[asia-apec 689] Van Sun: Cdn PM grilled over APEC, Suharto
David Webster
davidweb at interchange.ubc.ca
Wed Sep 23 10:20:42 JST 1998
3 stories from today's Vancouver Sun, as the Canadian parliament opened its
fall session. The enws report describes attacks by all four opposition
parties, followed by an editorial and comment from a poopular columnist.
Last Updated: Tuesday 22 September 1998 TOP STORIES
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Opposition grills Chretien over APEC
The Vancouver Sun
Peter O'Neil, Sun Ottawa Bureau Vancouver Sun with files from Southam News
OTTAWA -- Amid fierce opposition
questioning Monday,
Prime Minister Jean
Chretien acknowledged
there was "perhaps" a
problem on the final
day of the Asia
Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting, when protesters at
the University of B.C. were pepper-sprayed and arrested
or threatened with arrest by Mounties.
"We had 19 leaders in Canada," Chretien said as
Parliament resumed after its summer break. "We had to
offer them a secure place in Canada. There was room for
protesters.
"Perhaps there was some problem on the last hour of the
last day but the solicitor-general has a mechanism at
arm's length from the government [the RCMP Complaints
Commission] that is dealing with that."
Chretien suggested the APEC demonstrations did, in fact,
help teach visiting leaders of undemocratic countries
about Canadian values.
"Some even protested to me because they saw some signs
they did not like. I told them that it is Canada, that I
see protests all the time, that it is the way Canada
operates, that real democracy is applied here."
The prime minister admitted that "some people from other
delegations were not comfortable," but wouldn't say if
President Suharto of Indonesia was one of them.
It has been suggested that Mounties used heavy-handed
tactics on protesters in order to prevent them from
coming close to and being harmed by Suharto's guards,
four of whom were allowed to carry guns while here.
The prime minister's House comments came as the RCMP
said in an interview that the prime minister had nothing
to do with allowing the foreign agents to carry
firearms.
Sergeant Andre Guertin said security officers from eight
of the 19 countries represented at the APEC summit were
allowed to carry guns.
It was reported Monday that an Oct. 29, 1997 memo from
the federal government's Privy Council Office said
Chretien would "want to be personally involved" in APEC
security arrangements.
And former Indonesian ambassador to Canada Benjamin
Parwoto told the Toronto Star last week that in a
face-to-face meeting with Chretien last September, the
prime minister assured him he would do his utmost to
keep Suharto from being embarrassed by demonstrators.
In the House of Commons, opposition members pressured
the prime minister over his involvement in security
arrangements, charging that Chretien is hiding his
involvement in the suppression of protesters.
"Why did the prime minister trample on the political
rights of Canadian citizens in order to protect some
Asian dictator?" Official Opposition leader Preston
Manning asked.
New Democratic Party leader Alexa McDonough said
Chretien should explain himself now rather than avoid
questions because of the RCMP Public Complaints
Commission hearing into the RCMP's violent reaction to
protesters.
The hearings begin on Oct. 5.
"Mr. Speaker, Canadians want their prime minister to be
a statesman and not a doormat for foreign brutal
dictators," McDonough said.
Today's Editorial:
Chretien has some explaining to do
Stifling protesters' right to free speech at the APEC
summit was a serious matter. Since RCMP memos contradict
the prime minister's denials of responsibility, who
ordered the crackdown?
Vancouver Sun
On his return to Indonesia from the Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation summit last year, then-president
Suharto did what all guests of a certain quality would
do; he sent a thank-you note, saying he had been "very
pleased" by Canadian efforts to provide for his safety
and comfort. The note did not express the usual
turnabout -- "We would be pleased to put you up should
you get down this way" -- and just as well. By May
Suharto had been forced from power by rioting citizens
and was no doubt wistfully looking at slides from his
APEC trip and wishing he were back in Vancouver, where
dissidents were more easily dealt with.
Handcuffs and pepper-spray were probably not the lesson
in democracy Suharto was supposed to learn. The concept
of isolation is to cut off troubling countries and
regimes until they smarten up. Its opposite is
engagement, which (ideally) exposes the other party to
democratic principles while building trade ties which
may further influence reforms.
Prime Minister Jean Chretien is doubtless nostalgic for
that earlier time as well, in fact anytime at all before
internal correspondence began to suggest he or the Prime
Minister's Office had provoked the RCMP's
pepper-spraying and arrest of dozens of students
exercising their right to protest.
(That right to free expression of opinion and public
assembly is not only guaranteed by the Charter of Rights
and Freedoms but was assured when the University of
British Columbia signed an agreement with the federal
government allowing the students to protest. One man
claims to have been sprayed, cuffed and arrested without
charge for carrying a sign reading "Free Speech," at the
least a breach of contract.)
