Report Back - Activists from AW@L, Six Nations and across SW Ontario Block the Olympic Spirit Train

Winnie Small (locked down) and Eric Lankin of AW@L in protest of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games on stolen Native Land.

('click' headline for full post and more pictures)

It has just all set in. The non violent action to block The Spirit Train was a resounding success as our goal to have national media coverage that actually spoke about the true issues surrounding the Olympics were met. Hopefully we have inspired others to take action as well. More and more people are gaining an understanding that the Olympics in general, and more specifically the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, are no longer about sports and culture, they are about profit for a small elite and wide scale environmental destruction through development of Stolen First Nations Land.

On Sunday October 12th, Activists from AW@L, Six Nations, Guelph, London, Kitchener, Toronto, Waterloo and Hamilton Blocked the Olympic Spirit Train on the tracks as it approached Toronto, by locking down on the tracks and occupying a railway bridge. This highly coordinated and well executed non-violent action was taken in solidarity with the Olympic Resistance Network of British Columbia, Native Youth Movement of the Coast Salish People, and The Anti-Poverty Committee of Vancouver, who have called for actions against the Spirit Train and all 2010 Olympic related activities.

The northbound Lanes on highway #27 saw the above message

Canadian Pacific have called the action a "serious safety risk", though no train was within 5 kilometres of the blockade as scouts were tracking the progression of the train from Sudbury. Also, the lock down team had full safety control of the situation by using a self-release device. CP followed their pre-set safety precautions and no one was ever put in danger.

The situation was tense at times as the activist liaison negotiated with the police (first York Police then CP police), but after a three and a half hour blockade, and the arrival of independent media from the Real News Network, and corporate media journalists, a peaceful de-escalation was completed and no one was arrested.

ZigZag's Olympic Thunderbird spreads resistance.

The 2010 Winter Olympics are being held on unceded Coast Salish First Nations land and are causing environmental destruction through venue, road and real-estate development. The Games are also leading to a massive expropriation of social housing units in once of Canada's most at risk communities - the downtown east side of Vancouver.

Further, these games are diverting tax money from social and environmental programs so the small elite of land developers that have permeated through the Vancouver Organizing Committee may pad their bank accounts.

Additionally, the 2010 Winter Olympics are being used as a catalyst to expand the police state in Canada. Those made homeless because of the gentrification of Vancouver's downtown east side, and those already living on the streets are being criminalized by the implementation of 'no sit, no lie, laws. Also, Security costs for the Olympics are likely to exceed 1 billion dollars as a planned force of more than 12,500 police, mounties, and army will converge on Vancouver. It is quite likely that we will also see American troops on our soil resulting from the February 2008 signing of the Civil Assistance Plan by the Harper Government.

Surprisingly the York Regional Police cameraman did not like being photographed anymore than the protesters he was photographing. Tough. If we had a multi-million dollar security budget, we would be able to identify this complacent fascist.

Broad Coalitions are forming and the resistance to the 2010 Olympics is growing. This action is an escalation of the protest rallies that have met the Spirit train at many of its stops including, Port Moody, Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Sudbury. The spirit train itself is an escalation of the dissemination of Olympic propaganda and with each new escalation initiated by Olympic organizers and sponsors, there will be an escalation in the non-violent resistance to the 2010 Winter Olympics.

For more information about the 2010 Olympics and the resistance visit:
http://peaceculture.org/drupal/olympics
-and-
http://www.no2010.com