City of St. Paul using "Coalition" court case to try and divide anti-RNC activists

The Coaliton to March on the RNC and Stop the War is engaged in a legal battle with the City of St. Paul and the Saint Paul Police Department over the time and route of the antiwar march scheduled for September 1, the opening day of the Republican National Convention. After the Coalition proposed a route along John Ireland and Kellogg Boulevards and encircling the Xcel Energy Center, the city responded with a far less desirable route on Cedar and West 7th Streets, turning back on itself in the space between the Xcel and the Dorothy Day Center, and terminating before the convention is anticipated to even begin. Most recently, the Coalition has proposed a compromise that combines the two routes.

A hearing on the matter is scheduled in federal court on July 9, when supporters will rally outside the courthouse at 1 pm. However, notably, the city's defense arguments to the Coalition's lawsuit are considerably less about the Coalition itself than about other anti-RNC organizing bodies. The arguments and affidavits filed by officials, most notably assistant chief of police Matt Bostrom, include numerous articles and statements from the websites of the RNC Welcoming Committee and Unconventional Action.

In addition to starkly putting the city's position in view, the arguments and affidavits contain some significant information potentially useful to anti-RNC organizers, including some information about street closures and bussing plans, and so they are now available for review on the Twin Cities Indymedia site:

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City defense arguments:
http://tc.indymedia.org/files/rnc/city-defense.pdf
http://tc.indymedia.org/files/rnc/city-defense-argument.pdf

Affidavit and attachments from Assistant Chief Matt Bostrom:
http://tc.indymedia.org/files/rnc/bostrom_aff_B.pdf
http://tc.indymedia.org/files/rnc/bostrom_affidavit_index.pdf

Affidavit from Assitant Fire Chief Michael Hogan: http://tc.indymedia.org/files/rnc/hogan-aff.pdf
Affidavit from RNC Secret Service coordinator John Koleno: http://tc.indymedia.org/files/rnc/koleno-aff.pdf

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City, police, media try to connect march with blockades, blockades with "calamities"

A recent Minneapolis Star Tribune article by Randy Furst about possible anti-convention activities lifts almost word-for-word a statement from the affidavit of John Koleno, 2008 RNC Coordinator for the Secret Service. Koleno writes, "the Secret Service is considering a wide array of potential security threats, including terrorist attacks, lone gunmen, fire, environmental hazards, chemical or biological attacks, structural safety concerns, and suicide bombers." To the litany of potentialities, the Star Tribune added, "blockades that could shut down the RNC." (Read the Protest RNC 2008 Coalition's response to the article here.)

Matt Bostrom's affidavit contains several attached documents, but few are directly related to the September 1st antiwar march. One document is the Call to Action from the RNC Welcoming Committee, which makes no mention of the September 1st march. Another is a description of lockboxes and other blockading tactics found through an Unconventional Action website; the article does not mention the RNC at all, much less the march. And, obviously, blockading - a typically nonviolent activity - is a long way from the "calamities" warned of by Koleno.

By attempting to connect the "Swarm, Seize and Stay" blockading strategy (which came out of a Welcoming Committee-organized national spokescouncil in May) to the September 1st march, the city, aided by Randy Furst's Star Tribune article and recent sensational TV reports, is likely attempting to create divisions amongst anti-RNC activists. Such a divide-and-conquer strategy has historically been a favorite tactic of those in power; however, a set of agreements known as the St. Paul Principles are helping to unite activists across boundaries of tactics and ideology. The principles were drafted this February and agreed to by the Coalition to March, the Welcoming Committee, groups organizing under the Unconventional Action name, and many others. They commit these groups to maintaining a separation of time and space amongst actions, which, if folllowed, would make the city's argument about the September 1st unfounded. The Principles further commit their signers to respecting a diversity of tactics, keeping debates and criticisms internal to the movement, and refusing to assist in any law enforcement actions against activists and others. (Link: St. Paul Principles)

Arguments shed light on free speech and movement restrictions

The arguments in the Coalition's court case also reveal the City's attempt to pacify protesters through the use of a so-called "Public Viewing Area" - essentially a protest pen, which the city had previously said they would not erect. According to the defense argument, "In order to further facilitate First Amendment activity, the City will equip the Public Viewing Area with a stage, a sound system, restroom facilities, and water. The stage will be available for one-hour allotments between the hours of 7:00AM and 11:00PM from Monday, September 1, through Thursday, September 4, 2009. The city will develop and conduct a lottery system to allocate time slots for use of the stage and sound system."

The so-called PVA be located at the triangle on West 7th and 5th Streets near the Xcel, which the city touts as an "exemplary location," noting that "the chain-link style fencing used ... will be transparent." They do not understand - or perhaps they understand perfectly well - that after eight years of a Republican administration and countless years of unresponsive politicians from both parties, people will no longer be content with simply expressing a message. "Plaintiff [the Coalition] ignores the availability of the PVA by which Plaintiff can express its message at anytime," the city's lawyers write, as if holding signs in what is essentially a traffic island would satisfy anyone.

The documents also include information on likely street closures, including plans for busses on Kellogg, 7th and 5th Streets and Smith Avenue. Busses will each have at least one police officer on board and will run several abreast.

In trying to pre-emptively frame the debate around anti-convention activities, the arguments also repeatedly mention the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles in 2000, when protesters at one point defended themselves against the police with small projectiles (to which the police responded with beatings and chemical weapons), as well as the 1999 WTO protests, when the police rioted in response to protesters' acts of nonviolent civil disobedience. Predictably, the arguments nonetheless frame protesters as the ones likely to be violent.

It is no secret that the city's priorities have less to do with maintaining any more than a facade of free speech, and more to do with scaring residents away from the protests and especially away from taking direct action during the RNC. In his argument, seven years after the fact, Bostrom invokes September 11, 2001, writing, "In a post-9/11 world, security is especially crucial during a high profile NSSE [National Special Security Event] like the RNC."

Will the state and corporate media succeed in dividing and repressing anti-RNC organizing, or can activists maintain a united front by using a diversity of tactics in solidarity with each other? Time will tell. Meanwhile, one thing is clear: while radical activists are moving beyond beyond the legend of Seattle and beyond the politics of division, the agents of repression are not moving beyond the specter of 9/11, nor the same tired intimidation tactics of the past.

Twin Cities Indymedia
tc.indymedia.org