Clearing the Air: An Open Letter from Kevin Annett

Clearing the Air: An Open Letter from Kevin Annett

August 15, 2010



In the wake of my unilateral banning without due process from the premises of Vancouver Co-op Radio last Monday, August 9, and efforts by the station staff, through their lawyers, to justify this unreasonable banning through misinformation and misrepresentation, I hope this will clarify what’s going on:



Since at least early April, when I was in Europe on a lecture tour, an unknown man who bears a strong resemblance to me has been circulating throughout the downtown eastside of Vancouver and deliberately discrediting me through words and deeds designed to alienate my supporters and the community at large. According to eyewitnesses, he has offered native people money, made racist and sexist remarks to them, and on at least one occasion, entered the premises of Co-op radio with another person late one night to engage in actions clearly designed to defame me.


The identity of this person is still unknown.


The use of impersonators to discredit those in my network has happened on at least one other occasion, against my supporter Royce White Calf of the Oglala Lakota Nation, after he, like me, began to speak publicly of governmental involvement in the trafficking of native children in B.C.


I must assume that this impersonator is the person referred to in the staff’s letter that banned me, who appears on videotape inside the station with another person in the early morning of Tuesday, July 20, 2010.(see note, below) The station staff therefore have banned me under a false assumption, namely, that I am the man in the video; and yet, having made this mistake, none of the staff bothered to consult me, show me the video, or ask for my version of this incident, but instead, proceeded to bar me from the station without any such due process or discussion. I must ask why they did so, with such haste, in this unusual manner.


I state categorically that I am not the man depicted on the video in question, and was not on the premises of Vancouver Co-op Radio at the time and date alleged in the letter from station staff that banned me from the premises. The automatic assumption by the staff that I was that man, and their making public this erroneous assumption in writing, constitutes defamation of my character.


It has been my strong impression that for several years, program director Leela Chinniah has been looking for an excuse to terminate my program Hidden from History, and has been under pressure from unknown parties to do so. Her attempt to control the content of my show, bar homeless and native people from my program, and her outright demand to me that I not have Reg Argue on my show, all indicates this.


I cannot know if Leela Chinniah and other staff members know the identity of the person impersonating me, or if they are colluding with him in this obvious set up of me. And yet it is odd how easily this impersonator and his partner gained access to Co-op radio at that time of night, and how their presence there went on for hours without interference by security personnel who monitored the events by camera during that entire time. These events strongly suggest collusion by station staff and/or Portland Hotel security in an apparent attempt to frame me for misconduct.


On the basis of these facts, I demand that Co-op radio staff rescind their banning of me from Co-op radio station premises, cease engaging in any further defamatory actions, words or assumptions towards me, withdraw their demands in their mis-dated letter of August 10, 2010, issue a public statement of apology to me, and allow me to return unhindered and unharrassed to my normal operation as chief programmer for the Hidden from History show every Monday.




Sincerely,



Kevin D. Annett





cc: legal counsel, world media, The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State



(* Note: The staff’s letter that was dated August 10 - which was handed to me on August 9, and thus was not a legally accurate document - claimed that I was in the station between “Monday July 21, 2010 to Tuesday July 20, 2010”. Since the Monday of that week was actually dated July 19, I assume these errors or indicative of someone's haste, or of a clumsy fabrication on the part of the staff.)

“No matter what a man’s faculties otherwise might be, if he be willing to risk death, and still more, if he suffers it heroically, in the service he has chosen, that fact consecrates him forever.”
— William James

Read and Hear the truth of Genocide in Canada, past and present, at this website: www.hiddenfromhistory.org , and watch Kevin's award-winning documentary film UNREPENTANT on the same website.

UNREPENTANT: Kevin Annett and Canada's Genocide
- Winner, Best Foreign Documentary Film, Los Angeles Independent Film Festival, March 2007, Best Director of a Foreign Documentary, New York Independent Film Festival, October 2006
- Winner, Best Canadian Film, Creation Aboriginal Film Festival, Edmonton, 2009


“Kevin is more deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize than many who have received it in the past.”
- Dr. Noam Chomsky
Institute Professor Emeritus
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

"As a long time front line worker with the Elders' Council at the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre, I stand behind what Kevin Annett is trying to do for our people. The genocide that continues today and which stemmed from the residential schools needs to be exposed. Kevin Annett helps break the silence, and brings the voice of our people all over the world."
Carol Muree Martin - Spirit Tree Woman
Nisgaa Nation

"I gave Kevin Annett his Indian name, Eagle Strong Voice, in 2004 when I adopted him into our Anishinabe Nation. He carries that name proudly because he is doing the job he was sent to do, to tell his people of their wrongs. He speaks strongly and with truth. He speaks for our stolen and murdered children. I ask everyone to listen to him and welcome him."
Chief Louis Daniels - Whispers Wind
Elder, Turtle Clan, Anishinabe Nation
Winnipeg, Manitoba