by Louisa Worrell
Basics Issue#10 (Aug/Sep 2008)
On Sunday, June 1, 2008 at approximately 11:30 pm more than 50 Toronto cops raided the studio/home of hip-hop artist Kama Kazie, allegedly for drugs.
A couple days later the bar/club across the street Town Talk was raided for the same reason.
Neither of the raids were fruitful, no arrests were made and no drugs were found at either site.
A couple days later on June 3, there was a “community” meeting organized by a group known as 5-Points Community Action, regarding a shooting that had happened May 24 on Belvedere, just off of Vaughn and Oakwood.
Although Vaughn and Oakwood’s ethnic make up is predominately Jamaican and Chinese, and is considered a mixed-income neighbourhood, the attendees of the community meeting did not reflect this reality. The meeting was attended by pre-dominantly middle-class white residents who expressed concern about “community safety”. And this is the reality of mixed income neighbourhoods: put wealthy homeowners who are concerned about their property value alongside deeply exploited workers and the unemployed, and what you get is a conflict. It should be clear who the police are going to side with in this equation.
To be sure, the June 3 meeting was attended by the police, with much discussion about the local business Town Talk at 616 Vaughn Rd. People at the meeting expressed concern that criminal activities such as drug dealing were going on at the bar. Only one of the community members who spoke had actually been to Town Talk, but there was a clear sentiment that the bar made people at the meeting uneasy. One attendee, Samantha Goldsilver, was quoted in the Toronto Star saying: “It’s just a bunch of hoodlums hanging out late at night,” she said of one of the bars. “If you drive by at one in the morning there’s people out on the street drinking and people who live on the street feel very intimidated. They feel like they’re walking a gauntlet to come home.”
It’s too bad that some of the hundreds of Jamaican-Canadian patrons of the restaurant weren’t invited to the meeting – they might have had a different opinion.
Tragically, on July 21, 2007, 21 year-old Kimel Foster was gunned down outside of Town Talk and since then Toronto police have heavily patrolled the bar’s vicinity. But a higher policing of the youth cannot be a solution to a problem that is social and economic, such as alienating curricula in Toronto schools and a lack of decent employment opportunities for young workers.
Furthermore, the police routinely set up RIDE programs right down the street from the bar on busy nights, further harassing community residents and patrons of the bar.
5-Points Community Action is currently rallying their members around stopping Town Talk from serving alcohol on its patio, despite the fact the Town Talk already has a license to do so.
It’s clear that the current organizing of middle-class homeowners in the community is suiting the agenda of the police, given that both are working together to marginalize and intimidate the non-white working-class residents of the community. It’s time for Vaughan and Oakwood’s working-class residents to organize as well. We must demand an end to police harassment and intimidation in our own neighbourhoods!
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Armed Cops Moving into Toronto Schools in Sep ‘08
by Kabir Joshi-VijayanBasics Issue#10 (Aug/Sep 2008)
High School students have another thing to look forward this September - police with guns patrolling their hallways. On June 23rd, the chair of the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), John Campbell, announced that at least 22 public and 8 Catholic schools will each get a police officer this fall - for security and to supposedly ‘build relationships’ with students. Campbell first said the cops would be walking around in jeans and golf shirts “meeting… and talking to kids”, but he was corrected the next day by Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair, who made it clear that the officers would have both their uniforms and their weapons in the schools.
While we’re told that the police are supposed to help with security in schools, a School Safety report released in January (in response to the Jordan Manners killing at CW Jeffreys last year) did not make any recommendations to put police in schools. This Safety Report was written by a three-person advisory panel, after surveys of students and teachers at two west-end schools, and made many recommendations on how to improve school security - none of which included police being sent into high schools. However, the report did talk about the devastating effects of the social service cuts to Ontario in the 1990s, as well as the destructive use of the Safe Schools Act. Surveys showed that Black youth feel that racial discrimination by teachers is a major problem - and that they experience racism from the police outside of school. So the decision to put armed cops in Toronto High Schools made by the School Board ignored advice both from a community panel they appointed, and the feelings of their own students.
