Squamish Five

The Squamish Five (sometimes referred to as the Vancouver Five) were a group of self-styled "urban guerrillas" active in Canada during the early 1980s. Their chosen name was Direct Action.

The five were Ann Hansen, Brent Taylor, Julie Belmas, Doug Stewart and Gerry Hannah of the music group Subhumans. Unlike the Red Brigades, Red Army Faction, and other groups, they were not motivated by a political ideology which placed them at the vanguard of a Marxist revolution. Rather, they were activists who had become disenchanted and frustrated with traditional methods of activism. They believed that by engaging in semi-symbolic propaganda by the deed, they could jolt people into action themselves.

Early actions

The first actions associated with the group were not particularly militant. They vandalized the headquarters of Amax, a British Columbia (BC) mining company which had been granted a special exemption from environmental laws, and the British Columbia Department of the Environment.

Afterwards the group dispersed. Belmas and Hannah escaped to the Rocky Mountains, and Hansen, Taylor, and Stewart moved underground together, becoming more militant, and training with stolen weapons in a deserted area north of Vancouver. They stole a large cache of dynamite used for construction work. Living underground, they learned how to use weapons and explosives and supported themselves through various forms of fraud and theft.

Bombing campaigns

Cheekeye-Dunsmuir bombing

On 30 May 1982, Hansen, Taylor, and Stewart travelled to Vancouver Island and set off a large bomb at the Cheekeye-Dunsmuir BC Hydro substation. Four transformers were wrecked beyond repair, but no one was injured. The hydroelectric project had been criticized for being environmentally unsound and helping destroy the remaining wilderness on the Island. After the bombing, the group again recruited Gerry Hannah, a local punk rock musician well known for his criticism of BC Hydro executives, and his girlfriend, Julie Belmas, an idealist from the suburbs who had been radicalized in the process of combatting a retail pornography outlet in her Port Coquitlam neighbourhood. Viewing themselves as the vanguard, they believed they'd never harm human life.

The Litton Bomb

Hansen, Taylor, Hannah, Belmas and Stewart filled a stolen pick-up truck with 550 pounds of dynamite and drove cross-country to Toronto. Their target was Litton Industries, a company producing guidance components for the controversial American cruise missiles many feared would increase the risk of nuclear war. Hansen recalls driving the truck full of dynamite across the Prairies, "listening to the Dead Kennedys, D.O.A., The Doors and Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska", and obsessing over her desires for Brent and jealousy of Julie.

The Litton bomb was detonated on October 14, 1982, and was intended to cause only property destruction. The van was parked in full view of corporate security, with an elaborate "warning box" duct taped to the hood, displaying a message, a digital clock counting down, and a single stick of dynamite to show it was no joke. Belmas called the security desk and warned them of the explosion, giving instructions on exactly what to do and where the danger area was. The security personnel, however, suspected a hoax, and did not respond quickly enough to evacuate the facility before the explosion. The evacuation was just getting started when the bomb detonated minutes ahead of schedule, injuring ten people. Meanwhile, at the back of the factory, where the guidance system was being produced, no damage was done.

Red Hot Video firebombing and arrest

The bombers fled Toronto for Vancouver and ceased their activities as they moved underground together. On November 22, 1982, they re-emerged with the Wimmin's Fire Brigade — firebombing three franchises of Red Hot Video, a chain selling pornographic films which had attracted the attention of feminist activists. But the high-profile crimes had also attracted major police attention and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) was closing in. On the morning of January 20, 1983, all five were captured on the road to their training area by an RCMP tactical unit disguised as a road crew. The apprehension occurred on the Sea-to-Sky Highway, just south of Squamish, giving rise to the name the media attached to the group. The five received sentences ranging from six years to life. Only Belmas, the youngest member, pled guilty, renouncing the use of violence as a means to an end and apologizing to the victims. Upon hearing her sentence for life, Ann Hansen threw a tomato at the judge. All are now out of prison.

In 2002, Ann Hansen's Memoirs Of An Urban Guerrilla was published. While she acknowledges tactical mistakes and misconceptions, Hansen maintains that her actions were justified, and that capitalism should be challenged through direct action and other forms of protest.

External links

The Vancouver Five (aka Direct Action) - this section of the Kersplebedeb website includes an interview with Ann Hansen and an essay by a supporter of the Five in Toronto.
Direct Action: Reflections on Armed Resistance and the Squamish Five - audio CD recorded by Ann Hansen, presenting information from her book

Anarchist organizations | Irregular military | Terrorist incidents in the 1980s | Canadian anarchists | Terrorism in Canada