[asia-apec 1329] Fw: PMO "directly involved" in APEC security

[APEC Monitoring Group]

>
>PMO 'directly involved' in APEC security
>
>RCMP documents: Legitimate protesters removed for political reasons:
>Mounties
>
>Mark Hume
>National Post
>October 22, 1999
>
>PHOTO:
>Colleen Kidd, the Province
>Students at the University of British Columbia set up a make-shift
>campground to protest the APEC summit, being held on the campus. Police and
>protesters clashed violently at the end of the summit.
>
>
>VANCOUVER - The Prime Minister's Office played a direct role in security
>efforts at the 1997 APEC summit here, according to confidential police
>documents that have been obtained by the RCMP Public Complaints
>Commission.
>
>The commission, chaired by Ted Hughes, British Columbia's former
>conflict-of-interest commissioner, is conducting an inquiry into police
>actions at the international economic conference, which was marred by
>violence when RCMP riot squads clashed with protesters at the University
>of British Columbia.
>
>The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and Jean Chretien, the Prime Minister,
>have long denied being involved in security issues at the summit.
>
>Questioned in the House of Commons on Sept. 23, 1998, Mr. Chretien said
>allegations of his involvement [in security operations] were "based on no
>facts at all."
>
>But the newly revealed documents show the PMO was so deeply involved that
>senior police officers in Vancouver were routinely calling Ottawa.
>
>RCMP telephone and radio transcripts for Nov. 21, the day the prime
>minister was due to arrive, show the police removed demonstrators from a
>conference site at the University of British Columbia, not for security
>reasons, but because Mr. Chretien's office would have ordered them "outta
>there."
>
>In a conference call, the RCMP security experts fret over the legal
>ramifications of moving in on a group of youths -- who had pitched a
>single tent near the UBC Museum of Anthropology -- who were doing nothing
>illegal.  Legally they could not justify it, says the transcripts, but
>politically they knew Ottawa would demand they act.
>
>"From a police point of view we're caught between a rock and a hard
>place,"  Superintendent Wayne May, chief of APEC security, says in the
>transcript.
>
>At one point Supt. May says in a conference call with other RCMP officers
>that the usual rules of conduct don't apply, because of the level of
>intense Ottawa involvement.
>
>"We know how we normally ... treat these things ... but ah then the ah,
>prime minister's not directly involved, when we're, ya know, in, in
>dealing with ah, tree huggers and that sort of thing. But ah, right now
>the prime minister of our country is directly involved and he's gonna
>start giving orders, and it might be something that ah, we can't live with
>or er, that's gonna create us a lot of, a lot of backlash in the final
>analysis so, we've got to try to develop a strategy," he said, referring
>to the problem of protesters.
>
>One officer described them as "naive kids," who merely wanted to make a
>point, and who would probably move if they were asked to.
>
>But with the prime minister and his aides due to visit the site on a
>pre-conference inspection tour, police felt they were under enormous
>pressure to take action.
>
>Supt. May looked for legal ways to get the protesters off the site, while
>at the same time trying to fend off demands from the PMO, which wanted
>them evicted.
>
>Speaking with other officers on Nov. 21, Supt. May said the prime minister
>would not be pleased when he heard there were protesters camping at the
>UBC site.
>
>"Even they [the prime minister's staff] say they're not concerned with the
>security aspect of the prime minister's visit there, but it's the
>perception, it's, it's, the ah, um, it's the ah politics of it if you come
>right down to it, an, an, their concerned that ah, ah, ya know when the
>prime minister's told of this he's just gonna tell 'em, whatever it takes
>get 'em outta there."
>
>In another call police officers say "we've got pressure from the PMO" and
>"Wayne May is obviously just getting pummelled by the PMO people."
>
>The transcripts also imply that the RCMP was in turn put under pressure by
>Ottawa to tell UBC officials to evict the students. The university
>administration at first resisted the Mounties' attempts, saying the
>students had a democratic right to protest as long as they obeyed the law.
