The RCMP has started making surprise phone calls and visits to activists preparing for the Summit of the Americas.

Three weeks ago, Amanda Sheedy of Q-PIRG McGill received a phone call from a RCMP officer. He requested a meeting to find out what activities Q-PIRG was planning for the Summit.

"They wanted to tell us where we're allowed to demonstrate. Cops try to become friends with you and take you under their wing before demos. But they're really interested in repressing us," said Q-PIRG McGill's research internship coordinator.

She took the message, but the organization decided not to return the call.

Julie Brongel, the RCMP spokesperson for the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City, said that contacting groups that participate in a demonstration is a routine operation. Neither was she particularly disturbed by Sheedy's comments. "We offer to speak to [groups] on a voluntary basis. We're there to help. If they want to put this in a negative light, they're entitled to do so, but it's not going to change our methods," Brongel said.

Officers from the RCMP and other police forces are currently identifying groups who have publicly stated they would be active during the Summit of the Americas. The Summit is to be held April 20-22 in Quebec City, where the heads of 34 American states will be discussing the creation of an expanded free trade zone. Many citizens' groups and activist organizations have voiced concerns over the negotiation process' lack of accountability as well as the absence of environmental and social concerns. Thousands of protesters are expected this spring in Quebec. Most groups targeted by the RCMP were identified through the internet or newspapers.

Brongel said the police's goals is to explain municipal, provincial and federal laws that might be transgressed during demonstrations.

The RCMP wants to know how many people from each group are going to Quebec City, as well as who's in charge of security for activist groups. "We offer groups the possibility to inform us if they witness people infiltrating their group who then start breaking things. If an intervention is necessary, then the responsibility can be one only one person and not on the whole group."

As for Véronica Rioux, of Alternatives and the Centre for Media Alternatives of Quebec, she jumped on the opportunity to speak to an RCMP officer "as a fellow human being" who visited her at her Quebec City office a few weeks ago.

"For a good half hour, I tried make him conscious of the police's role in demonstrations. They defend an unjust system where many people [world-wide] die of hunger or don't have a shelter. The only way to express our discontent to global problems is to protest," Rioux said. "He actually seemed responsive," she added.

-30-

the Link, Concordia University's Independent newspaper