An attempt was made by TASC to keep war criminal Henry Kissinger out of Canada in 1999. When the Canadian government failed to act, we had to take things into our own hands and attempt the arrest. What follows are the seven steps we took, from outreach through trial.
Step 1: Writing to Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworth, calling on him to enforce Canadian Law and keep Kissinger out.
Kissinger Out of Canada
A nonviolent coalition dedicated to respect for human rights Box 73620, 509 St. Clair Ave. West, Toronto, ON M6C 1C0, (416) 651-5800
April 2, 1999
Lloyd Axworthy
Minister for External Affairs
125 Sussex Dr.
Lester B. Pearson Bldg.
Ottawa, ON K1A 0G2
Dear Lloyd Axworthy,
We are writing to you regarding the potential entrance to Canada of a known war criminal, Henry Kissinger, scheduled to appear in Toronto May 18 at the Diners Club Speakers Forum (contact: James F. Keating, President and CEO, Speakers Forum, The Leaders Lecture Series, Diner's Club International -- Enroute, 1235 Bay St, Ste. 400, Toronto, ON M5R 3K4). As you are no doubt aware, events in the United Kingdom have shown us that, as in the case of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, leaders cannot be held immune from prosecution under international law for crimes they have committed.
While much of the world is concentrating on war crimes in the Balkans, we must not pull the wool over our eyes when it comes to prosecution of war criminals at home. Canada's War Crimes Act is very clear in this regard: those who have committed or aided and abetted the commission of war crimes or crimes against humanity are not to be allowed entry into Canada.
Kissinger's record of the past forty years is worth an inquiry from your department: his role in military coups, support for torture states, the threatened use of nuclear weapons, and saturation bombings of civilian populations is well documented.
As you are no doubt aware, residents of Toronto come from all parts of the world; many were forced to flee their countries of origin because of policies and regimes propped up and directly aided by Kissinger. As such, his appearance as a welcome guest in Toronto is one which insults those who experienced pain and suffering as a result of his criminal actions.
To cite one example, it has long been established that Kissinger was one of the key players driving the coup which placed Augusto Pinochet -- recently arrested in the U.K. for commiting crimes against humanity -- as dictator of Chile in 1973. Kissinger's arrogance towards Latin America was best revealed in his statement to the Chilean foreign minister Gabriel Valdes: "Nothing important can come from the South. History has never been produced in the South. The axis of history starts in Moscow, goes to Bonn, crosses over to Washington, and then goes to Tokyo. What happens in the South is of no importance."
Kissinger chaired the 40 Committee, responsible for approving all sensitive covert operations, including the campaign to overthrow and assassinate Chile's democratically-elected President, Dr. Salvador Allende. Kissinger's arrogance is reflected in his statement, "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch country go Communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people."
A U.S. Senate investigation showed that, shortly after Allende was elected, Kissinger ordered a "cold-blooded assessment" of the "pros and cons and problems and prospects involved should a Chilean military coup be organized now with U.S. assistance." In a meeting with Nixon, Kissinger, and the CIA director, terms such as "make the economy scream", "full-time job -- best men we have", and "$10,000,000 available, more if necessary" were used to describe efforts to overthrow Allende. One Nixon administration official, quoted in The Cold Peace, said "Through 1971, plans for killing Allende became firmer. The talk of the bazaar was that 'Henry [Kissinger] wanted it.'"
Kissinger saw a democratic Chile as a "contagious example" which could "infect" Latin America and Europe. As Secretary of State, Kissinger helped cement Pinochet's position in Chile, and the resulting years saw unspeakable crimes committed against the Chilean people, including the torture, disapperarance and murder of tens of thousands of students, labour leaders, writers, artists and anyone suspected of harboring democratic thought. Now that Pinochet faces trial, those who aided and abetted the coup should also be held responsible.
The March 7, 1999 Guardian Weekly goes a step further in releasing recently declassified documents which show Kissinger went to great lengths to cover up human rights atrocities in Chile These files are part of the Spanish court case against Mr. Pinochet, and show that Kissinger refused to denounce a plan by Chile and other repressive regimes to set up the notorious terrorist Operation Condor, whose aim was the assassination of high-profile opponents of the Pinochet dictatorship.