>But eventually, officials agreed to a police suggestion that the UBC site
>be temporarily leased to the federal government, who could then evict the
>students for trespassing.
>
>Speaking on the telephone from the command centre, Brian McGuinness,
>deputy chief of the Vancouver Police Department, tells a lawyer that UBC
>has agreed to the deal and the site will be turned over the next day.
>
>"We are getting a great deal, well the prime minister's office has said, I
>want them removed so we're trying to dance around that because we're
>saying, 'Hey, there's laws of the land here that the prime minister's in
>charge of and we're trying to find a way that we can legally remove them.'
>"
>
>Deputy Chief McGuinness said that in the meantime, UBC had agreed the
>police could move in if the demonstration at the museum escalated.
>
>"We're trying to take that back to the prime minister to see if he'll live
>with that," he said. "That's just a proposal, like I said we're trying to
>get that past the prime minister."
>
>Later Bill Ard, an RCMP Inspector, tells another officer that, "the prime
>minister wanted everybody removed ... OK, well that was the deal, he
>wanted everybody removed, and we're feeling that there's no legal way to
>do that at this point, so there's been a compromise at UBC."
>
>The tension that was building at the RCMP command centre is obvious when
>Supt. May and a fellow Superintendent, Vince Casey, talk about how the
>number of protesters at the museum site has grown from four people to a
>dozen.
>
>The next day Jean Pelletier, the prime minister's chief of staff and Jean
>Carle, his chief of operations, were due to visit the site -- and they
>were sure to see the protest camp. When Mr. Carle testified at the inquiry
>last August, he denied giving orders to the RCMP on security issues --
>saying he merely expressed his opinion.
>
>"I did not give instructions [to the RCMP]," said Mr. Carle. He conceded
>he may have been "forceful" in his recommendations to police, but insisted
>it was still "the RCMP [that] makes the decision."
>
>Mr. Chretien had also been due to go along on that visit, but had
>cancelled at the last minute.
>
>"And, that's gonna put Carle in a bad spot," says Supt. Casey.
>
>Supt. May agrees and worries that the PM's staff "may overreact."
>
>Replies Supt. Casey: "Do you want me to call Trevor, and if there's any
>excuse to remove these people at all, to remove them?"
>
>Supt. May: "Ya ... The slightest bit of excuse they give us, let's get 'em
>'outta there."
>
>Supt. Casey then calls Trevor Thompsett, another superintendent at the
>RCMP command centre:
>
>"Ya Trevor, I was just talking to Wayne, and he's got a little bit of a
>political problem developing tomorrow morning or has developed. He's
>taking the number two and number three man for the prime minister out
>there tomorrow ... they may react if these protesters are there, he may
>have a little bit of a problem on his hands ... Now he's indicating we
>should almost have these guys out of there even before they get out there
>tomorrow morning."
>
>Supt. Thompsett: "Holy shit ... like according to the agreement we had
>[with UBC] they're gonna have to do something, either multiply or do
>something wrong eh. I mean don't get me wrong, I'd like to get the suckers
>out of there too."
>
>Supt. Casey: "They're just causing us one damn headache."
>
>Supt. Thompsett: "Wouldn't you believe it eh, I mean a handful of kids
>they can disrupt a whole incident like this."
>
>Supt. Casey: "This is unreal."
>
>In another conversation, Supt. Thompsett tells Supt. Casey: "I mean these
>are peaceable, I mean they're more of a nuisance than anything, they're
>kids like, but they're just nuisance that's all."
>
>Supt. Casey agrees, saying, "They're not a threat in any way ... they're
>not a concern security-wise ya know."
>
>Supt. Thompsett says Supt. May had tried "to coach" the prime minister's
>office out of demanding action on the protesters, hoping that police could
>talk the students into leaving voluntarily.
>
>In the end, police arrested four protesters at the museum site and removed
>the tent. Four days later, at the close of the APEC conference, police
>clashed violently with hundreds of protesters blocking a nearby road.
>
>
>
>
>