You only need to look at the US, which has put armed police in the schools of many of its major cities, to see what this policy will mean for students. In New York, youth are regularly brutalized and arrested for swearing, being late for class, having cell phones or not having hall passes. A number of times, teachers and even principles have been arrested for trying to protect their students. On a regular basis across the United States, youth have to be sent to hospital for injuries received from police while in school.
Will Toronto cops be very different? The announcement from the School Board was made a week after Toronto police were cleared by the S.I.U. in the murders of 17-year-old high school student Alwy Al-Nadhir and 28-year-old Byron Debassige, both of whom were unarmed when murdered by police. And according to the School Board, police will be put primarily in “schools who have the highest suspension rate and highest crime rate”. We know this means schools with the highest number of poor, black, brown and native kids. These are youth who are already threatened, brutalized and arrested by police on a daily basis in this city. There’s no reason to believe that the way police treat youth every day on the streets will be any different in the halls of a high school.
TDSB should focus on implementing community services and after-school programs for youth, and dealing with its own systematic racism and discrimination, instead of making schools a more intimidating and oppressive place for youth.
T.O. Cops Accused of Lying and Abuse by Judge
by Hassan Reyes
Basics Issue#10 (Aug/Sep 2008)
A Toronto judge recently dismissed the charges against two young men on the grounds that signs of physical abuse by police were obvious and that the police evidence was “unreliable, likely false.”
Shayne Fisher, 24, and Valter Almeida, 23, who were arrested on Lawrence Ave. W., west of Keele St., were found not guilty by Ontario Superior Court Justice Brian Trafford.
Fisher suffered a fractured rib, a perforated right eardrum, and bruising around the right eye. Almeida suffered abrasions on his forehead, back, neck and legs, with his nose bloodied.
The defendants also testified that they were threatened by the assaulting police if they complained or asked for medical attention. Fisher and Almeida - who police accused of selling crack when they were just smoking marijuana - may be filing a lawsuit against the police in the coming months.
This comes at the same time as a report was released showing that 43 Toronto police were acquitted for 12 civilian deaths, 50 injuries and four sex-assault complaints in the last year. This includes the murder of Alwy Al-Nahdir and Byron Debassige.
The mechanisms currently in place to review police conduct, such as the SIU, are a joke and must be overhauled so that retired cops aren’t judging their own buddies and former colleagues for abuses. The people of Ontario need a truly independent civilian-led body to oversee the police, because clearly the police cannot be trusted to themselves. And before getting this, people need to be more vigilant of police conduct in our communities.
Basics Issue#10 (Aug/Sep 2008)
A Toronto judge recently dismissed the charges against two young men on the grounds that signs of physical abuse by police were obvious and that the police evidence was “unreliable, likely false.”
Shayne Fisher, 24, and Valter Almeida, 23, who were arrested on Lawrence Ave. W., west of Keele St., were found not guilty by Ontario Superior Court Justice Brian Trafford.
Fisher suffered a fractured rib, a perforated right eardrum, and bruising around the right eye. Almeida suffered abrasions on his forehead, back, neck and legs, with his nose bloodied.
The defendants also testified that they were threatened by the assaulting police if they complained or asked for medical attention. Fisher and Almeida - who police accused of selling crack when they were just smoking marijuana - may be filing a lawsuit against the police in the coming months.
This comes at the same time as a report was released showing that 43 Toronto police were acquitted for 12 civilian deaths, 50 injuries and four sex-assault complaints in the last year. This includes the murder of Alwy Al-Nahdir and Byron Debassige.
The mechanisms currently in place to review police conduct, such as the SIU, are a joke and must be overhauled so that retired cops aren’t judging their own buddies and former colleagues for abuses. The people of Ontario need a truly independent civilian-led body to oversee the police, because clearly the police cannot be trusted to themselves. And before getting this, people need to be more vigilant of police conduct in our communities.