The case of Chile is but one example. Kissinger support for the invasion and subsequent genocide in East Timor, support for apartheid in South Africa, for repression in Brazil and Argentina during the 1970s "dirty wars", the secret bombing of Cambodia, Laos, and threatened use of nuclear weapons against Hanoi during the U.S. invasion of Vietnam are but a partial list of nefarious Kissinger deeds.
Because of these and many other examples, we urge you to take immediate action to block the entry to Canada of Kissinger. If time does not allow for such action, we would ask that you detain Mr. Kissinger upon his arrival in Canada such that a tribunal inquiry may be established to hold him accountable for his crimes, just as the Spanish courts have attempted to proceed against mr. Pinochet.
We look forward to your prompt reply regarding this matter. In the meantime, we would like to refer you to Canada's War Crimes Act [35-36 Elizabeth II, Chapter 37), aid and abet section, which clearly shows that the actions of Kissinger in support of Augusto Pinochet make him subject to arrest and deportation upon his entry into Canada.
Indeed, as you yourself have stated, "Ultimately, the only way you are going to get people to stop committing atrocities is if they recognize that someday, somewhere, some place, they will be held accountable for them." As a strong supporter of war crimes tribunals in the Balkans and Rwanda, we would hope that you would apply an equal standard to crimes committed by "our side" such as those committed by Kissinger.
As we approach the year 2000, we would hope that the concept of human rights would be worth more than a passing comment or lip service, especially when it comes to one of the worst human rights violators of the second half of the 20th century.
Peace
Matthew Behrens, Laurel Smith and Brent Patterson
Kissinger Out of Canada
February 23, 1999
James F. Keating, President and CEO
Speakers Forum, The Leaders Lecture Series
Diner's Club International -- Enroute
1235 Bay St, Ste. 400
Toronto, ON M5R 3K4
(The letter to Axworthy, above, is essentially what we sent to Keating)
Step 3: Remember that old idiom, try and try again. We were not the first to try and nab Kissinger. Frequent Nobel Peace Prize nominee Philip Berrigan recalled:
"Henry Kissinger was a war criminal. We had discussed a 'citizen's arrest,' which seemed very much in the American grain. When the judicial system fails to prevent someone from committing egregious acts of violence, citizens have a right to take action. Kissinger strutted and fretted his bloody hour. No one could stop him. He wasn't accountable to the American or Vietnamese people. He had no respect for international law, or the law of God." War resister Father Philip Berrigan, "Fighting the Lamb's War"
The Crimes of Kissinger
or how he learned to hate an "excess of democracy"
"Power is the great aphrodisiac"
Kissinger Out of Canada
By inviting Henry Kissinger to Toronto for their May 18 luncheon speaker, the Diner's Club implicitly expresses its approval for the tactics of mass murder, torture, saturation bombing, economic strangulation of a whole people, and limited nuclear war for which Kissinger is well-known across the globe.
Henry Kissinger's crimes are too numerous to list here. However, a few examples illustrate his long history of dismissing human rights and decency as simple trifles which interfere with the games of politics and war. A member of the Trilateral Commission, Kissinger believes the 1960s suffered from an "excess of democracy."
Kissinger's involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity from Vietnam and Cambodia to Greece and Argentina, from Chile and Brazil to Angola and Iraq, are well documented in the works of Noam Chomsky, Seymour Hersh, Donald Freed, William Blum and others, including the Pike Report of the U.S. Congress. See the second page for some references.)
At a time when refugees fleeing repression face incredible roadblocks to coming to Canada, the ease with which Kissinger -- who has sponsored and supported dozens of such torture states -- is able to travel to Canada is astonishing.
Inviting him to Toronto insults the thousands of people who have had to flee Kissinger-created and sustained torture states for the relative security of Canada.
What happens in the South is of no importance. A Coup in Chile
It has long been established that Kissinger was one of the key engines driving the coup which placed Augusto Pinochet -- recently arrested in the U.K. for committing crimes against humanity -- as dictator of Chile in 1973. Kissinger's arrogance towards Latin America was best revealed in his statement to the Chilean foreign minister Gabriel Valdes: "Nothing important can come from the South. History has never been produced in the South. The axis of history starts in Moscow, goes to Bonn, crosses over to Washington, and then goes to Tokyo. What happens in the South is of no importance."
