birmingham, Alabama, abortion clinic on Jan. 29 of this year.

Now, according to a federal criminal complaint filed Wednesday, Rudolph is also being blamed for the 1997 bombings of an Atlanta abortion clinic and a lesbian bar, and for the Olympics blast, in which one person was killed and more than 100 injured.

“Eric Rudolph is on the run,” U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno said Wednesday in Washington. “We are going to keep searching until we find him, and we’re not going to rest until we bring him to justice.”

Several similarities between the four bombing incidents have been reported in recent months. FBI officials have pointed to links between nails that were embedded in the Olympics bomb and other nails found in Rudolph’s home.

Reno appealed for public help in finding Rudolph, for whose capture the FBI is offering one million dollars. Rudolph was last seen near his North Carolina home earlier in January, and is believed to be hiding in North Carolina even now.

Militia-watchers hailed the government’s decision to step up the effort to find Rudolph, whom many watchdog groups believe has become a symbol of the various anti-abortion, anti-homosexual, anti-government and racist concerns of the U.S. extremist right.

“I think it’s been a long time coming,” Chris Freeman, a researcher at the Atlanta-based Centre for Democratic Renewal, which tracks militia activity, said of the decision to name Rudolph in the Olympics bombing. Rudolph, he argued, has for many months been regarded by militia-watchers as one of the most radical exponents of the militia movement’s radical agenda.

“He takes the same stance as a lot of people in the militia movement in terms of the New World Order, anti-homosexual and anti- abortion themes,” Freeman contended. Rudolph’s alleged links to the bombings of abortion clinics and a lesbian bar, he added, “really shows that there’s been a definite linkage between militia groups and anti-choice activists.”

The choice of targets, Freeman added, is also connected in that they all represent sites that have been demonised by far- right Christian and ‘patriot’ groups in recent years.

The Olympics, he noted, are regarded by many in the militia movement as “a symbol of the New World Order”, the fear of encroaching world government and foreign domination of the United States, which plays a key part in militia propaganda.

In recent years, more mainstream right-wing groups, notably ‘Operation Rescue’, have also targeted abortion clinics, accusing doctors and federal officials who provide abortions of murder – a tactic Washington has countered by boosting federal protection for the clinics. The Birmingham blast stepped up the stakes, killing one clinic guard and wounding a nurse.

Authorities have also detected a pattern similar to the militias’ central concerns in the bombings. After both the Birmingham incident and the February 1997 bombing of the Atlanta bar, for example, authorities received letters signed by ‘the Army of God’ strongly criticising homosexuality and abortion.

Similar political views about the ‘New World Order’ and abortion were expressed by Timothy McVeigh, who last year was convicted of the 1995 bombing of the Alfred Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, in which 167 people were killed.

Although analysts believe that both the Oklahoma attacks and Rudolph’s alleged bombings may discourage the growth of the militia movement, some militia researchers have seen a rise in the groups’ membership since those acts seized national attention.

“We’re seeing the formation of new militias at the county level” even after McVeigh’s conviction and sentencing to death, said Randy Crawford of the Seattle-based Coalition for Human Dignity. “A number of the ideas voiced by the militias have gotten broad play.”

Although some people may be revolted by the violence of the abortion-clinic bombings and other actions, Freeman added, “there hasn’t really been a drop-off in support for the militias … In North Carolina, (Rudolph’s reported views) have a lot of support.”

Estimates of overall militia membership vary, but Crawford has placed the number of white separatists and far-right Christian ‘patriots’ at more than 30,000 nationwide. There are an estimated 500 militia organisations sharing a broadly anti-government agenda – although not necessarily the racism or homophobia of the most extremist groups – in operation in the United States, Freeman said.

Federal authorities, meanwhile, are concentrating on Rudolph rather than on any possible wider involvement in the four bombings being investigated. According to FBI Director Louis Freeh, the agency has no evidence that any group or individual has helped Rudolph over the past nine months.

“The investigation has been one of the largest conducted by the federal government,” Freeh said on Wednesday.