No2010 Statement Re: 'Arson Website'
No2010.com Statement
January 29, 2010
Re: “Arson website could spur police crackdown,” Ethan Baron, Inside Edge column, The Province, January 28, 2010
Dear Mr. Baron,
Thank you for your interest in No2010.com, a popular Indigenous anti-Olympic website. As you note, we do indeed cover militant anti-Olympic resistance, which has included some arson attacks against corporate & military targets. It has also involved thousands of people in public protests and direct actions, forums, comics, leaflets, press conferences, posters, stickers, theatre, t-shirts, radio, video, etc., all of which No2010.com has also reported on. To characterize No2010.com as an 'arson website' is, therefore, slanderous & highly misleading. Your references to 'bombs' are also misleading, for, as you could plainly see, these are cartoon images expressing discontent toward the Olympic industry.
As part of the Olympic Resistance Network, however, it is true that No2010.com supports a diversity of tactics. We do not condemn groups for certain actions, which in some cases have involved 'illegal' acts. At one time in the US it was illegal to resist slavery. Under the Nazi occupation of Western Europe, it was illegal to resist, and acts of sabotage were punishable by death. Until the 1950s, it was illegal for Blacks in the southern US to ride in the front of buses. In apartheid S. Africa, it was illegal to be a member of the ANC. Radical social change, now necessary for the very survival of the earth, is rarely ever 'legal'.
Your law & order stance is hypocritical, to say the least, considering Canada's practise of colonialism & ongoing genocide of Native peoples. BC is itself an illegal entity that occupies unsurrendered Native land. Your government lacks the moral & legal authority to govern or carry out business, according to its own laws (including the 1763 Royal Proclamation). Not everyone accepts the legitimacy of a colonial regime, or its laws.
Nor do we blame militants for any police state that is established. On the contrary, we blame the police & the state. Police repression is used by those in power whenever their interests are threatened by a rebellious people, and they will use any pretext to do so. It is clear that our anti-Olympic movement threatens their interests, and this is why police repression is increasing.
You should recall that, during the 1997 APEC Summit, the RCMP conducted the exact same campaign of surveillance, harassment, infiltration, pre-emptive arrests, and other dirty tricks—and there were no arson attacks by militants then (indeed, the 'violent' anti-globalization protests of Seattle and after had not even occurred).
In regards to VISU, their surveillance & harassment has targeted not only legal, public organizers (such as those in ORN), but also family, friends, and associates—including people who have had little or no involvement in anti-Olympic activities. Their strategy is to create a climate of fear & paranoia, and it is directed primarily against public organizers who have no involvement in militant attacks. Clearly, the public anti-Olympic mobilizing is the primary target of VISU.
Anti-Olympic protesters are a threat not because of a handful of arson attacks, or because No2010.com posts articles about these. What those in power fear is the power of the people, and this power has been increasingly mobilized against a corrupt, corporate-driven, mega-event that benefits a few at the expense of the many. An event which has displaced thousands, increased poverty & homelessness, transferred billions of dollars of public money to corporations, destroyed large tracts of land, and has, as you correctly note, imposed a police state.
You whine about violent protests, yet not one person has been injured as a result of anti-Olympic protesters, nor in any of the clandestine direct actions that have occured. It is interesting to note that, despite such disinformation & slander from government, Vanoc, the police, and corporate media over the last few years, over 30 percent of people in BC support the anti-Olympic protests (according to recent polls).
It is the oppressive & destructive acts of the rulers and their dim-witted guard dogs that creates resistance in the first place. Members of the ORN are correct to point out the hypocrisy of the Canadian state & its police forces: when they exercise their 'civil liberties' they are targeted for repression.
In conclusion, I thank you again for raising the profile of No2010.com, an incendiary & potentially explosive website, it's true. It's sad to see, however, that you have served as a police propagandist in this matter. I am confident that your weak attempt to divide social movements will fail, as will the No-Winter Olympics. As for the violent police repression you seek to create a pretext for, you are indeed playing with fire!
No Olympics on Stolen Native Land!
Gord Hill, Kwakwaka'wakw