On June 26 and 27, the political representatives of the world’s greatest thieves and murderers gathered in Toronto. They held their ‘G2o Summit’ in a billion dollar armed camp financed with public money stolen from vital social programs. They threw out some meaningless platitudes and drew up a plan around their real agenda – solving the crisis of their bankrupt system by imposing austerity and poverty on people throughout the world. With the Harper Government hosting the event and standing on the right wing edge of the discussions, plans were drawn up to halve public deficits by 2013. They will not, however, take the money back from the banks and corporations they bailed out. Instead they will gut public services, destroy social infrastructure and launch a war on poor and working people.

Across the world, people under attack and in struggle saw that the Toronto Summit was challenged and that the massive array of police security protecting it failed to silence that challenge. On the 24th, Indigenous people and their allies took to the streets. On the 25th, OCAP along with many community organizations and joined by thousands, came out to fight for justice for communities. We faced police intimidation and attack without backing down and, after marching through the streets, put up a tent city in Allan Gardens that was held throughout the night in solidarity with the homeless and all those being displaced and forced from their homelands here and abroad.

On the 26th, tens of thousands took to the streets and thousands of them would not accept a route well away from the security fence that the trade union/NGO leaders had negotiated with the cops ahead of time. At Queen and Spadina, a confrontation began that continued all through that and the next day. It was marked by firmness and courage on the part of those taking to the streets and by brutal police attack. The largest mass arrest in the history of Canada unfolded. Basic civil liberties were effectively eliminated. The over one thousand who were arrested faced inhuman conditions and despicable treatment in the now-infamous Eastern Ave Detention Centre. People were taken by the cops without the slightest legal justification. But still people filled the streets and defied the G20 enforcers.

By Monday, the sheer scale of the abuses was beginning to cause disquiet in high places. More seriously, it was clear that the violent intimidation was failing miserably. Thousands came to police headquarters that evening to challenge the police state conditions being created in Toronto. They faced a subdued array of cops. Harper’s plan for an austerity meeting complemented by a show of force that would deter opposition had utterly failed.

The cops did not even wait for the events of the 26th to begin their crackdown. A series of raids on homes and buildings offering accommodation to protesters began the night before. People’s doors were broken down, some were carried away in the middle of the night or early morning in unmarked vans, some even at gun-point, with little knowledge of what was happening to them. Our comrades from Quebec were particularly targeted with extreme anti-Quebecois violence. Many vocal and respected community organizers, our friends and allies, were targeted and are still detained.

We are now building legal support and political solidarity with those facing serious charges and attempts to detain them for trial. Antiquated and reactionary ‘conspiracy’ charges are being used by the Crown. It should go without saying that our movement will spare no effort to ensure those facing legal persecution are given all possible support, that they are set free and the politically motivated charges laid against them are dropped. OCAP wishes to show our solidarity with all G20 defendants and we demand their immediate release. This is an attempt to criminalize, silence and intimidate our movements, and we will fight against it.

At the same time as we fight and win this legal battle, we must set our sites for the resistance that emerged around the G20 to grow. We can and must build strong social movements in the fight against the austerity agenda that the G20 devised. This agenda is the real conspiracy that must to be defeated.

As they work to cut vital social programs, attack public sector workers, expand the security apparatus at home and abroad, attempt to criminalize and brutalize poor communities, migrants, people of colour and First Nations communities, we will mobilize to fight back. The International Monetary Fund has called for twenty years of austerity. The elements of that agenda will be decreed by governments and backed up by lines of cops. We have shown in Toronto, as people around the world have already demonstrated, that our resistance can be stronger than their austerity. We will defeat their agenda and create a society where the exploiters and their thugs go on trial while we build a world based on solidarity and equality.

[Statement from the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP)]

Canadians Demanding a Public Inquiry into Toronto G20 London Chapter *Part 1*
Part taken from: The Great Dictator 1934 Charlie Chaplin
Content owner: DashGo/Audiobee
By Mike Roy
WeAreChange London
CAPP London
CEP Union Local London

There is evidence the police infiltrated “Black Bloc” and should have known their plans. Howard Morton is a criminal lawyer and a member of the Law Union of Ontario

Linchpin Editorial - linchpin.ca

We live in a political and economic system based on constant violence; exploitation of workers, destruction of the environment, war, racist police killings, hunger and homelessness in an environment of plenty, denial of land and self-government to indigenous peoples, plundering of the resources of the Third World and the arming of repressive regimes. This weekend, this quiet violence continued within the G8 and G20 summits. G20 leaders agreed to halve national deficits by 2013; The expected cuts to educational, social services and health care programs will no doubt continue to be carried out on the backs of workers and poor people.

