K'JIPUKTUK (HALIFAX) - The Halifax Media Co-op has acquired a copy of the 'Tactical Troop Operational Plan' for the RCMP's October 17th raid of the anti-shale gas encampment along highway 134 near Rexton, New Brunswick.
Aside from being an interesting glimpse into the mentality of police who prepare such raid plans – where portable toilets are considered to be 'not insurmountable' fortifications, for example – the operational plan also contains valuable and heretofore unknown information.
For example, a working group, led by an 'Independent Third Party Negotiator', was engaged in creating an agreement that would have seen SWN, the Houston-based gas company who's equipment had been blockaded inside a compound since September 29th, be “allowed to remove all their vehicles and equipment from the compound.”
This working group was apparently created immediately following a meeting between Elsipogtog Chief Aaron Sock and New Brunswick Premier and Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, David Alward.
How this was an agreement – and not a complete capitulation and undermining of the anti-shale gas side – is unknown. The operational plan does not go into any further detail than this on the so-called agreement.
The details of the pre-operational phase of the plan also lay to rest the false RCMP narrative that the October 17th raid was in response to an increasingly volatile situation at the protest camp on October 15th and 16th.
As we have discussed in greater detail - but which is outlined clearly in the operational plan – RCMP tactical groups from outside New Brunswick were informed that October 17th would be the day of the raid 36 hours before the morning of the 17th.
Meaning that events of the 15th and 16th would have been inconsequential to the October 17th raid.
The pre-operational phase also confirms that RCMP telephoned residents in the immediate area. How far this telephone tree extended is unknown, but it also does confirm rumours of general pre-knowledge of the raid amongst various segments.
A subsequent 'Sequence of Events' series of Power Point slides also provides an interesting piece of information.
Slide 6 in the series of 7 notes – in a red box – that between “1257hrs and 1300hrs escorted Chief and Councillors arrested and escorted out.”
The timing of this arrest and subsequent escort is important, in that it was at the height of the secondary confrontation, where RCMP were liberally using pepper spray and less-lethal rounds. Indeed, by 1300hrs SWN's equipment had not even begun to be escorted out of the compound area.
The Tactical Troop Operational Plan is contained below and is also available as a download attached to this article:
Tactical Troop Operational Plan for Shale Gas Protests, Oct. 13/13
