>X-Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Unverified)
>From: Communist Party of Canada <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: CPC Statement on RCMP Plan to Intern Communists
>Mime-Version: 1.0
>Status:
>
>Dear comrades and friends,
>
>The Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Canada has
>released the following statement in response to recently-released documents
>which show that the Canadian government and its RCMP security police had
>planned to arrest and intern Communists in the event of a third world war.
>The Canadian Press news report which brought these sinister plans to light
>is also appended below.
>
>Central Office,
>Communist Party of Canada
>
>****************
>Statement of the Central Executive Committee,
>Communist Party of Canada
>January 28, 2000
>
>The Communist Party of Canada has condemned the existence of secret plans
>of the Canadian government to have the RCMP imprison Communists and their
>children in designated "internment camps" in the event of a third world
>war. This plan, which had been drawn up in the late 1940s, was only
>"officially abandoned" in 1983.
>
>Although this 'internment plan' specifically targeted Communists and their
>families, it represented a flagrant disregard for the civil and human
>rights of Canadians as a whole. That is why the these revelations should
>concern all democratic-minded Canadians.
>
>This chilling plan, the details of which are only now coming to light, was
>entirely consistent with the prevailing anti-communist policies of the
>Canadian State, which for decades has sought to isolate and weaken the CPC.
>
>Ever since its formation in 1921, the Communist Party has faced continued
>harassment from police and security forces. Tim Buck, our Party's long-time
>general secretary, and seven other Party leaders were arrested and
>imprisoned during the 1930s under the notorious Section 98 of the Criminal
>Code which outlawed so-called "subversive organizations." An attempt was
>later made to assassinate Tim Buck while in prison.
>
> Many Communists were also interned during the Second World War; party
>offices and meeting halls were closed; its printing presses and other
>assets seized; and its press and publications banned. Following WWII, the
>Party and its activists suffered state-organized persecution for several
>decades during the "Cold War" period.
>
>These state-sponsored attacks on our Party were part of a broader assault
>on the trade union movement, as well as on activists in the peace, native
>and other progressive movements and organizations. The wrongful and illegal
>activities of the RCMP were documented and exposed by the MacDonald Royal
>Commission back in the early 1980s. 'Dirty tricks' included unlawful spying
>and wiretapping, theft of documents, destruction of property, the use of
>'agent-provocateurs,' etc. In the late 1970's, bugging devises were
>uncovered throughout the CPC headquarters in Toronto. When this sinister
>and illegal spying on the CPC -- a registered political party in Canada --
>was exposed, the RCMP arrogantly responded by demanding that their
>"property" be returned!
>
>The findings of the MacDonald Commission forced the government to transfer
>security and intelligence operations from the RCMP to the newly-formed
>Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS). However, CSIS has
>continued to employ surveillance practices and other assorted 'dirty
>tricks' against the CPC and other lawful organizations and individuals ever
>since.
>
>This specific plan to intern Communist leaders in the event of a third
>world war reflects the long-standing but patently false presumption that
>Canadian Communists were somehow 'agents of a foreign power' - namely, the
>Soviet Union - and therefore constituted a 'threat to national security.'
>
>Canadians have every reason to be angered and dismayed that successive
>Canadian governments had contemplated such draconian and illegal measures
>up until as recently as 1983, especially in light of the "official"
>repudiation of the racist internment of Japanese Canadians during WWII.
>
>Particularly horrendous was the intention to round up and intern the
>children of Party activists. This shows that the deep-seated paranoia and
>hatred of Communists by the Canadian government knew no bounds.
>
>The Communist Party calls upon the Canadian Government to make public all
>documents relating to this sordid affair, including the actual lists of
>individuals whose civil and human rights were to be violated in the name of
>"national security." Furthermore, the CPC demands that the Canadian
>government publicly renounce the decision of prior governments to consider
>such anti-democratic action, and officially apologize to the CPC and to the
>families of all those individual Communists who were targeted under this plan.
>
>The civil and human rights of all Canadians are enshrined in the Charter of
>Rights and Freedoms. Canadians must demand that these fundamental rights
>must be strictly respected and obeyed, especially by governments and their
>police and security services.
>
>****************
>
>RCMP's secret internment plan
>
>By Dean Beeby -- Canadian Press
>January 24, 2000
>
>The Mounties planned to round up more than 1,000 "subversives" -- including
>young children -- at the outbreak of a third world war and place them in
>internment camps, newly disclosed documents show.