On the streets of Toronto, the police reminded us of the state’s willingness to use blatant violence. Protesters sitting in the streets this morning at a jail solidarity rally were subjected to violent baton attacks, snatch squads and rubber bullets by the Police. Others were boxed in by riot cops and arrested, while being told they had to leave. Sleeping people have been pulled from their homes at gunpoint in the middle of the night.

As of today, well over 600 people have been arrested. Many have been beaten. People who have been arrested have been strip-searched and held in cages, facing long delays in obtaining legal support, including one deaf man who was denied an ASL interpreter. People arrested have included both corporate and independent journalists as well as approximately 200 people, many local residents, who were surrounded by police and held in the pouring rain over four hours. This is how the state responds to anyone who shows dissent.

Common Cause stands in solidarity with everyone who was arrested or assaulted by the police. As anarchist communists, we oppose all state violence. While the violence on the street may dissipate after this weekend, the police will not be going away; they will be remaining in Toronto, or returning to Hamilton, Montreal, Vancouver, or Calgary.

We will continue to resist austerity measures and other policies that exploit and oppress us in our daily lives. Although the street violence today was directed at us in Toronto, the violence of the state continues around the world. The violence of the capitalist state will not stop with the end of the G20 summit; neither will our resistance. We are with those arrested in Toronto, with those who protested, and with those around the world who will continue to fight for our collective liberation.

Free the Toronto 600!
Build the General Strike!

The G8/G20 are anti-democratic illegitimate institutions that inflict daily violence on our communities. Everywhere the G8 and G20 have met to further their exploitative agendas – from London to Pittsburgh to Toronto - they have faced huge opposition from local communities. The kind of mass resistance we have seen in Toronto has and will continue to follow them wherever they go.

For several months, communities across Toronto have been coming together to resist the imposition of austerity measures advanced at the G8/G20 summits. The Harper government spends 1.2 billion taxpayer dollars to host the G8/G20 summits while it cuts social spending in ways that have drastic impacts people in the Toronto area and other parts of Canada.

Since these communities have come together, the police have been using intimidation tactics to repress and silence people in the Toronto community. Police and intelligence officers went to community organizers’ homes and harassed them in the streets. Now they have arrested many of these people, many of them young organizers of color, and charged them with conspiracy.

These people hold the Harper government to account and they speak out against policies that are making ordinary people poorer, sicker and more desperate. As a result, they have been intimidated, harassed, and imprisoned. They are political prisoners in this country, where the police repression shows that its claims of democracy are simply window dressing.

While police continue to intimidate people, individuals and community members keep going out in the streets to show that they are not afraid and stand with political prisoners as well as oppressed peoples – first nations communities, immigrants and refugees, poor people, people of color, women, trans people, people with disabilities and queer communities.

The police intimidation and repression added to the anger and frustration people have with the G8/G20 policies and leaders that destroy their lives and the lives of people around the world. This is why people targeted banks and multinational corporations, and the property of police.

Ultimately, 1 billion dollars were spent on beating people who were demonstrating throughout the week, on intimidating community members in the streets, on arresting organizers of color and indigenous solidarity organizers, on sending demonstrators to hospital with broken bones, and on using tear gas on those in the so-called designated “free speech” zone. 1 billion dollars has not been used to protect people and to keep the city safe. Instead it has been used to repress the people who are working to make this city, and planet a fairer, more just, and more humane place.

Toronto Community Mobilization Network

Many in Canada are furious with the world leaders gathered there. Thousands marched through Toronto to protest over the G8 and G20 summits.

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From June 25-27, Canada will host the G8 and G20 Summits. These events present a unique opportunity for Canadians from all walks of life to make their voices heard. It is a moment for Canadians to join collectively, with people across the globe, to tell the Canadian government and world leaders that in these troubled times: people deserve better!

Some of the key issues labour wants addressed are:

Global Economic and Financial Crisis

In September 2008, the global economy crashed and while the banks are on the road to recovery, working people continue to bear the heaviest burden of the down turn. Unemployment is soaring, pension funds are evaporating and workers are suffering huge cuts in personal income.

Canada’s politicians may be claiming a period of recovery but for the majority of countries worldwide, the situation is still dire. In the North and South, millions of people have lost their savings, their livelihoods and their homes, and women, youth and migrant workers are particularly vulnerable.