Mr. Chretien's insistence that the police did their job
without special instruction from the PMO or himself is
hard to credit. When the RCMP public complaints
commission resumes its inquiry into the incident it is
likely to examine a note from the minutes of a Privy
Council Office meeting which seems to flatly contradict
Mr. Chretien. Regarding protesters and security
measures, the note advises: "PM will want to be
personally involved." Another from the desk of RCMP
Superintendent Wayne May says: "Re: Protesters. PM
specific wish that this is a retreat and leaders should
not be distracted by demos, etc." Another inter-RCMP
memo about bivouacking protesters says: "PM wants
tenters out."
The prime minister insists he will not testify if called
and he has nothing to explain. But several questions are
obvious: Why did the government bend over backwards to
ensure Suharto's attendance? Another certainly deserves
an answer: Asked if he guaranteed there would be no
protesters at APEC, Mr. Chretien replied, "It was my
duty to say, 'No. You come to Canada, there might be
some protesters.'" Why didn't he say that, then?
Come and tell us what you know, Mr. Chretien.
Barbara Yaffe:
Chretien's APEC imbroglio may be his undoing
Imperious and remote, the PM steadfastly refuses to take
any responsibility for the pepper-spraying of APEC
protesters.
Barbara Yaffe Vancouver Sun
In what is surely a quirky parallel, U.S. President Bill
Clinton is facing a huge challenge to his moral
leadership just as Jean Chretien is beginning a battle
to safeguard his own political reputation.
Having sex with a young woman and lying about it under
oath is certainly racier than playing a role in
squelching the constitutional freedoms of one's
countrymen.
But the allegations being made against Chretien -- that
he had a hand in suppressing the civil rights of
University of B.C. student protesters last November --
is every bit as serious.
The prime minister is our numero uno. He speaks for
Canada to the world, has final say in the management of
our economy, sets our legislative agenda and safeguards
our rights.
Canadians take enormous pride in living in a country
that is one of the freest on earth. And one of the most
peaceful and genteel.
Though Canada is a young nation, it has a mature, civil
society. Compared to our neighbours to the south, our
citizens are mostly tolerant and believe strongly in the
equality of everyone. Few of us carry guns. We regularly
settle disputes through the courts. Our demonstrations
tend to be orderly.
The current prime minister projects himself as a
politician in tune with the common folk. He plays the
populist, a modest guy from the boonies, an informal
fella who can hop on a bicycle or commandeer a bus at
the drop of a hat -- as he has done for photo ops.
In fact, Jean Chretien has lost touch with the
grassroots. He has grown frighteningly remote and
imperious.
(Albertans got the back of his hand last week with his
complete disregard for their Senate elections.)
Even 10 months after the strong-arming of University of
B.C. protesters, Chretien has failed to recognize or
acknowledge the seriousness of the accusations made
against him.
Accusations that he, directly or indirectly, interfered
with security arrangements at the Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation conference to protect Indonesia's
then-president Suharto from embarrassment and possibly
to prevent Suharto's armed bodyguards from going
ballistic.
As a result of that alleged interference, UBC student
protesters holding signs championing free speech and
democracy were pepper-sprayed, manhandled, arrested and,
in the case of some female protesters, strip-searched.
This, in Canada!
While documents coming to light in advance of an RCMP
public complaints commission hearing point to Chretien
as the person who wanted protests contained, the PM has
been entirely dismissive about his role.
More alarmingly, he has yet to express the least regret
that a group of Canadians had their constitutional
freedoms trampled.
Does Chretien believe he has a role in upholding the
Charter of Rights? If he does, it's not clear from his
statements to date.
For example, immediately after the conference ended,
Chretien called the use of pepper- spray reasonable.
"Those who did not follow the law, broke the lines and
tried to jump over the fence to disturb the conference,
had to face the police. And the police took a means that
was apparently very efficient, and there was nobody hurt
and the conference was not disturbed."
Then, last week, he said: "I don't have to explain
anything. I did not talk to any RCMP person. I just
asked to make sure that the security of our visitors was
properly served."
(Did Chretien have to speak directly to the RCMP for him
to be implicated in influencing the force's actions?
That's like Clinton insisting he didn't have sexual
relations with Monica Lewinsky because they never had
intercourse.)
An indication that this issue is about to cause Chretien
major problems came Monday when, after a three-month
recess, the House of Commons got back to business. A
flurry of questions was put by the Reform, New
Democratic Party, Conservative and Bloc Quebecois MPs
focusing on the suppression of Canadians' constitutional
rights at the APEC conference.
Again, Chretien ducked and dodged.
The opposition parties obviously have concluded that the
prime minister is vulnerable on this issue.
Now that it is becoming a major focus in the Commons and
is to be at the centre of the RCMP complaints commission
hearing scheduled to begin Oct. 5, the matter -- until
now largely a B.C. one -- will increasingly be covered
in the eastern media.
Anyone with a decent set of antennae in the prime
minister's office has likely already recognized that the
abrogation of the UBC students' Charter rights is about
to become Chretien's Monica Lewinsky mess.
_ _ _
\ / "Long words Bother me."
\ / -- Winnie the Pooh
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