AUT: MTL Crowd say NO TO CHARITY & STEAL HOTEL FOOD instead!

[jeff <jeff@xxxxxx>]

>>Thursday December 9, 1999
>>
>>At noon today, the restaurant in Montreal's posh hotel Chateau Champlain
>>was invaded by a group of commandos that reappropriated buffet food and
>>brought it outside to a waiting support demo. We then marched along
>>Saint-Catherine street chanting slogans, eating and giving food to
>>panhandlers and street people. In all, we were over 150 people, the
>>commandos arrived at the hotel ahead of the support demonstrators who were
>>driven in from the city's poor Centre-Sud neighbourhood.
>>
>>To chants of "la charite ne guerit pas la povrete!" ("charity is no cure
>>for poverty") and "la solution: revolution!" demonstrators passed around
>>elegant dishes saying "fruit salad here!... artichoke salad anyone?... " A
>>lot of the food was wisely gathered in plastic shopping bags by members of
>>the commando.
>>
>>Today's action was a success given that we stayed a step ahead of the
>>police, managing to get in and out of the hotel and not being surrounded by
>>cops. This is contrast to a similar demo staged two years ago at the Queen
>>Elizabeth hotel, when the "Commando-bouffe" raided the buffet, got the food
>>out, but a mass of folks were surrounded by the cops and arrested. This
>>year's "Commando-bouffe: take 2" was called by the Comite des Sans-emploi
>>Mtl-centre (Committee of the unemployed of central Mtl).
>>
>>The pleasant success of the action, covered by a fair number of TV radio
>>and print media, is a sign that activists have done good work in
>>anticipating problems that came up at the last food-grab. A clearer
>>distinction was made between the support demo, which arrived just after the
>>commando had gotten out of the hotel, and the commando.  The commando
>>people got to the targeted hotel separately and in several small groups.
>>People didn't stay near the hotel, but moved into the street towards
>>Ste-Catherine street, a major downtown artery. Copwatchers and activist
>>media people were there to record and dissuade any police violence against
>>people.
>>
>>Given the near zero-tolerance police reaction to demonstations in this city
>>lately, this radical action/ demo was also remarkably well pulled off. By
>>1pm, we had reached the Radio-Canada TV/ radio station in the east-end,
>>and demonstrators began dispersing northwards into the downtown.
>>
>>These food-grab actions are done during the Christmas season, when we hear
>>all this crap about helping the poor and homeless. The poor should just
>>help themselves, which is what they did today.
>>
>>Considering that the amount of food reappropriated was relatively minor,
>>and that it is likely that the Chateau Champlain hotel would need to press
>>charges (wouldn't that look nice during the holiday season...) the
>>likelyhood of charges and arrests seems small. However, we shouldn't speak
>>to soon, we are increasingly living under harsh police-state conditions.
>>This was a direct attack on private property. We can only wish that actions
>>become larger, more frequent, more politicised.
>>
>>We urge people in other places to start organising such simple, but
>>powerful, actions like today's food-grab. This is direct-action, jam the
>>system, fuck it up, rob the rich!
>>
>>-Notre derniere guerre, La guerre sociale!-
>>-The last war, the class war!-
>>
>>-Assez, c'est assez, La paix sociale, c'est terminee!-
>>-Enough is enough, social peace: it's over!-
>>
>>For info telephone the comite de sans-emploi, (514) 596-7094
>
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