Development and Poverty

In 2000, all 192 United Nations member states pledged to meet eight Millennium Development Goals by 2015. These goals assign targets to reduce poverty and hunger; provide universal primary education; promote gender equality; reduce child mortality; improve maternal health; combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensure environmental sustainability; and create a global partnership for development.

The crisis is fast extinguishing hope of achieving the Millennium Development Goals and nationally agreed development objectives, especially in low-income countries, where the International Labour Organization estimates that 100 million men and women have fallen into absolute poverty in the last year.

In Muskoka, the G8 priority must be to set a path, through the accountability framework, towards addressing the gap between stated commitments and necessary actions to put the MDGs back on track. With just five years remaining until the MDG target date of 2015, the summit will mark a critical moment for G8 governments to take stock of progress and make an all-out effort to address the most glaring gaps and shortfalls in reaching their targets.

Climate Change

The immediate impacts of climate change will target the poorest and most vulnerable people. It will certainly also have effects on employment. Measures taken to combat climate change, in particular those aiming at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, while crucial, will require important transformations in the world of work, and generate opportunities and challenges for workers and trade unions.

Trade unions are committed to call on all governments, in priority, those in developed countries and major economies in the developing world, to firmly commit to emission reductions.

Women take the lead

Women will gather at the Sir John A MacDonald statue on the south part of the Queens Park lawn, to give voice to the impact of G8 and G20 decisions on women. Take the lead for maternal health with full reproductive rights, for an end to women’s poverty, for women’s equality at home and globally!

People First!
We Deserve Better!

This family friendly event is for all supporters. Invite all your friends to come to the rally and march this summer.

The march will begin at Queen’s Park and head south on University Avenue to as far as permitted, then heads west to Spadina Avenue, then heads north to College Street, then heads east back to Queen’s Park.

On May 20, 2010, at the Steelworker’s Hall in Toronto, Canada, and in advance of the G8 (June 25, Huntsville, Ontario) and G20 (June 26-27, Toronto) summits, the Toronto Community Mobilization Network (TCMN) http://g20.torontomobilize.org/ held a press conference: Top 10 Reasons to Oppose the G8/G20.

“The mobilizations in June are concerned with our ongoing struggle for social justice,” says Sharmeen Khan of TCMN. “The attendees of the G8 and G20 summits represent the interests of a wealthy few and are responsible for creating policies and institutions that destroy communities and the environment.”

The Toronto Community Mobilization Network consists of grassroots organizations, people of colour, indigenous people, poor and working class people, women, queer, and disabled people.

TORONTO COMMUNITY MOBILIZATION NETWORK (TCMN)
Themed Days of Resistance, June 21-24
Days of Action, June 25-27
http://g20.torontomobilize.org/

2010 PEOPLE’S SUMMIT
Building a Movement for a Just World, June 18-20, Toronto
http://peoplessummit2010.ca/section/2

By The Wandering Sufti

It was years ago that I was sitting through one of my university communication classes, talking about public representation. Somehow we’d gotten to the topic of the police and its PR. The university I was at happened to have a well-known Criminology program, whose students usually went in for police jobs.

I’ll never forget what the girl sitting next to me said that day. She was talking about having a number of criminology students in some of her classes, and how they often cheated in order to get through said classes. Ending her rant, she shook her head and said, “And these are the people we depend on to guard us when we sleep.”

What the girl said was a jarring wake-up call to me. I had been in Canada for less than two years and had gotten into a state of overarching comfort in a small university town in British Columbia. It took that sentence to make me realize that one cannot breathe a sigh of relief anywhere in the world where the police institution exists.

Since that day a number of instances of police brutality have surfaced all over British Columbia. Most recently, a video was leaked that showed a Victoria policeman kicking the holy jam out of a number of subdued arrestees outside a night-club. A group of Vancouver cops violently beat a Chinese man before realizing that he was not even the person they had showed up to arrest. And of course, a gang of them murdered a Polish immigrant at the Vancouver International Airport.

Being myself male, I cannot even begin to address the violence upon women that this uniformed group perpetrate and are complicit in. I will never forget walking with protesters on the last day of the Olympics and hearing a First Nations woman talk to two young policemen about the sins of their institution. In graphic detail she described to them the rape of Downtown East Side prostitutes, and the cover-up afterwards.

Both of the young cops looked at her matter-of-factly and said, “Well I don’t know anything about that ma’am.”