Chicago Police Rampage: 12 Shot, 6 Killed in 4 Weeks
by N. Zahra
Basics Issue#10 (Aug/Sep 2008)
Between June 11-July 5, 2008, Chicago cops shot 12 people, murdering 6 of them. All of them were either black or latino and most of them were unarmed and/or shot in the back. Amongst those dead were Shapell Terrell, a 39 year old sanitation worker supporting 7 children, Robin Johnson, a mother with a history of mental illness, and 17 year old Jonathan Pinkerton who had just graduated from highschool the night he was murdered.
According to Fred Hampton Jr., chairman of the Prisoners of Conscience Committee (POCC), this is business as usual for Chicago cops who routinely get away with harassing, brutalizing and murdering racialized youth in Chicago. However, this time the people came together to show that they would not accept such abuse.
On July 25th, 2008 people rallied in Englewood (a Chicago neighbourhood) to protest the brutal behaviour of the cops. At a nearby basketball court, more people had gathered for a repast for another slain youth. Out of nowhere, the cops drove up and started tearing up pictures of Bennie and calling the youth ‘nigger bitches.’ The protest against police brutality spontaneously spread to the courts. At the end of the evening an estimated 10 people had been arrested and brutalized, amongst them Chairman Fred Hampton Jr.. In an interview with Basics, the Chairman described the rage of the youth who chanted, ‘Let them go!’ not allowing the cops to drive off with their captives.
Despite brutal repercussions, the people of Chicago continue to organize and resist police terror, naming the cops for what they really are, the biggest gang of them all.
Basics Issue#10 (Aug/Sep 2008)
Between June 11-July 5, 2008, Chicago cops shot 12 people, murdering 6 of them. All of them were either black or latino and most of them were unarmed and/or shot in the back. Amongst those dead were Shapell Terrell, a 39 year old sanitation worker supporting 7 children, Robin Johnson, a mother with a history of mental illness, and 17 year old Jonathan Pinkerton who had just graduated from highschool the night he was murdered.
According to Fred Hampton Jr., chairman of the Prisoners of Conscience Committee (POCC), this is business as usual for Chicago cops who routinely get away with harassing, brutalizing and murdering racialized youth in Chicago. However, this time the people came together to show that they would not accept such abuse.
On July 25th, 2008 people rallied in Englewood (a Chicago neighbourhood) to protest the brutal behaviour of the cops. At a nearby basketball court, more people had gathered for a repast for another slain youth. Out of nowhere, the cops drove up and started tearing up pictures of Bennie and calling the youth ‘nigger bitches.’ The protest against police brutality spontaneously spread to the courts. At the end of the evening an estimated 10 people had been arrested and brutalized, amongst them Chairman Fred Hampton Jr.. In an interview with Basics, the Chairman described the rage of the youth who chanted, ‘Let them go!’ not allowing the cops to drive off with their captives.
Despite brutal repercussions, the people of Chicago continue to organize and resist police terror, naming the cops for what they really are, the biggest gang of them all.
$5 Million Boost to TAVIS... More Police Terror on the Way
by Ellis Mayfield
Basics Issue#10 (Aug/Sep 2008)
Toronto Police Services has recently received a $5 million dollar boost in its budget from the provincial government for its Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy (TAVIS) unit. The money is earmarked to add 26 new officers to the Jane and Finch and Regent Park areas. Beefing up the police further simply doesn’t make sense in a city that is ranked by Statistics Canada, as of July 2008, as having the second lowest crime-rate in Canada. In Toronto, the police budget stands at a whopping $840 million, which adds up to as much spent on Fire Services, Social Services, Shelter, Support, and Housing, TTC and Wheel-Trans, Children’s Services, Emergency Medical Services, Toronto Public Health, and Homes for the Aged all put together.
Ontario Correctional Services Minister Rick Bartolucci has lauded TAVIS for making over 10,000 arrests and seizing 400 guns since the program began in 2006. That’s 1 gun for every 25 people arrested.
