[IPSM] Edmonton Report Back on Spirit Train Action

[Macdonald Stainsby]

[photo gallery coming soon]

**please forward to anti-Olympic activists and allies**

On September 29, 2008 around 30 protesters greeted the Canadian Pacific 
Railway “Olympic Spirit Train” as it brought its propaganda machine 
through Edmonton. Highlighting that the train and the Olympic Games are 
interlinked with the same corporations carrying out the largest 
industrial project on earth known as the Tar Sands, protesters disrupted 
the “spirit train” celebrations with the spirit of resistance. Under the 
slogan of “No Games, No Tar Sands on Native Land!” demonstrators from 
the the community of Fort Chipewyan in “Alberta” came in solidarity to 
act with Native 2010 Resistance, the Olympics Resistance Network, 
Edmonton Anarchist Black Cross and the Indigenous Environmental Network 
to let the public know what’s wrong with the Olympics and the Tar Sands. 
Their message articulated the vast increases in Indigenous land 
displacement, homelessness and the expansion of environmental 
destruction brought about by the corporate agenda around the 2010 Winter 
Olympics and the Tar Sands-- most notably by CP Railways, Petro-Canada 
and the Royal Bank of Canada.

Protesters distributed flyers, stickers and balloons for children and 
youth with counter-2010 information on both and used their presence and 
their voices to confront the “festivities” and alert the larger Edmonton 
public to the massive destruction being wrought on peoples and the land. 
Chanting slogans aimed at the event, protesters were met by police who 
forced them back with bicycles, only to see the crowd regroup and 
continue to dispel the notion of an “apolitical event”. During the 
disruption in front of the “spirit” train stage, police cordoned off 
protesters using force and moved them back, while also putting their 
hands into the megaphones being used by protesters. The corralling of 
protesters by police was an attempt to hide and quell protest efforts, 
however, the ‘safety zone’ protesters were pushed to actually became an 
area of interest for high school students who showed up in the hundreds 
to listen to what the demonstrators had to say. Some students became 
very interested in learning what the protesters had to say and engaged 
in dialogue on the spot, creating a victory for outreach and education.

During the event, two protesters managed to scale the “Spirit Train” 
itself and hang a giant banner that read “Resist 2010” containing one of 
the symbols of the spirit of resistance-- a thunderbird flying off with 
the five ring symbol of the Games. After affixing the banner to the 
train the two protesters managed to successfully escape on foot, fleeing 
the train and eluding police capture. Police climbed aboard the train 
and removed the banner.

The event marked another victory against the propaganda machine of the 
2010 Games and the Tar Sands Gigaproject. Protesters urge continued 
solidarity with the resistance in Vancouver as the train moves through 
to Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Thunder Bay, Sudbury, Mississauga, Smith's Falls 
and finally Montréal. The largest spectacle in the world of the 2010 
Games and the largest industrial project in history of the tar sands 
continue to displace Indigenous populations, lead to the vast expansion 
of homelessness and environmental destruction and we will continue to 
see more and more resistance to their attempts to escalate corporate 
domination, environmental destruction and massive human rights abuses.

Edmonton organizers strongly encourage people in the cities yet to be 
visited by the Spirit Train to continue to escalate the campaign to 
disrupt the propaganda machine and expose the Olympics and the Tar Sands 
projects as great threats to human and ecological survival with creative 
and disruptive forms of resistance.

No Games, No Tar Sands on Native Land! Homes not Games! Protect the 
Earth from corporate destruction!

For more information, please check:
http://no2010.com/
http://oilsandstruth.org/
http://www.ienearth.org/cits.html

contact:
macdonald at oilsandstruth.org (Edmonton)
edmontonabc at riseup.net (Edmonton)
ienoil at igc.org (Ottawa)
Olympics Resistance Network <olympicresistance at riseup.net> (Vancouver)