[Indigsol] [Fwd: Olympic security boss puts protesters on notice]

[mattm-b at resist.ca]

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: [TIDE] Fw: Olympic security boss puts protesters on notice
From:    "Russell Diabo" <rdiabo at rogers.com>
Date:    Fri, January 23, 2009 6:34 am
To:      "TIDE" <tide at lists.riseup.net>
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FYI


From: Don
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 9:19 AM
To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;
Subject: Olympic security boss puts protesters on notice


Olympic security boss puts protesters on notice
'Unlawful' actions will be met with swift response, RCMP assistant
commissioner warns, as activists vow to take on 'two-week circus'
ROD MICKLEBURGH

>From Friday's Globe and Mail

January 23, 2009 at 5:12 AM EST

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090123.wbcolympicsecurity23/BNStory/National/home

VANCOUVER - The head of security for the 2010 Winter Olympics is warning
protesters to think twice about plans to disrupt activities at the Games.

"We have an obligation and a responsibility to support and facilitate
lawful protests, and we will do everything we can to do that," said RCMP
Assistant Commissioner Bud Mercer, who commands the Games' Integrated
Security Unit.

"But when protests become unlawful, those incidents will be dealt with
quickly," Assistant Commissioner Mercer affirmed in an interview
yesterday.

Recent public events connected with the Games have been marred by small
but raucous protests that have included shouting, swearing, throwing paint
bombs, drowning out an elementary school choir and grabbing an on-stage
microphone to issue a profanity-laced denunciation of the Olympics.

Spearheading the protests is an organization called the Olympic Resistance
Network, which has invited activists from around the world to converge on
Vancouver during the Olympics "to confront this two-week circus and the
oppression it represents."

Assistant Commissioner Mercer said the ISU's Community Relations Group has
been meeting with local activist organizations in an attempt to facilitate
"free and democratic protests," including discussion of possible protest
zones sanctioned by police.

"We're looking for an understanding of where they'd like to stand, where
they'd like to sit, and how we can help facilitate that," he said. "We're
looking for any opportunity at all to be engaged to help them."

But he acknowledged that not all of these efforts to date have been
positive. "Some groups have agreed to co-operate ... but we've been less
successful with others."

Anna Hunter of the strident Anti-Poverty Committee, a regular participant
in anti-Olympic protests, said the RCMP has not approached her group. "The
only contact we've experienced is home visits by the RCMP to some of our
members in the last three months to try and gather information."

Ms. Hunter said she has no interest in co-operating with the ISU over
demonstrations at the Olympics. "We don't want them to define what's legal
and illegal. Other world events have shown what that means, when there are
protest zones," she said. "They simply say anything outside those zones is
illegal, and that's a violation of our rights."

She defended the tactic of disrupting Olympic events, rather than
protesting peacefully. "Disruption has been our greatest form of protest.
It's been highly successful in halting Olympic operations."

The APC activist noted that Olympic organizers have not held a single
public event since demonstrators interfered with ceremonies last fall to
launch a cross-Canada Spirit Train extolling the coming Winter Games.
"We're saying we don't want the Olympics, so your tactics follow that
line," she said.

On other matters, the ISU security chief said he was disappointed the
unit's contract to accommodate 5,000 officers on cruise ships had
floundered, leaving the RCMP facing a multimillion-dollar civil suit. But
new ship proposals are being reviewed, "and we are confident our
accommodation needs will be met."

And he said he hoped "from the bottom of my heart" that the huge security
budget, still to be announced but expected to be well over half a billion
dollars, will not lead to a huge, distracting public outcry. "There's not
a family in the world that sends its children to the Olympics that doesn't
expect them to come home safely."

Meanwhile, Assistant Commissioner Mercer threw cold water on a Vernon RCMP
officer's comments that criminals and the homeless will be forced out of
Vancouver to outlying communities to keep the streets "clean" during the
Olympics.

"I don't agree with those comments, and I would actually suggest that they
are wrong," he said. "I know of no plan for the aggressive removal of
homeless people from Vancouver, and I wouldn't be part of any such plan.

"This is a free and democratic society ... and such a tactic would not be
morally and ethically right," he declared.

In Vernon, RCMP Inspector Steve McVarnock had said police there want to
hire four more officers to create a special unit to deal with "criminally
transient" people who resort to petty crime and street disturbances in the
city.

"There is a high probability of some displacement as a result of the
Olympics. And if that happens, I want to make sure we are prepared to deal
with it," Insp. McVarnock said.

"If Vancouver is going to be very aggressive in trying to clean up their
backyard for the international stage of the Olympics, it stands to reason
we may see a spike in population coming to the Okanagan."

With a report from Wendy Stueck


Enlarge Image
RCMP Assistant Commissioner Bud Mercer commands the Games' Integrated
Security Unit. (John Lehmann/The Globe and Mail)



-- 
"All oppression is relative.
All oppression is specific."

- Albert Memmi
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