Kissinger chaired the 40 Committee, responsible for approving all sensitive covert operations, including the campaign to overthrow and assassinate Chile's democratically-elected President, Salvador Allende. Kissinger's arrogance is reflected in his statement, "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch country go Communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people."
A U.S. Senate investigation showed that, shortly after Allende was elected, Kissinger ordered a "cold-blooded assessment" of the "pros and cons and problems and prospects involved should a Chilean military coup be organized now with U.S. assistance." In a meeting with Nixon, Kissinger, and the CIA director, terms such as "make the economy scream", "full-time job -- best men we have", and "$10,000,000 available, more if necessary" were used to describe efforts to overthrow Allende. One Nixon administration official, quoted in The Cold Peace, "Through 1971, plans for killing Allende became firmer. The talk of the bazaar was that 'Henry [Kissinger] wanted it.'"
Kissinger saw a democratic Chile as a "contagious example" which could "infect" Latin America and Europe. As Secretary of State, Kissinger helped cement Pinochet's position in Chile, and the resulting years saw unspeakable crimes committed against the Chilean people, including the torture, disappearance and murder of tens of thousands of students, labour leaders, writers, artists and anyone suspected of harboring democratic thought. Now that Pinochet faces trial, those who aided and abetted the coup should also be held responsible.
Kissinger was also a key supporter of the torture states which arose, with U.S. assistance, throughout Latin America in countries like Brazil and Argentina. Indeed, in 1979, facing mounting pressure from human rights groups such as Amnesty International, the Argentine military regime invited Kissinger as part of a P.R. tour. Kissinger told supporters of the military junta "that it was sometimes necessary for a government to suspend civil liberties in order to overcome organized terrorism." (Voices From A Secret War).
"Kissinger is just an extreme example of what Jefferson called 'an aristocrat,' with utter contempt for democracy and complete dedication to service of power." Noam Chomsky.
The 1975 Indonesia invasion of -- and subsequent genocide in -- East Timor was delayed a few hours so as not to embarrass President Ford and Kissinger, who were visiting Jakarta. Noam Chomsky writes, "The Indonesia invasion of December 1975 following several months of military actions that were well-known to Australia, the US and Britain was an unprovoked act of aggression, a war crime, which makes all participants war criminals, from Henry Kissinger on down."
Despite a UN condemnation and call for the immediate withdrawal of troops and for "all States to respect the territorial integrity of East Timor as well as the inalienable right of its people to self-determination," Secretary of State Henry Kissinger increased the flow of arms to Indonesia and instructed the UN ambassador Moynihan to, according Chomsky, "to block any diplomatic reaction to Indonesia's criminal aggression, adopting the stance that Australian diplomat Richard Woolcott...admiringly called 'Kissinger realism,' a technical term for cowardly thuggishness and criminality."
Moynihan writes in his memoirs "The Department of State [under Kissinger] desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. This task was given to me, and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success." In the following few months some 60,000 people had been murdered -- 10 percent of the population.
As one of the most powerful men in the United States, Kissinger never shied away from the potential use of nuclear weapons. In his memoirs, Kissinger equates courage with an ability to "face up to the risks of Armageddon," for example, "go[ing] to the brink over Pakistan." In response to tensions in the Middle East in 1973, Kissinger ordered a worldwide alert for U.S. nuclear forces, with B-52s loaded with 20-megaton nuclear bombs taking off from Guam, US aircraft carriers loaded with nuclear weapons heading toward the Mediterranean, and U.S. anti-aircraft missiles raised to firing position in West Germany. The goal of this action, among many others, was, as Kissinger wrote, "to ensure that the Europeans and Japanese did not get involved in the diplomacy regarding the Middle East." Kissinger informed the Soviet ambassador, "This is a matter of great concern. Don't you pressure us. I want to repeat again, don't pressure us."
Although the crisis thankfully subsided when the Soviets declared they had no intention of going into the Middle East, it was evidence that Kissinger (who was the basis for Dr. Strangelove) had no problem with using the most destructive weapons on the planet like chess pieces, with no regard for human lives. Indeed, in 1969, he was, with Nixon, involved in the so-called "Madman: ultimatum to Hanoi, threatening to drop nuclear weapons to end the U.S. invasion of Vietnam. Thanks to popular dissent against the war, Nixon concluded that he could not keep the country together if he went ahead with these plans.
