The following is a call to join Winnipeg in opposing the occupation of our city by an imperialist army, the Canadian Armed Forces. At the bottom is an article from the Winnipeg Free Press with details of the planned urban-warfare exercises. Please circulate this to as many different people as possible, and make plans to be here in this crucial time. Every effort will be made to facilitate lodging and other arrangements. Send back comments – and then numbers of people and when your group can arrive so we can organize from our end.

Stop the ‘Charging Bison’ in its tracks!

Beginning April 30th of this year, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) will be conducting a week-long, large-scale urban-warfare exercise in downtown Winnipeg. Taking place over May Day, International Worker’s Day, this exercise is an outrageous provocation toward people’s movements and must be opposed and resisted.

Around the world, the maple-leaf flown by the CAF has come to represent murder, torture and oppression to those unlucky enough to see it flying. In Afghanistan, Canadian Forces are helping to prop-up and defend a vicious theocracy that is completely opposed to the basic interests of the people there. In Haiti, Canadian Forces worked together with France and the US to carry out a coup d’etat against the elected president of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and to install a government of business elites who are opening the already extremely-poor country to even more exploitation.

The urban-warfare exercise, already given the sobriquet ‘Operation Charging Bison,’ will serve to train the CAF to better carry out their reactionary, anti-people, anti-peace, counter-revolutionary, and pro-imperialist role.

We, the activists of the World People’s Resistance Movement (Winnipeg) are therefore calling for massive resistance. In the weeks leading up to ‘Operating Charging Bison’ we will be conducting mass work in the nearby neighborhoods and communities where the exercises will be taking place. This mass work will serve to build up a basis of support for the upcoming actions as well as give us an opportunity to engage with the masses around the questions of internationalism, anti-imperialism, opposition to unjust war, and the possibilities of a much better world. During the operation itself we will be participating in many diverse actions, including (but certainly not limited to!) a May Day march calling for the withdrawal of all Canadian troops from Haiti, Afghanistan, and our city. It is abhorrent that they will be training to put down legitimate resistance movements – and we need to ensure that they are not welcome.

In short, we want to change the whole political terrain, both in this city and around the world. We want to put opposition to Canada’s terrible role in Haiti and Afghanistan in the mainstream. We want to make a splash so big that no one in the country will be able to ignore it. We want to send a message to the people of the whole world -- from Port-au-Prince to Kadahar to Fallujah – that we stand with them, against our government, in unity and in hope for all-the-way liberation.

Drop your plans and come to Winnipeg for the weeks leading up to May Day. Help place Winnipeg in the same category as Seattle, Quebec City, and Genoa. Be part of history in the making. Because the world can’t wait.

World People’s Resistance Movement (Winnipeg)
WPRMwinnipeg@yahoo.ca

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Winnipeg Free Press
Tuesday, December 27th, 2005

Army to occupy downtown

Spring exercise to turn city into 'battleground'

Tuesday, December 27th, 2005

By David O'Brien

MORE than 500 army troops, backed by helicopters, armoured vehicles and artillery, will turn downtown Winnipeg into an armed camp as part of a military exercise to train soldiers for the modern battlefield.

Exercise Charging Bison will unfold for seven days and nights beginning April 30 next year in what is believed to be the largest urban warfare training exercise of its kind ever held in Canada.

There won't be live ammunition, but there will be laser weapons and a variety of blanks and 'simunition' -- or simulated munitions -- that make noise and smoke or discharge harmless projectiles.

The drill is designed to simulate the kind of complex conditions soldiers would encounter in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq, where conventional warfare is conducted simultaneously with humanitarian relief operations and nation-building, said Col. Kelly Woiden, commander of 38 Brigade.

Urban battlefields are sometimes known as "three-block wars" because troops could help people on one block, fight insurgents on another, and guard convoys on another, Woiden explained.

"We're going to create a realistic environment of the situation that individual soldiers can face today," he said. "You could be doing humanitarian relief one moment and then fighting a war the next. It is the most complicated terrain for a soldier."

The operation is also part of a long-term plan to prepare 200 of the brigade's soldiers to support a 1,000-person task force in 2008, if necessary, he said.

The 38 Brigade is a reserve unit responsible for a dozen formations in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and northwestern Ontario.

It will provide most of the personnel for the exercise, although some will come from British Columbia and Alberta, and possibly from the United States, Woiden said, adding 17 Wing will also provide logistics support.

About 100 police officers and civilians will be given a role in the exercise, either as opposing forces or relief organizations.

The military may also recruit drama students from the University of Manitoba to play the roles of demonstrators or insurgents.

"The purpose is to learn and we may rerun the same scenario several times," Woiden said.

The operation will occupy a large swath of downtown Winnipeg from Balmoral Street on the west, south to the Assiniboine River, north to the CP Rail tracks and east into The Forks and St. Boniface.

Woiden said the exercise is still in the planning stages and the boundaries could change.

A base camp will be established on the western edge of the city, but there will be smaller camps downtown, he said.

The exercise will continue night and day, but Woiden said he did not anticipate any significant disruption of traffic or commercial operations.

Military observers will keep score and determine who was killed and who was wounded during the exercise.

"This is different than traditional training when the infantry were facing open ground in front of them, with soldiers in a different uniform," Woiden said. "This is much more complex because we don't know who the enemy is or where the threats are."

Reserve units have been used in the past to fill out the ranks of the regular force, but Woiden said the military now wants the militia trained to higher level of combat readiness.

dave.o' brien@freepress.mb.ca

The mission

What: Operation Charging Bison will involve 500 troops training in downtown Winnipeg.
Who: The operation is run by 38 Brigade.
Why: It’s designed to train troops in urban warfare.
Where: A base camp will be set up on the western edge of the city, but most of the exercises will take place in the downtown.
When: Day and night between April 30 and May 6.