>
>The Cold War-era plan, abandoned only in 1983, targeted leading Communists
>who were to be locked inside three federal prisons in Ontario and Alberta.
>
>"The present number of persons who would be arrested as subversives in the
>event of a national emergency are 588 males and 174 females," says a 1970
>memo from the RCMP.
>
>"The type of person involved is not likely to be violent, dangerous or
>inclined toward escaping."
>
>The documents, obtained under the Access to Information Act, show that the
>war internment plan was first drawn up in the late 1940s but was revived
>and expanded from 1969 to 1971.
>
>The RCMP had 762 people on their to-be-interned list in 1970, including 13
>children under the age of 11 and 23 between the ages of 12 and 16.
>
>Most were from the Toronto area, though no names are included in the
>released material.
>
>The group was primarily made up of people deemed "prominent Communist
>functionaries" by an RCMP Security Service program known as Profunc.
>
>Those under 17 were likely the children of the target internees, and were
>referred to disparagingly by the Mounties as "red diaper babies".
>
>The plan was to round up these so-called subversives quickly and place them
>in temporary custody while three federal prisons were emptied of their
>inmates.
>
>A prison in Drumheller, Alta., was to be used for the west, and another in
>Warkworth, Ont., for the rest of the country. Women, however, were to be
>placed in the Joyceville, Ont., penitentiary, near Kingston.
>
>"Mothers with babies at breast will be accommodated in the Joyceville
>Institution hospital area and . . . their children must in the first
>instance be placed with relatives or with Children's Aid Societies," says
>one 1969 document.
>
>The existing prison population across the country would be thinned out by
>freeing non-violent inmates with less than a year left in their sentences.
>By shuffling the remaining prisoners, the three Alberta and Ontario prisons
>could be vacated within 10 days to become internment camps.
>
>The Mounties had approval to lock up 762 people in 1970 but argued they
>would likely add more after cabinet invoked its extraordinary powers under
>the War Measures Act.
>
>"There are approximately another 300, although not approved at present,
>they would no doubt be approved in time of war."
>
>Rules for the camps were detailed in an RCMP manual that outlined
>procedures for everything from mail censorship to punishment.
>
>"Punishment Diet Number One shall consist of water as required and one
>pound of bread per day," says an edition of the manual from the 1960s.
>
>"Punishment Diet Number Two shall consist of water as required and, for
>each day, eight ounces of bread for breakfast . . . four ounces of oatmeal,
>eight ounces of potatoes and salt, for dinner and eight ounces of bread for
>supper."
>
>The internment plan was abandoned at the order of the justice minister in
>1983, the documents show. The reasons are not specified, though it may have
>been linked to the creation in 1984 of the Canadian Security Intelligence
>Service which took over many RCMP Security Service functions.
>
>The revival of the Communist internment plan in the late 1960s may have
>been the Mounties' response to student protests, black power and Quebec
>separatist agitation, says a historian.
>
>"There's this mindset going into the 1960s where Communism is a top
>threat," said Steve Hewitt, a professor at the University of Saskatchewan
>who is writing a book on the RCMP and subversion.
>
>"And the RCMP Security Service is like an elephant charging in one
>direction. . . . It's very difficult for it to change its mindset, to get
>away from this red-and-white world and realize there are these other threats."
>
>A retired Security Service officer said Canada faced a genuine threat from
>Communist subversives, but not so serious as to require an elaborate
>internment plan.
>
>"It was a serious case of the RCMP Security Service carrying a huge
>tar-and-feather brush much too far," Peter Marwitz said from Ottawa.
>
>In one of the darkest moments in Canadian history, Ottawa interned
>thousands of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War for fear they
>might help Japan. The internees received an apology and compensation in 1988.
>
>
>
>
>
>***************************************
>Communist Party of Canada
>290A Danforth Ave.,
>Toronto, Ont. M4K 1N6
>416-469-2446 (voice)
>416-469-4063 (fax)
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>http://www.communist-party.ca
>
__________________________________
KOMINFORM
P.O. Box 66
00841 Helsinki - Finland
+358-40-7177941, fax +358-9-7591081
e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.kominf.pp.fi
___________________________________
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subscribe/unsubscribe messages
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
___________________________________
