Eighteen Pacific Rim leaders posed in their shiny, leather Roots jackets given as a gift from Prime Minister Jean Chretien at the University of B.C. Museum of Anthropology on Nov. 25, 1997. It was the obligatory "class of 1997" photo at the end of the biggest, most-expensive private meeting in Canadian history.
Ugly images of RCMP officers pepper-spraying anti-globalization and pro-human rights protesters are instead the everlasting image of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders' summit.
"There was remarkably little violence or property destruction by anybody on the protest side," said UBC law Prof. Wesley Pue, editor of Pepper in Our Eyes: The APEC Affair. Pue said it heralded a new era of North American protests, foreshadowing the 1999 "Battle in Seattle" during the World Trade Organization conference. During APEC, well-organized dissenters employed modern methods for the first time, like cell phones to rally supporters and the Internet to spread their ideas.
The summit was organized by Robert Vanderloo and his deputy Mary McNeil (now B.C.'s minister of state for the Olympics) and drew 75 internationally protected people. A dozen -- like U.S. president Bill Clinton -- required the highest-level of security available.
Some 23,000 people were accredited, including 8,600 delegates and media, 1,000 volunteers and 3,000 police.
The security operation, coordinated by RCMP Supt. Wayne May, had to ensure the foreign dignitaries' safety and security from their Vancouver International Airport touchdown to takeoff and everywhere in between.
A team of 90 motorcycle cops led motorcades and closed streets so the dignitaries could glide safely between nine hotels, Vancouver Convention Centre, B.C. Place Stadium and, of course, UBC.
"They imposed a tight and intimidating security zone in the middle of campus featuring miles of fencing, helicopters buzzing classrooms and rooftop snipers," remembers anti-globalization protester and UBC law student Alissa Westergard-Thorpe. "I don't think they expected that nothing gets out a very apathetic student population like having to deal with a line of police in order to get your coffee. So that was actually something that worked in organizers' favour which is something I imagine might happen around the Olympics as well."
Friction between cops and students began in low-tech fashion. Police removed a Tibetan flag from the Graduate Student Society Building and arrested law student Craig Jones for refusing to remove paper signs from a security fence outside the Green College residence.
Jones was locked in the same Richmond RCMP jail cell as Jaggi Singh, the radical student leader whose arrest on specious grounds a day earlier prompted Jones to act.
"I hadn't expected my three little signs that said, 'democracy, human rights and free speech' would actually get me arrested. I thought I'd hang them up and get on with my day," said Jones, who resisted police orders to go to a less-visible, designated protest area.
More than 2,500 protesters gathered at noon. Organizers planned to walk to the barricades near the museum and give themselves up peacefully in front of the media. Police lost control. Dozens of people were pepper-sprayed. Forty-eight protesters were arrested but released.
Veteran RCMP Staff Sgt. Hugh Stewart commanded 170 officers assigned to quick response teams. Among them was then Cpl. Gary Russell "Bud" Mercer who, like Stewart, was armed with a pepper spray canister. A dozen years later, Mercer is an assistant commissioner and heads the Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit, which includes five times more cops than APEC had.
Ted Hughes' Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP inquiry evaluated 52 complaints of police wrongdoing and, in many cases, found the conduct "inconsistent with the Charter and not appropriate for the circumstances."
Crown counsel didn't recommend charges for any of the RCMP members.
Hughes' 2001 report recommended proper training of police assigned to public events, protesters be given a "generous opportunity" to see and be seen and that police "brook no intrusion or interference" from government officials.
Critics said Hughes' inquiry is incomplete, because Prime Minister Jean Chretien avoided testifying about allegations his office ordered the RCMP to do whatever possible to prevent the embarrassment of Indonesia's Suharto and China's Jiang Zemin, leaders of countries with dismal human rights records.
With the 2010 Winter Olympics around the corner, Pue said the provincial and federal governments have missed a golden chance to balance the interests of police and citizens. A Public Order Policing Act would have provided legal safeguards to help avoid a repeat of APEC.
"Security is necessary and so are Canadian freedoms," Pue said. "The governments do need to address their minds to this impossible situation police are put in of creating large, defenceless security perimeters with no statutory justification."
Read more at thetyee.ca.
