-Caveat Lector- Police arrest six in summit plot <http://www.theglobeandmail.com/gam/National/20010419/UBOVEN.html> by MARK MacKINNON AND RHÉAL SÉGUIN With a report from Reuters News Agency Thursday, April 19, 2001 QUEBEC - Quebec police and the RCMP say they have thwarted a plan by a violent cell of activists to use explosives to disrupt this weekend's Summit of the Americas in Quebec City. Police said at a press conference that they arrested two Quebec City-area activists on Tuesday night, and yesterday morning arrested four more people, including a member of the army reserves and a former Canadian Forces soldier, in Montreal. Officers from the Sûreté du Québec and the RCMP said smoke bombs, slingshots and gas masks were seized. Also found were pyrotechnic devices the military uses to simulate grenades during combat exercises, police said. "It's not abnormal for this equipment to be in the hands of military personnel," said spokesman Captain Francis Bolduc, since the equipment is used during exercises. "What's not normal is for it to be in the hands of civilians." Other seized items included baseball bats, bags of steel balls, shields and antiglobalization literature, as well as red flags and a helmet emblazoned with the hammer-and-sickle symbol of the former Soviet Union. Among those arrested were army reserve member Serge Vallee, 21, and former Canadian Forces member Alex Boissonneault, 22. Police said an active member of the Canadian Forces, who has not been charged, is subject to an internal Forces investigation in connection with the alleged plot. Also charged were Jonathan Vachon, 19, Victor Quentin, 21, and Roman Pokorski, 22. The three shared a residence in Verdun, Que. Mario Bertoncini of Montreal was also arrested. Police still have a warrant out for Pierre David Habel, 21, also of Montreal. Charges laid against the six men include conspiracy to commit mischief likely to endanger life and possession of explosive substances with the intent to use them. Provincial police Inspector Robert Poeti said that "precise acts at precise times in precise places" were planned. "We will have no tolerance for people coming to Quebec to cause problems and commit criminal acts." The arrests raise the spectre of the violence in Seattle and Prague in the past two years. Both the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle and last year's International Monetary Fund meeting in Prague were hit by protests that became running battles with police. The arrests came less than 12 hours after two antiglobalization protest leaders said they would not condemn any acts of violence by those who march with them. French activist José Bové and Council of Canadians chairwoman Maude Barlow will be among the leaders taking to the streets with thousands of protesters this weekend to show their opposition to a proposed free-trade area of the Americas, a key subject of the talks at the summit. Saying governments and free markets inflict "institutional violence" by leaving out the world's poorest people, Mr. Bové told a press conference yesterday morning that the 34 leaders, presidents and prime ministers attending the hemispheric summit should be blamed for any violence that erupts. He said a three-metre-high fence erected around the centre of the city would only heighten tensions. "The violence is to put a wall all over the city. The first violence is free market. Free market is killing millions and millions of people all over the world now," he said. The fence itself withstood a legal challenge yesterday when a Quebec Superior Court judge ruled that it is both legal and justified under the Canadian Constitution. Judge Gilles Blanchet acknowledged that the summit's security measures breached the Charter of Rights and Freedoms but were necessary to protect citizens and summit participants. The security measures "restrict in an important way two fundamental freedoms guaranteed by Article 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in this case the freedom of expression and the freedom of peaceful assembly," Judge Blanchet ruled. "The court was persuaded that the restrictions were reasonable limits and demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society." Montreal lawyer Marc Tremblay was seeking an interim injunction to allow him to hold a peaceful demonstration within the security perimeter next to the site where the heads of state will meet. Judge Blanchet said that the violence in Seattle and Prague justified summit organizers' apprehensions of similar violence. He said protesters were given space to demonstrate outside the perimeter and that to let Mr. Tremblay protest near the site would have forced the court to extend that right to every other citizen. Mr. Tremblay said he would not appeal the ruling. "The only winners here are not so much the government authorities but the small minority of hooligans who are the reason why the perimeter was set up. They are the real winners," he said. Rocco Galati, lawyer for the Defence of Canadian Liberty Committee, which supported the case, said he would appeal the ruling because it sets a dangerous precedent. "It is unheard of in our system that the police have this sort of power," Mr. Galati said in an interview. The portion of the downtown core of Quebec City behind the fence will be locked down tonight as more than 6,000 police, 1,200 armed-forces personnel and hundreds of customs officers and other security staff move in. Passes will be needed to enter the perimeter, and access to the summit site, the airport and nearby hotels where heads of state will stay is restricted. Yesterday, participants at the Peoples' Summitan alternative forum for protesterscalled the security measures and police action excessive. Mr. Bové, founder of the French protest movement Confédération paysan, an international symbol of resistance against globalization, called the fence a "wall of shame" and said it will provoke people into challenging the tight security measures. Mr. Bové, a sheep farmer, rose to international fame when he vented his frustration with globalization by trashing a McDonald's restaurant in France. Canadian officials, aware that he intended to come to Quebec, first planned to keep him from entering the country, then changed their minds. Ms. Barlow, whose organization is strictly pacifist and more involved in research than rioting, said she disagrees with the use of violence but does not blame those who resort to it. "We don't feel it's our job to tell others around the world how they are to react to defend themselves when their livelihoods are literally taken away from them," she said. Staff Sergeant Mike Gaudet, an RCMP spokesman, said the items seized yesterday were to be used at Saturday's anti-FTAA protest to launch attacks that could endanger security officers and other protesters. "There's a potential for harming people, especially for demonstrators," Staff Sgt. Gaudet said. In an unrelated incident, an American minor was arrested in Quebec City for allegedly being in possession of a knife and pepper spray. 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