American anarchists say they're forced to move their protest against the G-8 summit in Kananaskis to Ottawa because activists in Calgary are too disorganized.
Some radicals attending the 2002 North American Anarchist Gathering said the failure of their Alberta brethren to create a Solidarity Village and a dearth of information about protests planned for Calgary and Kananaskis has turned them off travelling to the summit.
Anarchists like Grant Hayes of Salinas, Kan., will instead take to the streets of Ottawa to join a massive Take the Capital rally planned for Parliament Hill during the G-8.
"Calgary has been badly planned, so everyone is pulling out and going to Ottawa," Hayes said during a break in protest planning sessions.
"You need strong organization for a protest and . . . (Calgary activists) haven't updated their Web sites in months."
More than 250 anarchists from across the United States and Canada attended the weekend anarchist gathering.
Hayes and several of his Kansas comrades had, until recently, intended to travel to Calgary to try to disrupt the June 26-27 summit.
Nicole Burton, a 17-year-old anarchist originally from Smithers, B.C., but now based in Lawrence, said she too is abandoning plans to protest in Calgary.
"I personally wanted to go to Calgary," Burton said. "However, my group's decision is we'd rather go to Ottawa . . . where we know there's been proper organization, rather than jumping into Calgary and not knowing what's going on.
"There's just a certain amount of information that is needed when a gathering has the possibility of violence."
Anarchists at the Kansas gathering are also dismayed about the massive security measures being taken to protect the world leaders at the G-8.
The summit site at Kananaskis Village will be surrounded by a 6.5-kilometre security zone and patrolled by as many as 1,500 RCMP members and up to 5,000 Canadian Forces soldiers.
The anarchists who criticized the Calgary organization said they feel sympathy for Alberta activists who are struggling to organize amid what's being billed as the largest security operation in Canadian history.
Attempts by Calgary activists to create a Solidarity Village for up to 15,000 protesters have so far been thwarted at every turn. In the past several months, activists have been denied land near the summit site on the Stoney First Nation, shut out of provincial campgrounds near Kananaskis and denied access to city parks in Calgary.
Last week, a spokesman for the T'suu Tina First Nation on Calgary's southwest corner said the band would consider offering land to the protesters.
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