What most people who watch these raids on television the next day don’t realize is that most of these youth are never convicted or even charged. The pro-cop corporate media, such as Toronto’s CP24, loves to frighten and console its audiences with images of tens or hundreds of black youth being arrested in TAVIS unit raids. But we know very well that the guns and drugs do not come from these communities; and those youth who are getting pulled into the illicit economy do so because the formal economy and the government simply isn’t offering these youth the jobs, skills training, and educational opportunities they need. The only solution for these youth will be a social and economic system that provides them with meaningful life opportunities, not joblessness, decrepit housing, and irrelevant curriculums.
Basics Issue#10 (Aug/Sep 2008)
Toronto Police Services has recently received a $5 million dollar boost in its budget from the provincial government for its Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy (TAVIS) unit. The money is earmarked to add 26 new officers to the Jane and Finch and Regent Park areas. Beefing up the police further simply doesn’t make sense in a city that is ranked by Statistics Canada, as of July 2008, as having the second lowest crime-rate in Canada. In Toronto, the police budget stands at a whopping $840 million, which adds up to as much spent on Fire Services, Social Services, Shelter, Support, and Housing, TTC and Wheel-Trans, Children’s Services, Emergency Medical Services, Toronto Public Health, and Homes for the Aged all put together.
Ontario Correctional Services Minister Rick Bartolucci has lauded TAVIS for making over 10,000 arrests and seizing 400 guns since the program began in 2006. That’s 1 gun for every 25 people arrested.
What most people who watch these raids on television the next day don’t realize is that most of these youth are never convicted or even charged. The pro-cop corporate media, such as Toronto’s CP24, loves to frighten and console its audiences with images of tens or hundreds of black youth being arrested in TAVIS unit raids. But we know very well that the guns and drugs do not come from these communities; and those youth who are getting pulled into the illicit economy do so because the formal economy and the government simply isn’t offering these youth the jobs, skills training, and educational opportunities they need. The only solution for these youth will be a social and economic system that provides them with meaningful life opportunities, not joblessness, decrepit housing, and irrelevant curriculums.
Uprising Erupts in Montreal as Cops Murder 18-Year-Old Fredy Villanueva
by Luis Granados Ceja of Barrio Nuevo
Basics Issue#10 (Aug/Sep 2008)
In the middle of the night on August 10, 2008, youth from Montreal-Nord took to the streets to express their outrage with the racist actions of the Montreal Police. Protestors marched through the streets and set fires to cars and trash. A fire station was also burned.
The youth were responding to the police murder of 18-year-old Honduran youth Fredy Villanueva the night before, on the evening of August 9. According to witnesses, the police approached a group of youth who were playing dice and became aggressive with the group of youth. Fredy’s brother, Dany Villanueva, was singled out by the police to be searched without cause and ultimately arrested. After Dany was placed in the back of the police car, the situation quickly escalated and the police fired four shots without warning, killing Fredy. Police have refused to explain themselves for their actions. The Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations in Montreal has called for a public inquiry as a result.
It is clear that the actions taken by youth on the night of August 10 are merely the boiling over of anger towards a history of racism and misconduct by police in Canada, especially toward racialized youth. The murder of Fredy Villanueva is not an isolated incident. Just last year, Toronto police murdered unarmed teenager Alwy Al-Nadhir in a similar unprovoked attack, and earlier this year, 28-year-old Native man Byron Debassige.
Communities subject to racist policing need not tolerate it anymore. Although the riots on the night of August 10 certainly got the public’s attention, it cannot bring lasting solutions. Our communities must create a broad-based movement to end racist police brutality all together.
Police must not be allowed to “investigate” each other so as to cover their own backs. We must demand justice for the murder of Fredy Villanueva, but moreover, we must organize ourselves if justice is going to be realized.Brother of murdered youth, Dany Villanueva
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Justice for Alwy B-Ball Tournament - Saturday, Sep 13, 2008
Register Now for the Justice for Alwy basketball tournament!
