Native activist Gord Hill describes surveillance

Gord Hill is well-known in activist circles. He’s a carver, graphic artist, and writer, the Web master of No2010.com, and the publisher of Warrior Publications.

The 41-year-old Kwakwaka’wakw man is also a compelling speaker with a keen interest in history. In a recent talk he delivered at UBC’s Green College Coach House, Hill delved into the past to contend that the federal and provincial governments have no lawful jurisdiction over British Columbia. He argued that both governments have not negotiated treaties for aboriginal lands, in violation of the Royal Proclamation of 1763. Most of B.C., therefore, is unceded First Nations territory.

This is the basis, according to him, for the slogan “No Olympics on Stolen Land”.

Interviewed on the way to the October 19 lecture at UBC, he said there’s one major reason why he opposes the 2010 Olympics. “It represents a renewed threat to indigenous lands because the corporations and the government are trying to use the Olympics for leverage to create greater international investments into resources, like mining, oil, gas, and tourism, all of which take place on indigenous lands,” Hill told the Georgia Straight.

As someone whose activism on aboriginal issues was inspired by the armed standoff between Natives and government forces in Oka, Quebec, in 1990, Hill isn’t the type who’s easily intimidated.

He said that on October 17 he came home and found under his door business cards left by Ken Stolarchuk and Const. Kirk Rattray, both intelligence officers with the Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit.

The next day, two men in civilian clothes repeatedly knocked at his Vancouver apartment, but he did not answer. He later observed them sitting in a gold-coloured SUV with the licence plate number 925 LBD parked across the street.

On October 20 at around 9:30 p.m., Hill said, two men approached him in the Downtown Eastside, and one identified himself as an RCMP officer. While walking alongside Hill, with the other agent at his back, this officer informed the activist that there were concerns over his statement to the CBC on October 13 that he does not oppose direct actions by protesters, like downing power lines, during the Games.

“He told me that from this day until the Olympics, every time I looked over my right shoulder he would be there,” Hill recounted in a written statement on October 20.

Hill also recalled the agent telling him that if he attempted to enter the U.S., American authorities “would arrest me and put me in a far, far away place, so far away it would be beyond my mind”, which he took to mean the practice of rendition.

As they reached Hastings Street, Hill wrote, he announced to a group of Natives there that Olympics police were harassing him. “The cops immediately stopped and two more plainclothes officers approached from behind (total: four cops),” he wrote. “One of the Native women started yelling at the cops, telling them I had the right to an opinion. The cops withdrew and began walking eastbound on Hastings.”

Hill and other members of the Olympic Resistance Network will stage actions in Victoria, where the Olympic torch relay starts on October 30.