Director was En Route to Controversial Nonviolence Training

By TFC Staff
April 2, 2001

Philadelphia -- Training for Change director George Lakey was detained at the Canadian border on Friday, March 30, by immigration officials who were apparently trying to prevent him from leading a controversial nonviolence training in the national parliament a few days later.

He was released after television crews descended on the airport seeking details of his detainment, which appeared to have become a major embarrassment for the government. The training was held as planned.

Lakey was en route to Ottawa, the Canadian capital, where he was scheduled to lead a training for a coalition protesting an upcoming meeting on globalization. The training might have been routine had it not been slated to take place in the House of Commons itself, an arrangement made -- perfectly legally -- by two maverick members of parliament.

Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien objected to the plan to conduct a civil disobedience training in government committee rooms. But Chretien was apparently unwilling to cancel the room reservation, which had been made legally by two movement allies who are members of Parliament.

The training was sponsored by a coalition of environmental, labor and religious groups opposed to the Free Trade of the Americas Area, a trade agreement being negotiated among all American states, except for Cuba. The coalition invited Lakey to lead the training, and he invited a Canadian-U.S. team of trainers to join him. The other trainers were Daniel Hunter, Betsy Raasch-Gilman and Karen Ridd.

The coalition was planning a "citizen search and rescue" of Ottawa government offices on April 2. The protest was a symbolic attempt to get the text of the FTAA agreement, which the Canadian government has refused to release to its own citizens.

George Lakey was nearly denied entry to Canada, however. He was detained for four hours at the Ottawa airport while his baggage was searched, all his notes and papers photocopied, and his FBI file accessed by Canadian immigration officials. Authorities released him only after the airport was besieged by reporters and television crews seeking details about his detainment, which seemed to have become a major embarrassment for the government.

"It was the most rigorous going-through that I have experienced since Checkpoint Charlie in cold-war Berlin in the early 1960's," Lakey told The Ottawa Citizen.

The controversial civil disobedience training went ahead April 1 in the House of Commons just as protesters had planned, and was carried live by Canadian television.

Dozens of television cameras jostled for position as the 250 participants role-played nonviolent tactics. The scene provided some odd images: one participant, shown playing a police officer and wielding a rolled-up newspaper as a baton, turned out to be the leader of the New Democratic Party. Other nationally known progressive leaders found themselves caught up in the excitement of training exercises.

Lakey's fellow trainers arrived without incident. Karen Ridd is a veteran trainer and member of Peace Brigades International from Winnipeg, Canada. Betsy Raasch-Gilman, of Saint Paul, Minnesota, has trained anti-globalization activists in Seattle, Washington, D.C., and Cincinnati. Earlham College student Daniel Hunter has led trainings in Nagaland and Burma as well as in the U.S. Ridd and Raasch-Gilman are TfC Training Associates.

Looming over the training and the next day's protest was the upcoming Summit of the Americas, a government meeting scheduled for April 20-22 in Quebec City, at which over 30 government heads will confer on the shape of the FTAA. The proposed trade agreement has been criticized as "NAFTA on steroids."

The FTAA will expand the North American Free Trade Agreement to the rest of the Americas, except for Cuba. Nurtured by the Clinton-Gore Administration, the FTAA would not only make the rich richer, the poor poorer, and exacerbate racism, but it could accelerate cultural domination by the U.S.

The Summit of the Americas is expected to attract 10,000 or more protesters, and the Canadian government has militarized its response to what is sure to be an overwhelmingly nonviolent protest.

The "Search and Rescue" action April 2 was meant to symbolize the people's right to see the text of the agreement. It was also designed to set a nonviolent tone ahead of the more difficult conditions of Quebec City, where the government may precipitate violence in order to justify its expensive military-style preparations.

Although the main work of the TfC team was the afternoon training -- a kind of national media-relayed teach-in on nonviolent action -- the team also assisted two other workshops preparing affinity groups for the April 2 civil disobedience.

Lakey's airport detention ended up benefiting civil libertarians in Canada, as national media coverage of the airport incident highlighted the unmistakable drift toward repression as the Canadian government defends the secret preparations for a new economic order in the Americas.

A final incident rubbed it in: the night before leaving Ottawa, the training team stopped at a convenience store to buy some celebratory ice cream. A police officer having coffee recognized Lakey, tailed the car and stopped it for no apparent reason. After bantering about the protests, the officer searched travel and auto documents without finding anything amiss.

After being detained for about half an hour, the group was released. Daniel Hunter, an African American team member, reminded the group that such harassment is routine for his people. He also acknowledged that, when harassment is expanded to include political convictions, the oppression gains added weight and dimension.

Copyright © 2001 Training for Change