Saturday, September 13, 2008
On Saturday, September 13, the Justice for Alwy campaign against police brutality will be holding its first annual Justice for Alwy 3-on-3 basketball tournament. The tournament will consist of two separate divisions: "16 and under" and "17 and over". Proof of age will be necessary to compete in the "16 and under" division. First prize for the tournament will be $500 for the "17 and over" Senior division and at least $150 for the "16 and under" Junior division.
Registration cost is $50 per team for the Senior Division, and $25 per team for the junior division (a maximum of 5 players per team). The event will be held in Carlton Park, which is two blocks west of Symington and one block north of Dupont.
Registration deadline is September 5 - and the number of teams allowed to compete is limited, so register now!
Contact justiceforalwy@gmail.com to register or call 647.202.0805. Or join the Justice for Alwy Facebook group, and see the Justice for Alwy B-Ball Tournament Event in that group.
Organized by: The Justice for Alwy Campaign Against Police Brutality, Basics Community Newsletter, and the Hood to Hood Movement
Saturday, September 13, 2008
On Saturday, September 13, the Justice for Alwy campaign against police brutality will be holding its first annual Justice for Alwy 3-on-3 basketball tournament. The tournament will consist of two separate divisions: "16 and under" and "17 and over". Proof of age will be necessary to compete in the "16 and under" division. First prize for the tournament will be $500 for the "17 and over" Senior division and at least $150 for the "16 and under" Junior division.
Registration cost is $50 per team for the Senior Division, and $25 per team for the junior division (a maximum of 5 players per team). The event will be held in Carlton Park, which is two blocks west of Symington and one block north of Dupont.
Registration deadline is September 5 - and the number of teams allowed to compete is limited, so register now!
Contact justiceforalwy@gmail.com to register or call 647.202.0805. Or join the Justice for Alwy Facebook group, and see the Justice for Alwy B-Ball Tournament Event in that group.
Organized by: The Justice for Alwy Campaign Against Police Brutality, Basics Community Newsletter, and the Hood to Hood Movement
Crooked Cops Get Away with Murder...Again
by N. Zahra
Basics Issue#10 (Aug/Sep 2008)
“When they shot my step-son, they shot her too…” exclaimed Byron Debassige’s step-father Mike Vigneault about his grief stricken wife. Ever since the murder of their sons at the hands of Toronto police, the mothers and families of Byron Debassige and Alwy Al-Nadhir have been struggling to keep afloat and continue their fight to know what really happened to their loved-ones. Their quest for justice has become even more urgent in the wake of Special Investigation Unit (SIU) reports being released earlier this summer.
On June 12, 2008 the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) released reports regarding the police murders of 18-year-old Alwy Al-Nadhir and 28-year-old Byron Debassige. In both cases, the reports cleared police of any wrongdoing. The reports have left the families more confused and distraught, obscuring the scant information they had collected in the wake of the murders. Both official reports clash with the information that the families had been given prior to the reports being released. In addition, certain crucial information was missing from the reports.
Nowhere in Debassige’s report does it mention that Byron was schizophrenic. Contrary to what the report says about eyewitnesses, witnesses told the family that Byron posed no visible threat and was in fact singing and laughing when he was approached by the police. Also, the report neglects to mention that Debassige was shot five times. In Al-Nadhir’s case, the report says that Al-Nadhir tried to grab the officer’s gun from him. This is inconsistent with the scant information provided to the family prior to the report being released when investigators told Al-Nadhir’s family that he had tried to run away.
To add insult to injury, each of the families were disrespectfully treated during investigation. Prior to the report on Byron’s murder being released police used intimidation tactics to get Byron’s mother, Jennifene Debassige, to admit that her son was guilty of some crime and accused her of being a liar. In a phone conversation with Basics, Jennifene described how disrespectful the police were toward her and her family, making her feel even more miserable in her time of mourning.
Salma Al-Nadhir, Alwy’s older sister, told Basics how as the months wore on and the family was becoming desperate to know what happened to Alwy, the SIU’s visits became increasingly infrequent and when they did visit, their story would change every time. This uncertainty caused much anxiety for the family, especially to Alwy’s mother who continues her fight to know what really happened. In fact, the SIU did not even have the decency to present the report to the family the day it was released.