Kissinger's views on nuclear war were expounded in Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (1957). He praised the idea of "limited nuclear war," declaring "Everything depends on leadership of high order, personal initiative and mechanical aptitude; qualities more prevalent in our society than in the regimented system of the USSR." For a capitalist nation, he wrote, "the most productive form of war is to utilize weapons of an intermediary range of destructiveness, sufficiently complex to require a substantial productive effort, sufficiently destructive so that manpower cannot be substituted for technology, yet discriminating enough to permit the establishment of a significant margin of superiority. It would seem that the weapons systems appropriate for limited nuclear war meet these requirements."
The recent headlines about the Kurds in Iraq have historical roots which implicate Kissinger in criminal activity as well. In the early 1970s, the Shah of Iran (whose regime had one of the worst human rights records in the world), supported by Kissinger, hoped to use the Kurds to undermine the government of Iraq. The Nixon administration, under the guidance of Kissinger and the CIA, provided the Kurds with weaponry but, according to a Congressional report, "none of the nations who were aiding them seriously desired that they realize their objective of an autonomous state." One CIA memo stated clearly there was never any intention of helping the Kurds achieve an autonomous state, and that "Neither Iran nor ourselves wish to see the matter resolved one way or the other." The Pike Committee investigating CIA abuses concluded "Even in the context of covert action, ours was a cynical enterprise." As a result of these actions,. at least 35,000 Kurds were murdered, and 200,000 Kurdish refugees fled to Iran, but neither Iran or the US gave them adequate humanitarian assistance. "In fact, Iran was later to forcible return over 40,000 of the refugees and the United States government refused to admit even one refugee into the United States by way of political asylum even though they qualified for such admittance." Pike report
In a National Security Study Memorandum, Kissinger concentrates on South Africa as a strategic asset, not as a criminal apartheid regime. "The whites are here to stay and the only way that constructive change can come about is through them. We can, by selective relaxation of our stance toward the white regimes, encourage some modification of their current racial and colonial policies...We would maintain public opposition to racial repression but relax political isolation and economic restrictions on the white states..."
On Vietnam: "The capacity to destroy proved difficult to translate into a plausible threat even against countries with no capacity for retaliation."
"Bombing and mining [harbours] had greatly improved Hanoi's manners."
"A sudden withdrawal [from Vietnam] might give us a credibility problem."
"Our entry into the war had been the product of a naive idealism that wanted to set right all the world's ills and believed American goodwill supplied its own efficacy."
1960s protesters were "stimulated by a sense of guilt encouraged by modern psychiatry and the radical chic of upper middle-class suburbia."
The Vietnamese, by resisting the invasion of their land, generated in Kissinger "that impotent rage by which the Vietnamese have always tormented physically stronger opponents."
Toronto Action for Social Change
PO Box 73620, 509 St. Clair Ave. W
Toronto, ON M6C 1C0
(416) 651-5800; 598-4945 ext. 225
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MAY 18, 1999
Citizens' Arrest Attempt Ends with Charges of Trespass, Breach of Peace; Nonviolent Activists Taken to 52 Division and Strip Searched
Despite a Kissinger-like last-minute detail -- changing the venue of his talk from the advertised Harbour Castle Westin to the Sheraton Centre -- a group of some 40 demonstrators was able to interrupt business as usual at the Diner's Club-Enroute luncheon honouring war criminal Henry Kissinger for some 45 minutes today. Holding citizens' arrest warrants and a huge, blood-stained banner which read: "Remember Kissinger's Crimes: Cambodia, Laos, Iran, Kurds, Vietnam, Chile, Greece, Argentina, East Timor, Brazil, Apartheid...", the group leafletted all the luncheon guests about Kissinger's crimes and held up the luncheon by blocking the escalator going to the Grand Ballroom.
Following some forty minutes of fairly rough pushing, shoving, dragging and throwing of the demonstrators courtesy of Metro Police and private security, four people who had pleaded with police to act on their citizens' arrest of Kissinger under the Canadian War Crimes Act instead found themselves charged. Matthew Behrens, mandy hiscocks, Brent Patterson and William Taylor were dragged up an escalator and placed in a waiting police van, after which they were taken to 52 division, strip searched, and held until 5 pm. "Just like they did in Chile to peaceful dissent!" yelled one woman.
