(Message forwarded from the G8-announce e-mail list. Info: http://g8.activist.ca/)
Solidarity Village as originally conceived will not happen. We had hoped to organize a campground in the Kananaskis Valley that would accommodate the thousands of you coming to resist the G8 and make this movement stronger in the face of escalating state and corporate repression.
We, like many people, have faced coordinated efforts by various levels of the state and by various security forces to undermine our so-called rights and to frustrate our attempts to organize a creative and positive response to the drab greed of imperial arrogance and hypocrisy.
We know that a combination of unspecified factors has made it near impossible to use any land in or near Kananaskis Park this June. We have deployed a group affiliated with the Revolutionary Albertan Researchers Extremely Busy In Real Digging (RAREBIRD) to launch an investigation of said factors. The results will be released as soon as they are available.
While maintaining a political commitment to events as they unfold in Kananaskis, the individuals and organizations on the Solidarity Village steering committee agreed that our energy and resources would be better spent working in concert with Calgary organizers and pre-existing Calgary groups to help coordinate events and mobilize together for a convergence in Calgary.
We are striving to blend much of the original programming of Solidarity Village into events and smaller venues in and around the city of Calgary, and smaller venues are coming out of the woodwork.
We want to apologize for the lack of communication over the last few months; things have been changing constantly and the final decision to move our focus to Calgary was only made last week.
We have applied to the City of Calgary for the use of several public parks in town which could be used as inclusive spaces to hold events being planned by other groups and to host the speakers, workshops and performers who we had invited to the original Village. We are also putting pressure on the City to allow public institutions like the University to open up sleeping space. We are still waiting for a decision from the City of Calgary, but both the Mayor and the administration are dragging their feet and there has been no commitment.
Our applications were discussed at the May 22nd meeting of the City G8 Planning Team, attended by the mayor, city councillors, the CEO of the City and representatives from the Calgary G8 Summit Management Office. Rather than making a political decision on the issues, the mayor passed the responsibility back to the Administration.
The mayor of Calgary has opposed our use of a city park because he thinks that public spaces are not appropriate venues for "political" events. Calgary folks may remember that the mayor used a public space to launch his election campaign with an 800-person barbeque - clearly, some political events are more equal than others... but that's not the issue at hand.
The bottom line is that we want to help with the infrastructure and coordination of all actions in Calgary, sanctioned or not. We have been working with the Calgary Street medics, the legal collective, Alberta Indymedia, and the folks who are coordinating the convergence space to try to integrate into the ongoing Calgary organizing. We will be in Calgary as part of the week of action, and the events that we have been planning will take place whether or not public space is approved.
Please get in touch at solvil@activist.ca if you have questions, suggestions or ideas or need clarification. Our website will be fully updated as soon as possible.