Both families have come together to demand justice and are seeking to unite with other families who have been through similar ordeals. They are calling on all those who have similar demands and their supporters to unite and demand swift coroner’s inquiries! More importantly, that killer cops have been cleared once again by the SIU shows how useless that organization really is.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the only people capable and trustworthy of overseeing the police are THE PEOPLE themselves.
Families must unite to demand a complete overhaul of the SIU and its replacement with a truly civilian body that holds the police accountable for their crimes.
Ultimately, whether or not the Ontario government overhauls the SIU, only the action and organization of the people can put an end to police brutality. Let’s organize for Justice for Alwy and Byron, Justice for All, now!
Alwy Al-Nadhir
Byron Debassige
Basics Issue#10 (Aug/Sep 2008)
“When they shot my step-son, they shot her too…” exclaimed Byron Debassige’s step-father Mike Vigneault about his grief stricken wife. Ever since the murder of their sons at the hands of Toronto police, the mothers and families of Byron Debassige and Alwy Al-Nadhir have been struggling to keep afloat and continue their fight to know what really happened to their loved-ones. Their quest for justice has become even more urgent in the wake of Special Investigation Unit (SIU) reports being released earlier this summer.
On June 12, 2008 the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) released reports regarding the police murders of 18-year-old Alwy Al-Nadhir and 28-year-old Byron Debassige. In both cases, the reports cleared police of any wrongdoing. The reports have left the families more confused and distraught, obscuring the scant information they had collected in the wake of the murders. Both official reports clash with the information that the families had been given prior to the reports being released. In addition, certain crucial information was missing from the reports.
Nowhere in Debassige’s report does it mention that Byron was schizophrenic. Contrary to what the report says about eyewitnesses, witnesses told the family that Byron posed no visible threat and was in fact singing and laughing when he was approached by the police. Also, the report neglects to mention that Debassige was shot five times. In Al-Nadhir’s case, the report says that Al-Nadhir tried to grab the officer’s gun from him. This is inconsistent with the scant information provided to the family prior to the report being released when investigators told Al-Nadhir’s family that he had tried to run away.
To add insult to injury, each of the families were disrespectfully treated during investigation. Prior to the report on Byron’s murder being released police used intimidation tactics to get Byron’s mother, Jennifene Debassige, to admit that her son was guilty of some crime and accused her of being a liar. In a phone conversation with Basics, Jennifene described how disrespectful the police were toward her and her family, making her feel even more miserable in her time of mourning.
Salma Al-Nadhir, Alwy’s older sister, told Basics how as the months wore on and the family was becoming desperate to know what happened to Alwy, the SIU’s visits became increasingly infrequent and when they did visit, their story would change every time. This uncertainty caused much anxiety for the family, especially to Alwy’s mother who continues her fight to know what really happened. In fact, the SIU did not even have the decency to present the report to the family the day it was released.
Both families have come together to demand justice and are seeking to unite with other families who have been through similar ordeals. They are calling on all those who have similar demands and their supporters to unite and demand swift coroner’s inquiries! More importantly, that killer cops have been cleared once again by the SIU shows how useless that organization really is.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the only people capable and trustworthy of overseeing the police are THE PEOPLE themselves.
Families must unite to demand a complete overhaul of the SIU and its replacement with a truly civilian body that holds the police accountable for their crimes.
Ultimately, whether or not the Ontario government overhauls the SIU, only the action and organization of the people can put an end to police brutality. Let’s organize for Justice for Alwy and Byron, Justice for All, now!
Alwy Al-Nadhir
Byron Debassige
Canada’s Free Trade Deal With Narco-Terrorist Government Colombia
by Jeremias De Castero
Basics Issue #10 (Aug/Sep 2008)
On June 7th, 2008, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Colombian President Álvaro Uribe Vélez signed a free trade agreement, pulling both of their countries deeper into the miserable economic system of capitalism. The experience of free trade for working Canadians over the last two decades has been immiserating: jobs have been shipped to the more exploited countries of the world; our public resources, like education and health care, are being privatized; and Canada is participating in endless wars abroad.
