Of Torture, Transfers, and Travesties of Justice
by C. L. Cook
 Looking at the Leap Year news today, all I can say is: "Thank Christ it only happens once every four years!" (insert rimshot here).
But seriously, folks. Tomorrow and tomorrow, and tomorrow will be more of the same I fear, because February 29th is everyday lately. An even more demented Hell than made famous in Bill Murray's Groundhog's Day, we witness the same glaring injustice and astonishing immorality, replaying as if on a loop. Round and round we go, each revolution a tightening spiral into an abyss of utter barbarity.
What can we make of it? If the philosopher is right, and each day is emblematic of everyday, thus signifying the potentiality of the entirety; what does today tell us of where we human Earthlings are, and where we're likely to shore up, given the prevailing current? For Canadians, three stories of torture, transfers, and a travesty of justice serve grim instruction.
For those unfamiliar with this site, Pacific Free Press has
featured the story of Tre Arrow many times over the last year. Tre has
lived a life of limbo these past three and more years, stuck in
Victoria's Wilkinson Road Jail. "Wilkie" is what we homies call the
local lock-up. Tre has been fighting extradition to his native United
States, where he is wanted by the F.B.I. The fibbers say Tre is an "Eco
Terrorist" and poses a threat to the values and safety of the Untied
States of America. They want Canada's government to hand him over,
pronto.
The Canadian government has an ignominious history in
regards the Federal Bureau of Instigation. The F.B.I. lied about
evidence proving Leonard Peltier's involvement in the shooting deaths
of two of their agents, (that is, Leonard Peltier of AIM fame, the
American Indian Movement). Off went Leonard to an American
penitentiary, where he sits now, coming on thirty years later.
That
Peltier's case was fraught with judicial irregularities, and his
sentencing sparked a world-wide outcry that continues yet is of little
matter it seems to the guardians of justice in Canada. When again those
most egregious betrayers of the law, the F.B.I. returned with new
fabrications and "evidence" proving the guilt of political targets held
in Canada and wanted for prosecution in America, they were not arrested
for breaking Canadian law, or asked for an explanation of their lying
past, or even told to "Take off, Hosers!"
The agents were greeted, and
their requests again granted.
Tre Arrow was transfered today,
from Wilkinson Road to Portland, Oregon, where he faces charges that
could see him spend the rest of his life in a Federal Penitentiary for
crimes he could not possibly have committed, but as with Leonard
Peltier, innocence is no defense against the law in America for the
truly politically incorrect.
Of more immediate concern is Tre's health.
After more than three years in a cement square, surrounded by
criminals, and denied decent food (until a hunger strike that very
nearly finished him changed the minds of prison administrators) the
kind of treatment Tre, a pacifist tree-hugger, will receive down south
is beyond imagining.
And Tre is a part of a trend here.
Another
AIM alum, John Graham was recently taken by the F.B.I., implicated they
say in another murder. This time, evidence of F.B.I. case tampering and the intimidation, and coaching of "witnesses" is common knowledge
to everyone, save the Canadian officials who signed Graham over to the
Feds. For some it seems the Indian Wars never end.
Canada has
filed no complaint against the F.B.I.'s false testimony submitted in the Peltier case that I'm aware of, and I doubt there will be
apologies forthcoming to either Tre Arrow or John Graham, though they
are as innocent of the crimes for which they have been framed as
Leonard Peltier is of his. That these innocents are political
prisoners, persecuted not for anything they did but for who they are
does not qualify as an argument for refuge in Canada, for some at least.
Last
year, around this time of year, a local naturalist and environmental
activist was walking in the woods on the outskirts of town. He noticed
the trees were marked with surveyors tape, the tell tale sign of
impending disaster. The result of that day in the woods hike is a
classic British Columbia "War in the Woods," tale, where:
-
"Developers
more interested in personal profit than notions of environmental
sustainability are pitted against hippies, welfare recipients, and
assorted bleeding hearts who object to seeing their way of life
sacrificed on the alter of greed and stupidity - in pictures @5!" Cue
commercial. Cut.
A tree-sit was established, and the stand-off
engaged. Last week, reports were filed here on the Charter challenging
charge of her Majesty's Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who
storm-trooped their way into the annuls of Canadian law enforcement,
when a mere force of sixty or seventy armed and armoured personnel,
replete with dogs and climbing teams, pulled off the dawn assault
against the "enemy" encampment of a half-dozen sleeping pacifists.
