Anti-establishment group claims it firebombed Ottawa Royal Bank branch

By Tony Spears , The Ottawa Citizen May 18, 2010 4:13 PMPhotograph by: Mike Carroccetto, The Ottawa Citizen
OTTAWA — An anti-establishment group claimed responsibility for the firebombing of a Glebe bank early Tuesday morning. The group also vowed to “be there” at the upcoming G8 and G20 summits in an online video that shows a massive fireball exploding from the front window of a Royal Bank of Canada branch on Bank Street and First Avenue. In the short clip, one person emerges from the branch’s side door and is then silhouetted against a vivid orange flash. Another person follows him out the door and the pair begin to head west across First. The video abruptly cuts to scrolling text. “The Vancouver Olympic games are over, but a torch is still burning,” the text reads. Firefighters responded to the blaze at about 3:30 a.m. Tuesday, and had it under control just after 4 a.m. No one was injured.

The video was posted on an anti-establishment website at 11:59 a.m. Tuesday. It appears to have been shot on a handheld camera from the northeast corner of the intersection. “Resistance continues,” the text reads. “An RBC branch can be found in every corner of Kanada (sic).” In the next paragraph, it mentions the G8 and G20 conferences that are to take place at the end of June in Huntsville and Toronto, where “‘leaders’ and bankers (will) make decisions that will further their policies of exploitation of people and the environment. “We will be there.”

When informed by The Citizen of the video’s existence, lead investigator Sgt. David Christie said the attack was “one of many theories put out there (as to) what the motive would be.” RBC has been a favourite target for self-styled anarchists protesting the Vancouver Winter Olympics. In 2008 the firebombed branch had had its windows smashed by brick-throwers. An online posting signed “Riot 2010!!! ~Ottawa Anarchists” claimed credit for two such incidents Jan. 27 and Feb. 12, 2008, as well as a March 11, 2008, incident at the Elgin and Lisgar streets branch that “was again the target of our rage against the evils they sponsor. “The trashcan we hurled through their window shows what we think of their Corporate Circus.” A letter sent to The Citizen in February 2008 said the vandalism was an act of “solidarity” with those who were fighting the 2010 Olympic games “and its corporate sponsors.” Anarchists also took credit for “paint-bombing” the Olympic countdown clock opposite Parliament Hill.

But RBC itself came under fire in the video’s text, taking aim at the bank’s claim to be one of Canada’s greenest employers (which stems from a competition organized by editors of Canada’s Top 100 Employers, according to an RBC release). “RBC is now the major financier of Alberta’s tar sands, one of the largest industrial rojects in human history and perhaps the most destructive,” the text says. The website on which the video is posted has “Montebello” written across the top, bringing to mind violent clashes in Quebec between riot police and protestors outside the Château Montebello in August 2007. Five police officers were injured in the confrontation, which saw more than 1,000 protestors face down tear gas, pepper spray and plastic bullets, replying with rocks, tomatoes and stone-filled bottles. They had been protesting North American integration at a two-day summit involving Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Mexican President Felipe Calderon and then-U.S. President George W. Bush.

Anyone with information is asked to call Ottawa police at 613-236-122 ext. 2199 or Crime Stoppers at 613-233-8477 (TIPS)