As the deal was being worked out in June 2008, it’s interesting to note how much talk there was in the Canadian media of how Colombia has become so much more democratic under its current president Uribe. Well if this trade deal is about free trade, and we know how destructive free trade has been to the world in the past decades, then what kind of democracy is the media talking about? Let’s sum up the “democratic” advances Colombia has made under Uribe to get an idea of what kind of democracy the Canadian government has in mind:
Since Uribe became president of Colombia in 2002 under the banner of ‘democratic security’, Colombian society has become more militarized and more impoverished.
While supposedly more than 15, 000 right-wing paramilitaries have been decommissioned, most have been reformed and rearmed into other organizations. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-Army of the People (FARC-EP) have sustained their worst casualties in more than 15 years. At the same time as the Colombia military has waged war against the FARC-EP revolutionaries, the state’s war against the general population has stepped up as well.
In the last 20 years, the paramilitaries and the military forces have assassinated more then three thousand trade unionists, both leaders and ordinary workers, and hundreds of community activists, human rights workers, and citizens critical of the government.
Throughout the same period there has been an intense increase of poverty in Colombia, with an ever-increasing impoverishment of normal workers. Colombia is also the country with the second highest number of internal refugees in the world, a number that is increasing every day. This is the ‘democratic security’ that Uribe and his government offers.
Uribe himself has a long history of connections with paramilitaries, drug gangs and just general plain old corruption. When Uribe was governor of the Antioquia province, it is known that he would have nightly meetings with paramilitaries in his governmental compound, giving them lists of union leaders and other community organizers to target for assassination. His policies as the President have been a mixture of privatization, conservatism in regards to social issues and an opening of Colombia to the exploitation of foreign companies. None of these brutal and exploitative policies would be possible without the support of foreign imperialist nations like the U.S. and Canada.
Uribe’s regime receives massive aid in the form of military hardware, technology, military officers and contract mercenaries, costing the American tax payers nearly a $1 billion per year.
On March 1, 2008 the Colombian military made an incursion into Ecuadorian territory to bomb a site of FARC’s revolutionary leader Raul Reyes, killing him as well as 20 others. The affair caused an international stir as Colombia broke international law, leading to a deterioration of relations between Colombia and its neighbours, particularly Venezuela and Ecuador.
Finally, as a foreign policy chess piece, Uribe is much more friendly to the counter-revolutionary policies of American and Canadian governments. Currently, Latin Americans in almost every country on the continent are building massive revolutionary movements for socialism. Colombia is the sole country in Latin America where the fascist right-wing is being firmly propped up with the help of America and Canada, even though the Colombian people in the countryside have waged 40 years of insurgency against the government.Therefore, the Colombian military provides a sure foothold in Latin America for those foreign powers wishing to stamp out people power in the neighbouring countries.
The Canadian people have nothing to gain and much to lose from Canada’s free trade deal with Colombia. Exploited workers and oppressed people in Canada must stand alongside Colombians in their struggle against the Uribe government, because it is a struggle against the American and Canadian governments too.
Canada’s Dirty Colonial Past: The Residential Schools Genocide
by Alok Premjee
On June 11, 2008, Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized to the some 100,000 living survivors of Canada’s more than century-long Indian Residential School system. His apology touched upon some of the atrocities aboriginal children suffered, which included physical torture, sexual abuse and rape, prohibition of native languages and cultural practices, inadequate food, shelter, and medical treatment, and, worst of all, being kidnapped from their families.