The demonstrators had arrived at the hotel shortly before noon, and, as part of their indictment against the former U.S. Secretary of State, read out the personal testimonies of torture victims in countries where military juntas had been installed and supported by Kissinger. They proceeded to enter the huge Sheraton lobby with large pictures of Kissinger, calling out to hundreds of startled -- and suddenly quieted -- onlookers, "Has anyone seen this man? There's a war criminal in this hotel. Please point him out to police so he can be turned over to federal authorities."
"Five years ago, this very luncheon could have been hosting former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and the media would have asked us why we were doing this. Well, today Pinochet is finally facing a trial for his crimes. Do we have to wait five more years for the man most responsible for putting Pinochet in place, Henry Kissinger, to face similar judicial accountability?" asked Patterson.
"Canada is feeling high and mighty about trying Milosevic for war crimes, and rightly so, but if we are to be consistent we must also try Kissinger for complicity in rape, torture, murder, saturation bombing of civilian populations, support for apartheid, threatened use of nuclear weapons, and other crimes too many to mention here," added Behrens. All four face a first court appearance on June 16 to face their charges.
The four face a first court appearance June 16.
Step 6: Head to Trial and Carry the Resistance into the Court
Toronto Action for Social Change
PO Box 73620, 509 St. Clair Ave. West
Toronto, ON M6C 1C0
(416) 651-5800
March 8, 2000
Two found guilty, two not-guilty, by a justice of the peace who insults defendants, questions their competence, and says evidence of war crimes is irrelevant
Four members of Toronto Action for Social Change went on trial today for trespassing following last May's attempted citizens' arrest of war criminal Henry Kissinger. Two of the four, mandy hiscocks and Brent Patterson, were found not guilty despite the fact that they admitted to taking part in the demonstration.
The other two -- Matthew Behrens and William Taylor -- were convicted and given one year's probation.
The trial was a frustrating exercise which saw the Justice of the Peace Madame Napier repeatedly offend and interrupt the defendants, who attempted to introduce the legal arguments for their action. At one point, Napier stated that if the defendants continued making reference to war crimes and international law, she would have them thrown from the courtroom and tried in absentia.
The day got off to a rocky start when, after the defendants pleaded for the victims of Kissinger's crimes (instead of the standard guilty/not-guilty plea), Napier asked, "Is this a joke?" When assured that it was not a joke, JP Napier then asked sarcastically, "Isn't there a courtroom 102 for people like this?" (Courtroom 102, the defendants learned, is for people deemed "mentally unstable.")
Following Crown witness presentations, the defendants attempted to introduce evidence as to Kissinger's long series of crimes. Defendant Behrens began his testimony by asking the JP, "What would you do if someone told you that they had been tortured?" The JP snapped that this was irrelevant, and continually interrupted testimony which attempted to link Kissinger to crimes against the people of Chile, Vietnam, Laos, Argentina, Brazil, Greece, etc. Behrens said part of his motivation in attempting to arrest Kissinger was knowing refugees from Central and South America who had been tortured in military regimes set up and supported by Kissinger.
Napier displayed an alarming lack of knowledge of the legal process. When defendants who took the stand attempted to explain why they felt that the small crime of trespass was not the issue, but that war crimes and citizens' responsibility to stop those crimes was of primary importance, Napier declared: "I don't want any explanation, I don't need any explanation."
Indeed, defendants' efforts to raise legal precedents in their case were met with a contemptuous dismissal. Defendant hiscocks, who presented a concise series of legal precedents for the protesters' actions, was interrupted by a yawning Napier who demanded, "Are you going to conclude soon?"
William Taylor was also frustrated in his efforts to introduce recently declassified U.S. State Dept. documents which clearly showed a link between crimes in Chile committed by the regime of dictator Augusto Pinochet and Henry Kissinger.
Despite repeated pleas for the JP to consider the well-grounded legal defences provided by hiscocks, the documentation of abuses provided by Taylor, and Behrens' contention that citizens have legal obligations to uphold international law (and the Canadian War Crimes Act), Napier took the very narrow view that since the protesters refused to leave when asked to, that they were guilty.
