MONTREAL —Beware, state violence may be repressing you! Or at least intimidating you from attending the Summit of the Americas, a coalition of activist groups says.
The Groupes Opposés à la Mondialisation des Marchés, Opération Québec Printemps 2001 and Forum Populaire de l'Outaouais are trying to shift the debate away from whether or not protesters will be violent or not in Quebec City.
In a press conference held at UQAM last Wednesday, they maintained the real question is how governments and police forces are using advance repression and scare tactics against the building opposition to the Free Trade Area of the Americas. The FTAA will be on the agenda of the Summit of the Americas, held in Quebec City April 20-22.

MONTREAL —Beware, state violence may be repressing you! Or at least intimidating you from attending the Summit of the Americas, a coalition of activist groups says.
The Groupe Opposé à la Mondialisation des Marchés, Opération Québec Printemps 2001 and Forum Populaire de l'Outaouais are trying to shift the debate away from whether or not protesters will be violent or not in Quebec City.
In a press conference held at UQAM last Wednesday, they maintained the real question is how governments and police forces are using advance repression and scare tactics against the building opposition to the Free Trade Area of the Americas. The FTAA will be on the agenda of the Summit of the Americas, held in Quebec City April 20-22.

Rubber bullets!

According to the Radio Canada website, the RCMP candidly announced that they posses rubber bullets to quell violent protests at the FTAA. This, affirmed the three groups, is a new strategic element of state-planned political repression.
Josée Larouche of GOMM believes that the state needs this heavy artillery to succeed in signing the accord, which only helps further the undemocratic nature of the accord. No mandate to sign the accord was ever given by a majority of people, she added.
Ironically, during the 1993 federal elections, one of the major issues was free trade. Part of the Liberal party's platform opposed signing the North American Free Trade Agreement. However, less than a year later newly-elected PM Jean Chrétien signed on to NAFTA.
According to Pascal Durand, of the GOMM, the government doesn't listen and it becomes harder to express oneself. Therefore people must voice their opinions in the streets in the form of protests. The state uses various elements of intimidation [such as a security perimeter, the emptying of prisons] that aim to prevent people from voicing any concerns.

Quelling the opposition

"The message from the police is simple: 'don't take advantage of your democratic rights,'" Durand stated. When asked if that was not violence and justification for force, Durand answered that the definition of violence could be stretched. "Police use violence all the time; with the homeless, or [disabled] people; as well as physical, political and even economic violence." This is the same kind of violence Larouche talks about. "Let's talk about the violence towards women when the government refuses to answer to the demands of the World Women's March. Let's talk about economic violence: the exclusion of one part of the population such as victims of emptying houses for the mentally ill without adequate support and services, the unemployed, without the minimum income of social aid to cover essentials."
"The FTAA will destroy security nets, social services, and universal health care systems; there is no worse violence than that of poverty," added Stephane Paquet of OQP 2001.
Despite what they call the government's violence, the three groups wish to keep their protests peaceful. With 100 busses of protesters leaving from Montreal to go to the Summit, the groups hope to inform "Mr. and Mrs. Normal" about the dangers of FTAA.
-30-