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FEBRUARY 16, 1983

 

THE OTHER PRESS

 

New West Five...

guilty until proven innocent? as

Jan. 20/83, 10 A.M., a brood-
ing West Coast morning. A
brown pickup ts heading north
from Vancouver on the rugged
Squamish Highway. Inside the
front are two women and a
man, in back under a canopy
are two men. On an isolated,
curving section of the road the
pickup is flagged down by a

“Dept. of Highways road
crew.’' A large Highways
dump truck is blocking the
road, but all is apparently
routine: Just another small
rock slide.

As the pickup stops, another
dump truck pulls in from be-
hind. Instantaneously, the
doors of the pickup are flung
open by the ‘‘road crew" and
the three people inside are for-
ced to the ground with guns to
their heads. At the same time,
the canopy is charged, the
back window smashed in, and
a powerful blast of CS tear gas
is power shot inside.

will the real terrorists please stand up

Five Vancouver \ People are
now awaiting trial on more
than a dozen charges, each
arising from an alleged series
of high-profile urban guerilla
actions undertaken in Canada
in 1982 and supposedly in
planning for 1983.

Whether they can get a fair
hearing on the charges - even
by the establishment’s own
rules of ‘‘justice’’ - is now in
question, given the intensively
orchestrated campaign of vil-
ification waged against them
by the authorities, with the
more than willing compliance
of journalistic hangers-on.

The style and manner of the
arrest of the five (as described
in their collective report
above) were an early clue that
the authorities hope to trans-
form the legal proceedings in-
to a political pageant and
morality play aimed at alarm-
ing the citizenry and putting
the damper on the distinct-
ively-autonomous West Coast
political movements that have
flourished since the mid-
1970's.

By their actions since the
arrests, including intensive

The two men scramble for
Jresh air and find a dozen wea-
pons trained on them. They
surrender and are dragged
through the broken window to
the wet pavement and hand-
cuffed. SWAT personnel are
still pouring from the dump
truck and from a Hydro van
parked nearby. Wearing fully-
camouflaged combat fatigues,
bullet-resistant vests and gas
masks, and armed with CAR-
15 assault rifles and riot shot-
guns, they look like soldiers.
As the situation stabilizes,

more fully-combat outfitted —

police begin to appear from
the bushes and rocky hills at
both sides of the road. More
firepower, abundant overkill,
capitalism's domestic com-
mandos. Five people are ar-
rested and charged with crim-
inal activities resulting from
alleged membership in an an-
archist action group.

surveillance and harrassment
of friends of the defendants,
and of activists from Van-
couver to Toronto, the author-
ities clearly see the possibility
for the political show trial on a
scale absent from Canada
since the days of the urban
guerilla Front de Liberation du
Quebec a decade ago.

The trial itself could last six
months once it gets started -
ey in late spring or next
all. The authorities have told
the news media that much of
their case will involve the
fruits of extensive surveillance.
- apparently wire taps and
room bugs - but they have

‘been exceedingly slow in out-
‘lining the particulars of the

charges to the defense, as
they are required to do.
Meanwhile, the five, who
have pleaded innocent to all
charges, face an extended stay
in the remand units of the
dungeon-like Oakalla Prison
(Lowser Mainland Regional
Correctional Centre) in sub-
urban Burnaby, awaiting the
outcome of the interminable
bail process.

While the five sit in Oakalla,

 

   
 

-The five people cha

 

a
Julie Belmas

 

 

Gerry Hannah

 

pooy uadoC wor payulides

 

 

yh

BR

&£
Nodge

 

the police and Crown (pros-
ecution) have been employing
time-tested techniques -
rumour, speculation, innu-
endo, bald-faced lies - to at-
tempt to implant in the minds
of the public the spectre of an
“‘anarchist’’ terror conspiracy
composed of a network of
‘‘cells’’ across Canada bent
on a rampage of destruction.
Never mind that the defend-
ants have said they do not
identify with the label
“‘anarchist’’ or any other
ideological straitjacket - that
would just derail the media
bandwagon.

The five charged: have all
been politically active in the
Vancouver area for a number
of years on such issues as en-
vironmentalism, peace, native
and prisoner’s rights, fem-
inism, and popular culture.
They are: Julie Belmas, 20;
Gerry Hannah, 26; Ann Han-
sen, 29; Doug Stewart, 25; and
Brent Taylor, 26.

Each is charged with 12 to 15
counts, including the dyna-
mite bombing of a B.C.Hydro
electric substation on Van-

‘couver Island; the fire bomb-

ing of three Red Hot Video
porn outlets in Vancouver sub-
urbs; conspiracy to bomb an
oil exploration icebreaker
under construction in» Van-
couver and the Canadian
Forces base at Cold Lake,
Alta., where the Cruise
missile is slated for testing;
possession of restricted fire-
arms and explosives; and con-
spiracy to rob a Brinks truck.

Conviction on some or all of
the charges could result in
sentences of up to 25 years in
prison.

“Tt solunds like they have
dragged out every unsolved
crime to clean up their
books,’’ said one exasperated
defense lawyer when the list
of charges was read out.

As well, police in Vancouver
and Toronto have consistently
hinted they want to tie the five
into the dynamite bombing of
a Litton Systems Ltd. plant in
Toronto where parts for the
Cruise missile are made. But
as of press time (Feb. 18), the
police have been content to
merely implicate the defend-
ants via the media without
bothering to put anything in

 

ged

   

 

Ann Hansen

The next heating is set for March 1st at 222 Main Street at 2:00 p.m.

 

Doug Stewart

 

Brent Taylor

 

 

 

writing.

That's the way it’s been since
Day One. The morning after
the arrests, the front-page
headlines were secreaming,
“‘roundup nets anarchist cell,
and press reports, quoting no
one in particular, declared the
““group is one of a number of
loosely-knit anarchist cells
with connections across Can-
ada.’’ One radio station, ob-
viosly infected with the en-
thusiasm of the day, told its
listeners that an ‘‘eight month
campaign of bombing across
Canada came to an end today
with the arrest of five per-
sons.”’

But those were just the Dis-
tant Early Warning signs.
Later that same day came a
police press conference. The
arresting officers, represen-
ting Vancouver city police, the
Royal Canadian Mounted Po-
lice (Mounties) and B.C.’s Co-
ordinated law Enforcement
Unit (CLEU), proudly unvailed
an arsenal of weapons ranging
from automatic rifles to an
emptied-out E.T. lunch pail,
leaving the distinct impression
that all the stuff had been
seized in the pickup at the
time of the arrests, or, at the
very least, from the homes of
the accused. In fact, as of this
writing, no evidence has been
presented as to where the
stuff came from, or what, its
connection to the accused Is, ~

When the defense lawyers
complained that the ‘“‘ev-
idence’ was being presented
to the press and the public
before the trial-and even be-
fore the defense had a chance
to see it-one official spokes-
person just shrugged and

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