In a surprise move that made defendants wonder how well Napier understood the legal process, defendants hiscocks and Patterson, neither of whom took the stand but both of whom acknowledged their presence at the demonstration, were declared not guilty because no officer identified them (despite the fact that all four conceded this issue as part of a group trial.)
At that point, Behrens and hiscocks unveiled a large banner in the courtroom which read: "Remember Kissinger's Crimes: Angola, East Timor, Iran, Greece, Philippines, Argentina, Cambodia, South Africa, Laos, Vietnam, Chile, ...) Napier, surprised at this "affront" to the court's "dignity" and seriously angered, nonetheless chose not to take action against the banner unveiling, and asked the Crown for a sentence. In the end one year's probation was imposed.
hiscocks asked to speak at this point, hoping to ask the JP if she felt the numerous rude comments made during the proceedings did not show a serious bias against the defendants, but was told she was not allowed.
"You are rude," hiscocks informed Napier, who frowned and looked away.
Meanwhile, Kissinger remains at large.
Step 7: Wonder at the ease with which war criminals carry out their day to day lives; Axowrthy responds eight months too late with his belief that Kissinger is not a war criminal (and people call this guy the conscience of the Chretien regime????)
Canada Cozies up to War Criminal Kissinger;
Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister refuses to take action against notorious war criminal while four Canadians face charges for trying to uphold the law
Lloyd Axworthy, the hypocritical Minister of Foreign Affairs for Canada, has stated that Henry Kissinger is not a war criminal and that the government of Canada should not have taken legal action against the former U.S. Secretary of State during a May visit.
Axworthy's statement comes in a letter addressed to three people who wrote to him in early April, 1999, about Kissinger's impending visit. The letter asked that Axworthy, who at the time was blustering on about the need to halt war crimes in the Balkans and elsewhere, initiate a tribunal of inquiry to investigate war crimes aided and abetted by Kissinger and to hold him accountable for them.
When the Canadian government refused to follow the guidelines in its own War Crimes Act, a group of citizens took action themselves and attempted to make a citizens' arrest of Kissinger. Kissinger attempted to elude justice by switching his hotel at the last minute, but protesters were nonetheless able to make last-minute changes as well and were able to occupy the lobby of Toronto's Sheraton Plaza and hand flyers to the thousand lunch guests honouring the war criminal.
Police pushed and shoved those seeking the arrest of Mr. Kissinger for close to an hour, and in the end arrested four of them -- Will Taylor, Brent Patterson and Matthew Behrens of Toronto, and mandy hiscocks of Guelph. While Kissinger skipped the country, the four go to trial on charges March 8, 2000.
The reply to the protesters' April 2 letter came almost eight months too late. Dated November 26, 1999 and written as "unclassified," the brief letter thanks the writers for expressing their concerns and states, "Your support for the cause of human rights and the need to bring to justice political leaders who have committed atrocities is highly commendable. The Government of Canada strongly supports these values. However, Mr. Kissinger has never been indicted for such actions and the Government of Canada does not regard him as a war criminal." It is signed by Michael C. Welsh, Director of the U.S. Relations Division, on behalf of the Minister.
Perhaps the government of canada did not act at the time because it would have exposed its own actions in the Balkans -- the bombing of hospitals, daycares, bridges, water works, sanitation facilities, apartment buildings, civilian transportation -- to the scrutiny of its war crimes law.
The government of canada perhaps failed to act as well because in most instances where Kissinger would have been held accountable for war crimes, from Chile and Vietnam to East Timor and apartheid, Canada was itself complicit as well through providing arms and other support for a long list of murderous campaigns.
On November 12, in another attempt to preserve the veneer of mythmaking about Canada's "peaceful" intentions, the government arrested 54 people protesting homelessness and high military spending at the steps of the War Dept. Again, rather than deal with the concerns of citizens' inspectors that Canada violates numerous international treaties and covenants to which it is a signatory, riot police with billy clubs and police dogs were brought out, and 54 people face criminal charges.
All such charges will be contested in the courts, and nonviolent actions will continue to end he criminal activity of the Canadian government. For more information, contact Toronto Action for Social Change at tasc@web.net.