These acts of violence largely destroyed aboriginal ways of living by forcefully assimilating its survivors into Canadian society. Harper admitted that the logic of the Federal Government and the Catholic, Anglican, and United churches from the 1870s onward was to forcefully assimilate the aboriginal population (which they classified as “inferior beings”) into Canadian culture. Provisions were built into the 1884 Indian Act to legally force aboriginal children to attend these schools, and to arrest and/or fine parents for resisting these terms. The Indian Act was a legal-genocidal document not only in cultural terms: with a close to 50% mortality rate in the residential schools, the government of Canada and churches in Canada oversaw and administered a physical genocide of indigenous peoples. The last of these residential schools were closed only recently in the 1990s.
Harper’s apology comes two months after the formation of the International Human Rights Tribunal into Genocide in Canada (IHRTGC), a non-governmental body established by indigenous elders. The IHRTGC has recently made a presentation to members of the United Nations, publicly revealing the whereabouts of some 28 mass graves of the child victims of the residential schools. In total, it is estimated by researchers that about 50,000 children perished in these schools.
Thus, Harper’s shallow and worthless apology wasn’t an expression of Canada coming to terms with its genocidal past, but the Canadian government responding to the mobilization of indigenous people against a long history of Canada’s genocidal policies.
In the criminal justice system, when a criminal is convicted of murder, he or she is punished accordingly. Yet, indigenous peoples are expected to accept shallow apologies for a genocide committed against them.
The only solution to this historical injustice is for indigenous peoples to reclaim their resources and their land in order to begin rebuilding their societies and self-determine their futures. Everything that has been stolen from these peoples by the Canadian government acting on behalf of the rich certainly won’t be handed back without a struggle. It’s up to indigenous communities to take back what belongs to them, as is being done all across Ontario and Canada today. Non-Native working-class people are allies to these struggles because we share a common enemy with indigenous peoples: the Canadian ruling-class that exploits us, lies to us, taxes us, represses us, and sends us to war with other peoples.
On June 11, 2008, Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized to the some 100,000 living survivors of Canada’s more than century-long Indian Residential School system. His apology touched upon some of the atrocities aboriginal children suffered, which included physical torture, sexual abuse and rape, prohibition of native languages and cultural practices, inadequate food, shelter, and medical treatment, and, worst of all, being kidnapped from their families.
These acts of violence largely destroyed aboriginal ways of living by forcefully assimilating its survivors into Canadian society. Harper admitted that the logic of the Federal Government and the Catholic, Anglican, and United churches from the 1870s onward was to forcefully assimilate the aboriginal population (which they classified as “inferior beings”) into Canadian culture. Provisions were built into the 1884 Indian Act to legally force aboriginal children to attend these schools, and to arrest and/or fine parents for resisting these terms. The Indian Act was a legal-genocidal document not only in cultural terms: with a close to 50% mortality rate in the residential schools, the government of Canada and churches in Canada oversaw and administered a physical genocide of indigenous peoples. The last of these residential schools were closed only recently in the 1990s.
Harper’s apology comes two months after the formation of the International Human Rights Tribunal into Genocide in Canada (IHRTGC), a non-governmental body established by indigenous elders. The IHRTGC has recently made a presentation to members of the United Nations, publicly revealing the whereabouts of some 28 mass graves of the child victims of the residential schools. In total, it is estimated by researchers that about 50,000 children perished in these schools.
Thus, Harper’s shallow and worthless apology wasn’t an expression of Canada coming to terms with its genocidal past, but the Canadian government responding to the mobilization of indigenous people against a long history of Canada’s genocidal policies.
In the criminal justice system, when a criminal is convicted of murder, he or she is punished accordingly. Yet, indigenous peoples are expected to accept shallow apologies for a genocide committed against them.
The only solution to this historical injustice is for indigenous peoples to reclaim their resources and their land in order to begin rebuilding their societies and self-determine their futures. Everything that has been stolen from these peoples by the Canadian government acting on behalf of the rich certainly won’t be handed back without a struggle. It’s up to indigenous communities to take back what belongs to them, as is being done all across Ontario and Canada today. Non-Native working-class people are allies to these struggles because we share a common enemy with indigenous peoples: the Canadian ruling-class that exploits us, lies to us, taxes us, represses us, and sends us to war with other peoples.
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