Cablegate: Local Activist Promises Peaceful Demonstrations

This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

261811Z May 05

UNCLAS HALIFAX 000120

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PREL ASEC PARM CA
SUBJECT: LOCAL ACTIVIST PROMISES PEACEFUL DEMONSTRATIONS

1. (U) Consul General met recently with Tamara Lorincz, head
of the Halifax Peace Coalition. Lorincz called to request the
meeting after CG sent her a USG publication on the
Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference.

2. (SBU) Lorincz, who is by any measure the most active and
successful anti-U.S. demonstration organizer in Halifax, assured
CG that HPC demonstrations against USG policies would continue
to be peaceful, as they have been in the past. (FYI:
HPC-organized demonstrators were orderly during the President's
visit in December and the group's periodic marches around
Halifax and to the Consulate in recent years have always been
calm. END FYI.) She said that violence by protestors would
not be tolerated and that USG personnel and property would never
be in danger from HPC members. (COMMENT: We have never felt
any physical threat from HPC demonstrations, which tend to be on
the small side by global standards. This is significant since
HPC is the main -- indeed only -- group in Halifax to have
organized anti-U.S. protests of any significance since Operation
Iraqi Freedom. During the President's visit HPC took control of
coordinating the demonstrations and to its credit kept other
groups to a strict non-violence policy. END COMMENT.)

3. (SBU) Lorincz had, as expected, a long critique of U.S.
policies, ranging from the fairly mainstream to the totally
far-fetched. She had just returned from New York where she had
participated in NGO meetings on the margins of the NPT RevCon
and stressed that she worked closely with U.S. peace activists
and was not anti-American, but was strongly opposed to many USG
actions. CG identified and corrected factual errors at a number
of points during Lorincz's comments (example: "The U.S. is one
of only two countries that have not joined the germ warfare
convention."), but this did not seem to deflect her from the
main line of thought that USG foreign and defense policies --
stretching as far back as the Truman Administration and perhaps
beyond -- were dangerous and wrong.

4. (SBU) No minds were changed during the 90 minute meeting,
but there is now an open channel of communication available.
The personal assurance from HPC's head that the group's
demonstrations will continue to be peaceful is welcome. For the
record, CG declined Lorincz's request that he quit his job and
"join us to work for peace."

HILL

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