TAR HEEL — Fewer people came than a year ago, but the same message sent to Smithfield Foods was loud and clear.
Rise Up – Shut It Down, based out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and led by Jackie Affsa, organized the protest against the pork giant. The group protests on Feb. 1 each year. The event lasted about four hours and did not include any arrests.
Protestors against the slaughter of animals came from throughout the country, roughly 70 in all — down from about 200 a year ago. The Tar Heel plant operated by Smithfield Foods, which is headquartered in Smithfield, Virginia, and a subsidiary of the Hong Kong-based WH Group, is the world’s largest slaughtering facility.
Liz Garrett came from Connecticut to participate. She had been here previously for a 24-hour vigil.
“I was here for the vigil and to bear witness to all the pigs that were coming by in trucks that were coming to be slaughtered,” she said. “That was a really powerful experience. It was very emotional. I had never seen anything like that before, being from the northeast.”
Garrett said she has been a vegan for 11 years.
“I have been doing a lot of animal rights activism and even more since I have been down here,” she said. “I felt I needed to come back and bear witness to the pigs again. And to stand up to what is happening here.”
She said that she felt that Smithfield didn’t care about the community, the animals or their employees.
“I just wanted to be here to stand up against that,” she said.
Plans were in place for a protest during the day Friday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., with a 12-hour vigil to follow from 9 p.m. to Saturday at 9 a.m. The daytime protest ended shortly after 3, and the vigil was cancelled when organizers were told hogs would not be brought to the plant over the weekend.
Smithfield employs about 4,400 workers at the facility on N.C. 87 and is among Bladen County’s largest employers. Smithfield’s subsidiary, Murphy-Brown, is the named defendant in more than two dozen hog nuisance lawsuits, four of which have reached verdicts in federal court. A fifth got underway Thursday.
Smithfield’s corporate office declined to comment.
“I had been vegan for over two years but I had never thought that activism was for me,” said Adolpho Lazo, who came from Miami. “I thought being vegan was enough. Then I met a couple of the activists and organizers in Miami. They inspired me to be an activist and come out and speak up for the animals, the voiceless.”
He brought his dog along with him to the protest, saying Logan goes everywhere he goes.
“I have a bond with my dog and it’s the same bond that you could create with a pig or a chicken,” he said. “They all have a soul to me. When I look at my dog, I look at his eyes. He has a personality. He’s a person himself. I don’t view him as an animal or companion.”
Larry Guyton, chief deputy of the Bladen County Sheriff’s Office, said several agencies were in place to ensure the safety of the public and the protesters throughout the day.
“We have communicated with many surrounding agencies and we are expecting a peaceful demonstration,” he said. “We want to keep the demonstrators safe, the plant personnel safe, our officers safe, and all the public.”
Guyton has been present as some of the previous protests, and new guidelines had been put in place by the county commissioners to help keep people out of the medians and away from the driveways.
“We had been planning this thing for two or three weeks,” said Sheriff Jim McVicker. “We have been on contact with Ms. Jackie Affsa, who is the coordinator and everything I have asked her to do, she has done.”
McVicker said Smithfield spent money doing things for safety reasons related to the protest.
Larry Trepel has been to four or five protests.
“What’s happening here deserves to be uncovered and judged for the horror that it is,” he said, comparing the deaths of the pigs to that of a concentration camp, saying that it was “exploitative of the workers.”
“There were more people that honked and waved and supported what we were doing, than the other side,” he said. “It shows that they don’t like what this places does to their community.”
McVicker noted the cooperation protestors showed toward law enforcement.
“And there are one or two down there that shout some things at our people, but we expect that,” he added.
The Sheriff’s Office was assisted by the State Highway Patrol, the N.C. Department of Corrections, Elizabethtown Police Department, and the sheriff’s offices of Robeson, Columbus and Brunswick counties. A magistrate was available but no arrests were made, compared to the dozen last year when the same group came.
Tar Heel Volunteer Fire Department hosted the law enforcement teams.
Affsa said she felt the demonstration went really well, that the goal of being peaceful was met and that they may come back again next year.
“Holding the signs and chanting is a great way to get a message across,” she said.
Trucks were able to move freely in and out with the new safety measures in place.
Rise Up – Shut It Down, a group led by Jackie Affsa of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, came to protest at Smithfield Foods in Tar Heel on Friday.
Protesters initially started on both sides of the entrance but later moved to the north side.
Adolpho Lazo and his dog Logan came from Miami to show their support.
Protesters held up a variety of signs, including ones with images of animals.