[Bloquez l'empire!] Photo-report and audio: Protesters disrupt speech by "Canada's Donald Rumsfeld" (MONTREAL)

Wed Apr 4 03:39:12 PDT 2007

-- Protesters disrupt speech by "Canada's Donald Rumsfeld"

--> A PHOTO-REPORT from today's protest and action is linked at:
http://gallery.cmaq.net/oconnorprotest

--> The text of the FLYER passed out at today's protest is included below,
and linked at:
http://blocktheempire.blogspot.com/2007/04/flyer-text-gordon-oconnor-is-canadas.html

--> An AUDIO report from today's demonstration for CKUT radio is linked at:
http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=22551

--> The following is a sample of the CORPORATE MEDIA coverage of O'Connor's
talk:
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=346c83c9-818f-4a77-a21d-536189b3ca5d&k=0

MONTREAL, Tuesday, April 3, 2007 -- Anti-war protesters disrupted the
beginning of Canadian Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor's speech earlier this
afternoon in Montreal.

Three women had managed to get inside the Grand Salon of the Queen Elizabeth
Hotel, where O'Connor was beginning to address an audience of businessmen,
senior military officers, politicians and the media. They unveiled a banner
reading "Canada out of Afghanistan" and began to heckle O'Connor, as the
audience who paid $90/plate hissed the protesters.

Plainclothes and uniformed officers intervened, pushing and carrying the
protesters onto the street. O'Connor described the women as "ankle-biters".

Before O'Connor's speech another group of protesters unfurled a banner just
outside the speech venue. The banner read in French: "Protéger leur avenir,
sortir de l'Afghanistan," (in English: "Protect their future, get out of
Afghanistan"). The official title of O'Connor's talk was: "Rebâtir
l'Afghanistan et protéger notre avenir" ("Rebuilding Afghanistan and
securing our future").

The four protesters were also pushed and forced out of the hotel by police.
Meanwhile, another group attempted to lock the doors to the venue. Earlier,
four Raging Grannies had entered the Hotel and sang anti-war songs outside
the scheduled talk before leaving.

There were no arrests.

To deal with potential disruptions, at least three mini-buses of riot police
were present near the hotel, in addition to the uniformed and plainclothes
police throughout the hotel, as well as the Bonaventure metro station.

Outside, under 100 protesters gathered for a picket called by Block the
Empire-Montreal and the Echec à la guerre Coalition, to denounce Canada's
role in Afghanistan.

[Meanwhile, just a day before the demonstration, Conservative politicans
Maxime Bernier (Minister of Industry) and Michel Fortier (Minister of Public
Works), along with military industry executives, held a press conference in
Montreal to announce a $900 milllion corporate welfare plan to invest in
Canada's aerospance, defence, security and space industries.]

The text of the flyer that was passed out at the demonstration is included
below.

INFO:
http://blockthempire.blogspot.com
514-848-7583
bloquezlempiremontreal at resist.ca
-----

[flyer text ...]

War Criminal & Profiteer --
Gordon O'Connor is Canada's Donald Rumsfeld

WHY WE'RE PROTESTING ... AND DISRUPTING!

Conservative Minister of National Defence, Gordon O'Connor, is speaking
today (April 3, 2007) at the posh Queen Elizabeth Hotel, sponsored by
Montreal's Council on Foreign Relations (CORIM).

O'Connor is in Montreal as part of an ongoing Conservative public relations
campaign to sell the Afghan mission to the Canadian public. O'Connor himself
used to work for multi-national public relations firm Hill & Knowlton, the
same firm that fabricated atrocities in the lead-up to the attack on Iraq in
1990.

O'Connor recently described Canada's presence in Afghanistan as
"retribution" for the death of Canadians at the World Trade Center on 9-11.
He misled the public about the treatment of Afghan prisoners who face
torture and death. He is a former General who prior to joining cabinet in
2006 spent eight years as a paid lobbyist for the military industry.

Canadian troops are in Afghanistan to allow more American troops to be in
Iraq. Gordon O'Connor, along with Stephen Harper, Stockwell Day, Peter
Mackay, Michael Fortier and others in the Conservative cabinet, are the main
Canadian apologists for George Bush's "War on Terror". They hide their true
agenda behind the language of "development" and "democracy" (and
strategically exploit compliant government-funded "NGOs").

A Minister of Defence who justifies Canada's role in Afghanistan in the
language of revenge, who is in the pay of military contractors, and who
speaks to an audience of war-profiteering businessmen and politicians at a
pretentious hotel, deserves to be actively protested and disrupted.

WHO IS SPONSORING TODAY'S SPEECH?

The main sponsors of today's $90/plate lunch are several companies that
profit from war; they include the following Quebec-based companies (all
citations are from their public documents and websites):

-- SNC-Lavalin (455 René-Lévesque Blvd. West), who until 2006 sold bullets
to the American military for use in Iraq, and who maintain many military
contracts thru various subsidiaries. For example, SNC-Lavalin PAE Inc.
"provides a range of logistics support services to the Canadian military on
deployed international operations," including in Afghanistan.

-- Bombardier (800 René-Lévesque Blvd. West), whose military division helps
to train NATO pilots, the same pilots who go on to bomb in Afghanistan and
elsewhere.

-- CAE (8585 Côte de Liesse), a company that "develops, designs and
manufactures aviation training systems for civil and military applications."
Military contracts account for 50% of CAE's business, again, to help pilots
and soldiers to kill

-- Oerlikon (Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Québec), who openly brag that 50% of
their business is for the Canadian Department of Defence. In their words:
"we are one of the largest providers of land defence systems and battle
management systems to the federal government. Our business also comprises
sales to international defence customers and commercial sales in the
homeland security sector."

Other chief sponsors today include L-3 Communications, who are the sixth
largest defense company in the United States, as well as Quebec-based
companies such as CMC Electronics (active in military aviation), Consoltex
and Logistik Unicorp.

The link between O'Connor -- a former military industry lobbyist and PR hack
-- and the military-industrial complex, couldn't be clearer and more direct.
Today's luncheon is a celebration of war-profiteers, hiding behind the
camouflage of "development" and "security" (as well as various police and
hotel security). We are here to protest the war-profiteering companies just
as much as Minister O'Connor. In collaboration, the Canadian government and
Quebecois capitalists are profiting from the so-called "War on Terror".

THE "LOGIC" OF MAJOR-GENERAL ANDREW LESLIE

Major-General Andrew Leslie is Canada's military commander in Afghanistan.
Commenting in the summer of 2005 on Canada's increasing military presence in
Afghanistan, General Leslie publicly stated: "Afghanistan is a 20-year
venture. There are things worth fighting for. There are things worth dying
for. There are things worth killing for."

In the same speech, he stated: "Every time you kill an angry young man
overseas, you're creating 15 more who will come after you."

Let's break down the general's logic:
1.      Canadian troops will be in Afghanistan for 20 years
2.      Canadian troops will be killing people.
3.      Every time Canadian troops kill people more people will want to kill
Canadians.

If you add Defence Minister (and former Brigadier-General) Gordon O'Connor's
call for "retribution," Canada's role in Afghanistan sounds like a plan for
disaster, mainly for the people of Afghanistan. No wonder that
"reconstruction" and "development" are being used as cover for Canada's
"killing"; and no wonder Canada's military is being used as cover for
American-led imperialism in the Middle East.

BLOCK THE EMPIRE MONTREAL: A direct-action collective opposed to war and
militarization, and their roots and manifestations: colonialism, imperialism
and capitalism.

INFO:
bloquezlempiremontreal at resist.ca
http://blocktheempire.blogspot.com