NOTE: This letter was sent out publicly by Kimball Cariou, a Vancouver activist and the editor of the Communist Party of Canada Newspaper.
FTT More threats and intimidation
From Kimball Cariou
Tue Apr 3 2007
This evening I went to an event at the Unitarian Church at 49th and Oak, to hear Fernando Duque Gomez, the director of the Canada Desk for the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP). The event was part of a tour organized by the Canadian Network on Cuba and the Che Guevara Volunteer Work Brigade, with local sponsors including Vancouver
Communities in Solidarity with Cuba, Canadian Cuban Friendship Association, Free the Cuban Five Committee-Vancouver, and the Social Justice Committee of the Unitarian Church of Vancouver.
I brought two things to hand out to people arriving at the event: a flyer about the April 16 picket which I am helping to organize at the Copeman Healthcare Centre, and copies of the package of materials which were handed out by supporters of the John Graham Defense Committee at the
Aboriginal Friendship Centre on Saturday, March 31. One of my friends joined me outside the meeting room to hand out copies of People’s Voice newspaper.
For a few minutes everything was peaceful, as we chatted with people arriving to hear the speaker. But then, Ali Yerevani, one of the leaders of Fire This Time, came out and demanded a copy of the Defense Committee materials. Sensing his hostility, and because I did not have many extra copies, I declined to give him one. At that point Ali Yerevani said, “Stop handing those out or I’ll beat the shit out of you.”
I replied that we were on the property of the Unitarian Church, not his home, and that I would hand out leaflets to anyone I wanted to. I tried to continue giving out materials, but Ali kept trying to grab them out of my hands. So I went inside with my remaining copies, and went around handing them out to some people who had arrived before me. Ali and other members
of FTT (Shannon Bundock, Aaron Mercredi) followed me around the room, intimidating and threatening me, and demanding to be given a copy. Eventually I gave them one and continued trying to speak to people. Suddenly they were back ordering me to stop handing it out and leave the room, on the grounds that it allegedly contains slanders against Mercredi. I replied that they had no authority to make me stop or to throw me out, and that I was not afraid of Ali Yerevani, who was constantly pushing right up against me in a bullying manner. Finally I was finished with all the Graham mateirals, although I still had some copies of my flyer for the Copeman demo. By then, one of the FTT members went to get Nino Pagliccia, the leader of the Che Brigade. Nino’s
proposal was that I could hand out the flyers outside the room. The FTT response was this was totally unacceptable – that the materials could not be circulated at the event in any way, inside or out. I told them that since I had none left, it didn’t matter. At that point, I thought it best
to leave.
The immediate political issue behind this attempt to bully me is that the FTT was the force behind the recent “Justice for Leonard Peltier” speaking tour by Bob Robideaux, during which Robideaux repeatedly accused John Graham of murdering Anna Mae Aquash. John Graham is still in Vancouver, fighting extradition to the US on charges for this murder, since he cannot expect anything close to a fair trial in the United States. In effect, Robideaux is supporting the attempt by the U.S. state to seize John Graham, and the FTT and its subordinate groups are de facto on the same side. Therefore they were enraged to see John Graham Defense Committee materials handed out at an event where they were in total control.
I know Ali Yerevani quite well from his time in the StopWar peace coalition, which he and other FTT members joined in late 2002 immediately after their explusion from the Anti-Poverty Committee. From the beginning, Ali and Ivan Drury led a determined attempt to seize control of StopWar, using tactics of disruption, division, and intimidation at every meeting. I vividly remember Ivan Drury – a large, muscular man – shaking his fist right in the face of the much smaller Mable Elmore as she desperately tried to chair one such meeting while things spun out of control. Finally the majority of groups involved in StopWar decided that we had three options – fold up the coalition, turn it over to FTT, or expel them. We chose the latter option, which was
supported by a 24-2 vote of participating organizations.
This experience left many of us in fear of the FTT group. For a long time, I refused to even be in the same room as Ali Yerevani or Ivan Drury. The episode in which these two assaulted a former FTT member at his workplace intensified this fear. The ongoing attempts by the FTT and subordinate groups to achieve total hegemony over various political struggles have also driven many activists to the sidelines or in search of safe zones for political work.
But I refuse to live in fear of these thugs any longer. At the March 17anti-war rally organized by StopWar, I confronted several of their supporters to ask why FTT front group MAWO claimed to have organized the event – a complete fabrication. None of them had any real answer, of
course. But the last straw for me was their bullying against John Graham supporters during the recent Robideaux tour. I have reached the conclusion that if others have the courage to confront this group, I can learn from their example. For that, I thank those who stood up to speak
their minds and ask questions.
One final note, just for the record. At one point tonight during the FTT attempt to make me leave, I was accused of acting as a racist white man. It is true that I have lived my 52 years on this earth with white skin privilege, which has never brought me riches, but has certainly
protected me from the abusive racism of the capitalist system. But it is also true that my father’s family origins are Cree Metis. Living in the deeply racist society of northern Saskatchewan during the 1920s and ’30s, they were able to pass as white in the community of Meadow Lake. For decades most of the family denied their Metis origins, but during the 1980s many of my uncles and cousins began to reclaim their heritage and rejoin the Metis nation. Much of this story can be read in my cousin Warren Cariou’s book, Lake of the Prairies. The racist Canadian state
tried to wipe out my father’s true family background, but I know who I am, and I don’t care what people like FTT say.
Kimball Cariou