Dozens
of police marked post along the picket for days after, while the
feller-buncher knocked down the woods the protesters would protect from
the construction of a highway overpass; this one a sort of private
Autobahn for the rich and famous expected to take up residence in the
tony Bear Mountain development, designed to be built on the bones of a
killed forest. Or, so the developers would have it.
In a story
that grows more suspect by the day, this Leap Year's morning witnessed
a construction crew cum mob, replete with sympathetic television
reporters tipped to the intentions of this band of goons to march on
the small group of protesters displaying the temerity to stand in the
rain at the site of the great gash on the side of the Trans Canada
highway that was just recently the forest home to animals uncared for
and a small group of humans, with banners and signs determining that
the last of the wild lands on the south island cannot be allowed to fall to so
low an estate as the clear-cut and run, mountain removal methods the crew
at Len Barrie's Bear Mountain employ.
The camera shows these
latter day brown-shirts tearing up the signs and attacking the peaceful
demonstration. The police show up late, and file no charges against the
emboldened yahoos. Contrast this to the four arrests of tree-sitters
and supporters, and the mayor of Langford, Stewart Young's threatened
"promise" to sue protesters for the massive RCMP bill the city has
received for the first Battle of Bear Mountain.
Early reports
from insiders claim the mob's demonstration was "on the clock," the
prospective land barons presumably picking up the intimidation tab
rather than burden further embattled fellow-traveller, mayor Young with
more high-priced police assistance. Friendly local teevee coverage of
the criminal activity gone so far uncharged catches it all, in all its
splendid, inherent ugliness. Watch a little bit of Berlin circa 1932,
here and now at time of writing.
A Quantum leap perhaps,
but stupidity got dumber this Leap Day in Langford. And the media
played along, painting the victims of today's serial assaults as
perpetrators of unsubstantiated and unchallenged smears by way of claims
of vehicle vandalism. Even if true, it does not justify the ugly parade
put on by Les Bjola's crew, a not only ill-advised, but illegal stunt.
The
business press reports today a number of law suits being launched
against Len Barrie's company concerning contractual differences between
the distant parties profiting most the destruction of the woods
northwest of Victoria, British Columbia.
Also today, the
Canadian government officially announced the resumption of it's
suspended practice of handing over the unfortunates taken into military
custody during raids and policing in Afghanistan. The administration
expressed confidence that the judicial system and prisons, cited
previously for human rights abuses and systemic torture, have been
fixed. No mention of American violations, but we can presume Canadian
rendition of detainees into U.S. hands will "legally" resume; if they
ever did stop.
Tomorrow will stop being February 29th, but it
will be more of the same anyway:
Those rowdy boys will be back up on
the mountain, "cuttin', pavin', and buildin' on it all." The Israeli
Defense Forces will offend again, (casualties coming daily in dozens
these last days) and the killing will continue - unchallenged in the
courts of nations. America's contenders for the drivers seat next turn
around will continue a feigned ignorance of the issues most desperately
needing addressing, their communications to the constituents becoming
an esoteric fart and tap-dance performance, a language leading ultimately to
nothing but a bashing, as described by the late, great American, Kurt
Vonnegut.
March the first is the first full day Tre Arrow will
spend in U.S. custody.
After all we've learned of how profoundly
dysfunctional the American Justice Department is in 2008, Canada has
obligations under international treaty, and in the service of humanity,
to wear its ideals on the sleeve, and extend a helping arm where legitimately sought.
The American prison system is cruel and unusual
punishment. It is not just; it is criminal. Sending prisoners into the
maw of American Justice, as practiced in Guantanamo Bay's Camp X-ray,
or at Afghanistan's Bagram Airbase, or any of the home-grown prisons,
where so many of the functionaries of those horrors over there come
from, is a violation of all this country has said, for at least three
generations, it stands for.
Canada to resume "prisoner transfer" in Afghanistan -
Update 1 - 1/03/08
A second source has confirmed that up to 300 Bear Mountain workers are
being offered double-time to show up and disrupt the rally scheduled for 7 am
Friday Feb 29 at Spencer Road and Highway 1, Langford. Parking is likely to be
very challenging, as the workers apparently don't carpool, bike or take the bus
the way the tree huggers do.
Keeping in mind the ugly history of violent assaults by paid
employees against forest defenders in the Elaho Valley, the Walbran, and
elsewhere, I want to emphasize again that our people have taken a pledge of
non-violence. While civil disobedience may be against the law (the charges have
not been proven in this case), individuals who take it on are compelled by their
conscience. We hope discerning editors, writers and producers will be aware of
the difference between those acting selflessly and peacefully for the defense of
the environment and those throwing their weight around for money.
Thank you,
Zoe
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