US embassy cable - 05HALIFAX120

UNCLAS HALIFAX 000120 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL, ASEC, PARM, CA 
SUBJECT: LOCAL ACTIVIST PROMISES PEACEFUL DEMONSTRATIONS 
 
 
1.  (U)  Consul General met recently with Tamara Lorincz, head 
of the Halifax Peace Coalition.  Lorincz called to request the 
meeting after CG sent her a USG publication on the 
Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference. 
 
2.  (SBU)  Lorincz, who is by any measure the most active and 
successful anti-U.S. demonstration organizer in Halifax, assured 
CG that HPC demonstrations against USG policies would continue 
to be peaceful, as they have been in the past.   (FYI: 
HPC-organized demonstrators were orderly during the President's 
visit in December and the group's periodic marches around 
Halifax and to the Consulate in recent years have always been 
calm.  END FYI.)   She said that violence by protestors would 
not be tolerated and that USG personnel and property would never 
be in danger from HPC members.   (COMMENT:  We have never felt 
any physical threat from HPC demonstrations, which tend to be on 
the small side by global standards.  This is significant since 
HPC is the main -- indeed only -- group in Halifax to have 
organized anti-U.S. protests of any significance since Operation 
Iraqi Freedom.  During the President's visit HPC took control of 
coordinating the demonstrations and to its credit kept other 
groups to a strict non-violence policy.  END COMMENT.) 
 
3.  (SBU)  Lorincz had, as expected, a long critique of U.S. 
policies, ranging from the fairly mainstream to the totally 
far-fetched.  She had just returned from New York where she had 
participated in NGO meetings on the margins of the NPT RevCon 
and stressed that she worked closely with U.S. peace activists 
and was not anti-American, but was strongly opposed to many USG 
actions.  CG identified and corrected factual errors at a number 
of points during Lorincz's comments (example:  "The U.S. is one 
of only two countries that have not joined the germ warfare 
convention."), but this did not seem to deflect her from the 
main line of thought that USG foreign and defense policies -- 
stretching as far back as the Truman Administration and perhaps 
beyond -- were dangerous and wrong. 
 
4.  (SBU)    No minds were changed during the 90 minute meeting, 
but there is now an open channel of communication available. 
The personal assurance from HPC's head that the group's 
demonstrations will continue to be peaceful is welcome.  For the 
record, CG declined Lorincz's request that he quit his job and 
"join us to work for peace." 
 
HILL