OTTAWA – Protesters are accusing police of using undercover agents to provoke violent confrontations at the North American leaders' summit in Montebello, Que.
Such accusations have been made before after similar demonstrations but this time the alleged "agents provocateurs" have been caught on camera.
A video, posted on YouTube, shows three young men, their faces masked by bandannas, mingling Monday with protesters in front of a line of police in riot gear. At least one of the masked men is holding a rock in his hand.
The three are confronted by protest organizer Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada. Coles makes it clear the masked men are not welcome among his group of protesters, whom he describes as mainly grandparents. He urges them to leave and find their own protest location.
Coles also demands that they put down their rocks. Other protesters begin to chime in that the three are really police agents. Several try to snatch the bandanas from their faces.
Rather than leave, the three actually start edging closer to the police line, where they appear to engage in discussions. They eventually push their way past an officer, whereupon other police shove them to the ground and handcuff them.
Late Tuesday, photographs taken by another protester surfaced, showing the trio lying prone on the ground. The photos show the soles of their boots adorned by yellow triangles. A police officer kneeling beside the men has an identical yellow triangle on the sole of his boot.
Kevin Skerrett, a protester with the group Nowar-Paix, said the photos and video together present powerful evidence that the men were actually undercover police officers.
"I think the circumstantial evidence is very powerful," he said.
The three do not appear to have been arrested or charged with any offence.
Police confirm that only four protesters were arrested during the summit – two men and two women. All have been charged with obstruction and resisting arrest.
Veteran protester Jaggi Singh, who is helping to circulate the video as widely as possible, said all four of those arrested are known to organizers and are genuine protesters.
"But we see very clearly in that video three (other) men being arrested . . . How do (police) account for these three people being taken in, being arrested? Where did they go?" Singh said.
"I have no hesitation in saying they were police agents . . . and they were caught red-handed."
Singh, a member of the Montreal-based No One is Illegal, believes the agents were meant to provoke a confrontation and give the police an excuse to use some of their "toys," such as tear gas and rubber bullets.
"To a certain extent it's self-fulfilling logic. You provide police with this kind of equipment and they end up using it and one way to justify it is to plant some people that toss a rock or two."
Neither the RCMP nor the Surete du Quebec would comment on the video or even discuss generally whether they ever use the tactic of employing agents provocateurs.
"I cannot answer your question because I don't have the information," said Const. Kane Kramer, a spokesman for the RCMP at the summit.
Late Tuesday, photographs taken by another protester surfaced, showing the trio lying prone on the ground. The photos show the soles of their boots adorned by yellow triangles. A police officer kneeling beside the men has an identical yellow triangle on the sole of his boot.
lol! It had to be a triangle. It had to be coward or traitor yellow.
Great video...maybe they ARE cops? I have always wondered why these goobers ALWAYS wore masks at these events...like any of us would know who the hell they were anyway? Unless their neighbors were to see them on television and recognize them as cops, FBI, whatever...a very credible hypothesis.
Remember...G-d saved more animals than people on the ark. www.siameserescue.org
They pushed through the police line and were saved before the legit activists could unmask them!
This reminds me of CHEECH & CHONG'S UP IN SMOKE, when Stacy Keach and his narc squad "borrowed" Hare Krishna outfits but kept on their shoulder rigs and patent leather cop shoes!
The agents provocateur wanted to be filmed with rocks for the news (and courts) so the cops would be "justified" in the liberal application of force. (actually, plausible deniability is all the keyhole they need to squeeze through for judges to set aside civil judgments against the police, and criminal charges are rare because the Attorney General of Quebec runs interference for police when they are "doing The Lord's work")
Police worldwide learned a lesson from the video in Miami where the cops shot retreating protesters in their backs with (sometimes) non lethal projectiles. (Free Trade Agreement of the Americas in Miami in November 2003)
Although the Miami cops didn't have any trouble because of it (other than some minor embarrassment for Chief John Timony) the film is useful for training in case cops want to kill protesters in the future.
The training imperative is, "Make sure there is film footage of violent protesters armed with skull crushing rocks!" (wink wink)
Well Mr. Orwell, your spirit and that of PT Barnum are alive and well and haunting the halls of government.
Lincoln said, "You can fool all of the people some of the time". After that fails Bush and other NWO sock puppets say, "fuck em".
The day may come that if a single protester has a Swiss Army knife in his knapsack BushCo's secret service detail will hose them with Dubya's woobie, the GE Minigun.
The cops and feds are no longer constrained by the doctrine of appropriate, measured, reasonable, proportionate escalating force in response to " threats".
Think "Tiananmen Square" and "tanks versus assault sneakers".
I have always wondered why these goobers ALWAYS wore masks at these events...like any of us would know who the hell they were anyway?
For some reason the children of govt bigshots seem to enjoy the freedom of pretending that their destinies aren't manifest, and they aren't already guaranteed a future in govt service, In The City Of London, LLP, or in The UN.
For instance, if you're a legacy-the 3rd generation to head for the FBI Academy and you want to get laid in college, then you'd better wear a mask so you don't embarrass Gramps and Dad and have to squirm at the oral interview at Quantico. ("I dressed in rags, pretended I was poor and nobody liked mee")
A few years ago when GREENPEACE was here at the annual Dupont stock holders' greedfest, I talked to some of the "activists" from all over the world.
After a hard day of warring on Freon and other ozone killers, they headed back to their hotels, flipped on the AC and popped open some cold brewskies and called home for more money from their successful corporations/parents.
Many of today's activists are tomorrow's Wall St. swindlers and NWO functionaries, like Jerry Rubin for example.
