by Judi McLeod
July 14, 2004
Bandanna and mask-wearing activists, hobbling horses by tossing marbles under their hooves at next month’s GOP Convention, are taking their inspiration from a violent June 15, 2000 Queen’s Park Toronto protest.
Organizers of the notorious Ontario Coalition against Poverty (OCaP) had a deliberate agenda to bring down police horses at the protest, staged against then Ontario Progressive Conservative Premier Mike Harris. The public image of proud police horses whinnying in pain and fear remains in public memory, and marked the massive exercise in civil disobedience as the mother of all protests. Some 42 Toronto police officers were injured and vets worked for weeks after the protest saving nine injured horses.
according to Ontario court testimony, protesters were expected to use bicycles to discourage police horses from moving in on them.
Toronto police found notes referring to "bikes" and "marbs" in OCaP leader John Clarke’s backpack five weeks after the June 15 protest.
activists had prepared for the June demonstration remembering what Clarke called "the strength of those animals," at a 1991 Metro Convention demonstration.
For the Queen’s Park protest, OCaP members had at first toyed with the idea of using the tactics from a scene in the movie, Gandhi, where demonstrators are told they should sit down en masse, because that would keep the horses from riding at them.
" We rejected the notion of sitting down because we weren’t prepared to take the director of Gandhi’s word for it", said Clarke.
Since the horse-hobbling protest, Clarke has been active south of the border. In February of 2002, he was questioned by immigration officials when he was crossing into the U.S. from Canada to speak at a Michigan State University. Clarke was asked what anti-globalization protests he had attended and whether he is opposed to the ideology of the United States. His car was searched and he was frisked. Denied entry to the U.S., he was interrogated by a special agent with the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service. He was asked if OCaP was a cover for anarchism and if he was a socialist. The agent had a file on OCaP, leaflets from public-speaking engagements Clarke had taken part in and even the name of a man Clarke has stayed with in Chicago. Clarke was accused of being an "advocate for violence" and threatened with jail. astonishingly, the interrogator asked him questions about Osama bin Laden.
OCaP and the activists of other radical Canadian groups will be bussed by the thousands to the GOP convention at Madison Square Gardens to be on hand for the aug. 31 official day of civil disobedience.
The faces of some will be hidden behind bandanna masks.
according to an Internet explanation of the masks, entitled Black Blocs for Dummies, "Masks promote anonymity and egalitarianism. They also protect the identities of those who want to engage in illegal acts and escape to fight another day."
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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