[mobglob-discuss] FW: [G8] Solidarity Village Update

[rick]

.... regarding questions at the meeting last night about the village, here
is the word from village organizers

-----Original Message-----
From: G8-announce at list.nisto.com [mailto:G8-announce at list.nisto.com]On
Behalf Of Solidarity Village
Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2002 2:10 PM
To: G8 Announcements
Subject: [G8] Solidarity Village Update


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At long last: an update from the organizers of "Solidarity Village"
against the G8 (28 May 2002)

Solidarity Village as originally conceived will not happen. We had
hoped to organize a campground in the Kananaskis Valley that would
accommodate the thousands of you coming to resist the G8 and make
this movement stronger in the face of escalating state and corporate
repression.

We, like many people, have faced coordinated efforts by various
levels of the state and by various security forces to undermine our
so-called rights and to frustrate our attempts to organize a
creative and positive response to the drab greed of imperial
arrogance and hypocrisy.

We know that a combination of unspecified factors has made it near
impossible to use any land in or near Kananaskis Park this June. We
have deployed a group affiliated with the Revolutionary Albertan
Researchers Extremely Busy In Real Digging (RAREBIRD) to launch an
investigation of said factors. The results will be released as soon
as they are available.

While maintaining a political commitment to events as they unfold in
Kananaskis, the individuals and organizations on the Solidarity
Village steering committee agreed that our energy and resources
would be better spent working in concert with Calgary organizers and
pre-existing Calgary groups to help coordinate events and mobilize
together for a convergence in Calgary.

We are striving to blend much of the original programming of
Solidarity Village into events and smaller venues in and around the
city of Calgary, and smaller venues are coming out of the woodwork.

We want to apologize for the lack of communication over the last few
months; things have been changing constantly and the final decision
to move our focus to Calgary was only made last week.

We have applied to the City of Calgary for the use of several public
parks in town which could be used as inclusive spaces to hold events
being planned by other groups and to host the speakers, workshops
and performers who we had invited to the original Village. We are
also putting pressure on the City to allow public institutions like
the University to open up sleeping space. We are still waiting for a
decision from the City of Calgary, but both the Mayor and the
administration are dragging their feet and there has been no
commitment.

Our applications were discussed at the May 22nd meeting of the City
G8 Planning Team, attended by the mayor, city councillors, the CEO
of the City and representatives from the Calgary G8 Summit
Management Office. Rather than making a political decision on the
issues, the mayor passed the responsibility back to the
Administration.

The mayor of Calgary has opposed our use of a city park because he
thinks that public spaces are not appropriate venues for "political"
events. Calgary folks may remember that the mayor used a public
space to launch his election campaign with an 800-person barbeque -
clearly, some political events are more equal than others... but
that's not the issue at hand.

The bottom line is that we want to help with the infrastructure and
coordination of all actions in Calgary, sanctioned or not. We have
been working with the Calgary Street medics, the legal collective,
Alberta Indymedia, and the folks who are coordinating the
convergence space to try to integrate into the ongoing Calgary
organizing. We will be in Calgary as part of the week of action, and
the events that we have been planning will take place whether or not
public space is approved.

Please get in touch at solvil at activist.ca if you have questions,
suggestions or ideas or need clarification. Our website will be
fully updated as soon as possible.

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