Re: The GZG Digest V2 #2320, very OT... Re the FLQ (hey, you asked)

Canadian History 101

:)

>> 
>> ??? FLQ ???
>

"Front de Libération du Québec" (Quebec Liberation Front)

Marxist terrorist group founded by a Belgian, advocating the
independence
of Quebec among other things (they really didn't like the evil
capitalist
Americans either).  A few were trained by Palistinians in Jordan. 
Friendly
with Castro.  Operated during the '60's mostly.  Planned to blow up the
Statue of Liberty at one point, but that cell was arrested. A bunch
ended
up in jail.  A few assassinations and kidnappings, most notably the
British
Trade Comissioner and then the Deputy Premier of Quebec, who was killed.
In
an act that almost certainly wouldn't happen today, 

"Early in December 1970, police discovered the location of the
kidnappers
holding James Cross. His release was negotiated and on December 3, 1970,
five of the terrorists are granted their request for safe passage to
Cuba
by the Government of Canada after approval by Fidel Castro."

More embarrassing, after the five made it to Cuba (being exiled from
Canada
for life) they were later found in Paris.  All wanted to return to
Canada,
and did.  I don't think any served more than two years in prison.

As a followup, however,

"The kidnappings and murder prompted Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau to
declare martial law under the War Measures Act -- which had only been
used
twice before in Canada's history, both in times of war. The October
Crisis
as it is referred to, was the first terrorist crisis in modern Canadian
history. Pierre Laporte's killing was only the second political
assassination in Canadian history since Thomas D'Arcy McGee was murdered
in
1868."

That had army troops out around Montreal all kitted up, sandbag
emplacements, M113 APCs driving around, and many people very nervous. 
The
War Measures Act also allowed the government to arrest and detain people
without charging them with anything for quite some time (I forget how
long
exactly) and they rounded up and jailed a lot of people.  Very, very
controversial.

We've managed to collect a couple more (assassinations) in the years
since.
 There were a couple of assassinations in Ottawa in the mid-1980's that
had
something to do with Armenian somethingorother, and this was what
prompted
the government to form the CERT ("Counterterrorism Emergeny Response
Team"
or something like that - created within the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police,
and was an SAS-trained commando unit).	They were disbanded and the role
taken over by the army - our not-well-known unit "JTF-2", who have been
active all over the place in recent years but made the press a month or
two
back when they were presented with the Presidential Unit Citation by
President Bush for actions in Afghanistan.

Anyway, there you go!  More, I'm sure, than you ever wanted to know...

;-)