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...

;-)