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January 7, 2001
Quebec Fortress Prepares for Summit
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

QUEBEC (AP) -- Normand Houle's finger traces a line around the historic
ramparts of this European-style fortress on the bluffs above the St.
Lawrence River, showing the plan for a new barrier.

The towers and walls built to repel invaders of centuries past no longer
suffice for protecting 34 heads of state coming for the Summit of the
Americas in April.

So another wall will be built, this one of metal fencing around several
square miles of old Quebec City, says Houle of the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police.

Riot police will stand guard along the fence in an old-fashioned show of
force intended to prevent a burgeoning protest movement from disrupting
the three-day summit that likely will be the first foreign trip for
President Bush.

It will be one of the largest security operations in Canadian history,
with a perimeter security fence similar to the 10-foot wall of metal wire
that surrounded the Organization of American States gathering in Windsor,
Ontario, in June.

"If somebody comes up with a better idea, we're going to take it,'' says
Houle, the RCMP spokesman for the Summit of the Americas. "But so far,
that is the best.''

Preventing street clashes like the ones that derailed World Trade
Organization talks in Seattle in December 1999 is the main goal, say
police officials at the federal, provincial and local level.

The planned security zone covers much of old Quebec City's upper town --
both inside and outside the fortress walls. It will include six hotels,
the Congress Center meeting site, the Quebec Parliament buildings and
familiar tourist stops like the Terrasse Dufferin boardwalk, the Chateau
Frontenac hotel and the Plains of Abraham.

Access will be tightly controlled, with special passes required to enter
the security zone and additional photo identification badges for each
summit venue, including hotels.

All the Western Hemisphere's heads of state except Cuba's Fidel Castro are
coming to discuss expanding the North American Free Trade Agreement and
other issues.

Organizers expect more than 4,000 delegates and 2,000 journalists, along
with thousands of protesters seeking to publicize their anti-free trade,
pro-environment messages.

"It's the big event of the year'' for activists in eastern Canada and the
northeastern United States, says Michael Morrill of the Pennsylvania
Consumer Action Network.

A veteran of demonstrations around the world, Morrill is helping organize
a ``Free Trade Caravan'' that will makes it way to Quebec informing people
about what the protesters contend are the ills of expanding NAFTA.

Morrill predicts police will harass demonstrators traveling to the summit
and provoke violence, a charge protesters have leveled at other
international gatherings since Seattle.

Houle says police will identify and contact protest organizers before the
summit. The goal, he says, is to block the small percentage of protesters
who come to incite violence.

"We don't have the intent to disrupt protests. That's a free right in
Canada,'' he says.

Representatives of the RCMP, Quebec Provincial Police and Quebec City
police have been meeting for months to study security tactics at other
meetings such as the recent European Union summit in Nice, France.

"We're not bothered by 40 people demonstrating inside. That's easy to
control,'' Houle says. ``We're concerned about thousands and thousands
protesting.''

Mayor Jean-Paul L'Allier is troubled by the tough security plan. Speaking
in his richly decorated office at town hall, L'Allier complains it could
hinder city residents from moving freely, prevent peaceful protesters from
being heard and make his city police look bad.

"Summits have turned sour,'' he says with a sigh, noting such meetings now
are being remembered mostly for televised images of street violence rather
than agreements and diplomacy.

Houle insists security forces will be ready for anything, even protesters
trying to repeat the British tactic from 1759 of climbing the cliffs along
the St. Lawrence to attack the bastion of what was then called New France.

"If 2,000 people try to scale the cliff, we'll be there,'' he says.

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