One of them added, “It was before my time.”

The lady was talking about an incident that had occurred fifteen years ago.

I’ve chosen to address the most serious of crimes lodged against the police here. There are many more. Friends have told me how they were arrested during the anti-Olympic convergence and routinely harassed even when evidence against them was slim. Out of twenty-seven arrestees only two are being tried in court; the rest have been let go at some stage or the other.

Intimidation, rape, murder: these are the hallmarks of a gang.

A friend who is in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has a shirt that encapsulates this well. It proclaims, RCMP: The World’s Toughest Organized Gang.

I have had several conversations with reform-minded people in Vancouver about the police. A good many of them believe very much in the idea of bad apples rather than a barrel that is rotten to the core. Some have voiced that better accountability can change everything, especially in a self-policing organization like the RCMP.

After seeing the police at work I believe otherwise. I believe that the police are built to be exactly as they are today: armed thugs that a society hires to protect itself. Better yet, foxes that are asked to guard the coop. The only solution, I believe, is for the police to be completely and altogether disbanded.

Society sees threats no matter what. In a city like Vancouver, where I can walk down the darkest alley with no problem, people have found threats where they don’t exist. Homelessness suddenly became a threat before the Olympics, and so all of a sudden the police went around harassing people for living on the street (not that the police was not harassing them before this happened).

In thinking of the police, one needs to examine the very foundations of society. If I were to hire armed thugs to guard me at all times, people would think of me as being a bit off. If said thugs were to beat and kill people, there would be some kind of ramification against me. Being a person who tries not to harm any living thing, I have no desire to have such a presence around me. In the same way, I do not want to have the police in any way “looking out” for me. If there were some way to take the taxes I pay to this institution and re-route them to, say, healthcare or education or social programs, I would. In return I would very happily rescind my right to dial the police line (though I would like to keep the ambulance and fire-fighters around).

I would like to break down and re-work the entire social contract. Perhaps, I would even like to deal with people personally and work with communities rather than relying on contracts. Once we get rid of contracts, we have no need to police and regulate them (we also have no need for bureaucracy). We might even lose the need to have a republic as a whole.

My ability to say the above comes from the fact that I have successfully negotiated my way through communities where both extremes of the above are true. I have walked through neighbourhoods in urban Johannesburg where armed gangs control districts, where you need to pay a toll to get from area to area. I found this no different that having the police around, though unsheathed of the façade that the organization exists to protect me; rather, the gangs made it plain that my physical safety depended on the contract I made with each of them as I walked through their districts.

I’m also used to far more communal structures in the Gulf Middle East (I would prefer to keep confidential the exact areas), where friendships and relationships dictate your presence in a neighbourhood. In such cases my safety and sociability depended on the people in the areas I visited; just the fact that I knew people in the area made my life easier.

People stick with the police because the alternatives they see in their minds are warlords and lawless killers. As described in the example above, I see almost no difference between a warlord and the police (note here that I talk of the police as an organization; this is because I still believe strongly in the fact that each policeman and policewoman is my brother and sister).

There is a pain and uncertainty associated with losing the police. The idea that we don’t actually give them a roll of notes to “protect” us is comforting, and makes us feel that they look after us, almost like parents. I refer here to the argument reformists use to calm anarchists about the nature of the police – to the bulk of them, it is just a job.

I think that something this important should perhaps be more than just a job, but something you commit to in terms of your love for a community rather than cold hard cash (or direct deposit these days).

Recently I was pleasantly surprised by the revolts in Kyrgyzstan and Thailand, where protesters have successfully gone up against police. These cases were supremely important because of the way in which the military is being used as police, making the very people the state is supposed to serve its main enemy.

Arundati Roy, in a recent essay on the Maoist rebellion in eastern India said that the police are becoming the military and the military the police.

In the Maoist region, seventy-five jawaans (national troops) were killed in a recent ambush. I mourned the loss of life, but understood what the Maoists were attacking. An ongoing occupation and profiteering of Naxalite land is at stake, which has in the Indian media been thrust out of the way in favour of national mourning for the soldiers. It took an essay by Roy to bring attention to the decades-long forced resettlement, rape and murder of countless Naxalites.

People around the world need to understand what the institution of police really represents: where it came from and how it remains very much the same as what it began as. Being at this point a megalith structure that incorporates several levels of bureaucracy and government associations, it can be both intimidating and painful to think that it needs to be dismantled.

But if we are to progress as individuals, communities, and a collective of people, I see no alternative.