EATON'S During The 1960's Second French Revolution

Chapter 18

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

He was drinking his Molson's beer in Les Jardins Norde, a neighborhood tavern in Saint-Michele, a suburb of northern Montreal. His right leg bounced nervously as he awaited a meeting with several students with ties to the radical FLQ movement. He casually scoured the bar analyzing the faces of the patrons, most of which were of French descent.

The neighborhood bar was owned and operated by Joseph Tremblay; a one-time hood turned political activist. A decade earlier Tremblay had spent several years in Bordeaux Jail on manslaughter charges, surrounding an incident involving the Calabrisee crime family. Both law enforcement and Quebec citizens, could not understand how Tremblay had survived after beating to death a Calabrisee soldier. The popular belief was that an accommodation had been made with the Calabrisee's, whereby Tremblay's prominent association with the FLQ would benefit the Calabrisee's illegal activities. This placed Tremblay in the pocket of the Calabrisee family.

Louis looked around the scant cavity of the bar with its three tattered pool tables, naked walls and frayed carpeting. He knew from intelligence reports, that the bar was a front for Tremblay's drug enterprise, and headquarters to several Montreal FLQ terrorist cells.

The development of the early FLQ terror cells in Quebec was directly related to the culture of North America, which at that time was evolving rapidly towards a more action-oriented process of change. The impact of revolutionary philosophy and politics spread the doctrines of violent action as a means of legitimate change among young people and university students. Figures such as Che Guevara, Chairman Mao and the writer Franz Fanon were touted for their different interpretations of history and politics; violence played a pivotal role in advancing their causes and ideas.

The Provence of Quebec was slow to adjust to this thinking and so the FLQ quickly led some of the more radical players to believe that only violence would speed up the process and thus, the fundamental doctrines of the FLQ easily took hold.

To achieve their goals, the Palestine Liberation Organization had been recruited to train FLQ members abroad in urban warfare and revolutionary tactics, including bomb making and violent civil acts of disobedience. To maintain their anonymity, the FLQ disavowed any members that were captured participating in violent acts throughout the province.

To achieve their new more violent purpose, groups of 5 to 10 members were formed under the guidelines of the movements philosophy and were referred to as 'cells'. Many cells were formed throughout Quebec including the Viger Cell, the Dieppe Cell, the Nelson Cell, and two of the most radical cells, the Liberation and the Chenier cells.

The other very important vehicle to disseminate their separatist philosophy was ownership and control of their own newspaper which they named the Revolutionary Strategy, it became the backbone of the action plan for the FLQ organization.

Being an undercover operative in 1960's Quebec was a harrowing experience for young Louis, but his successful infiltration of the FLQ's prominent Montreal north, Dieppe Cell, pumped adrenaline through his adventurous veins.

Sometimes the hardest part of my job is the skepticism required in the way I perceive the average citizen. I find it harder and harder to trust people. I see the worst of the worst on a daily basis. Most of the time I feel like I can no longer even trust myself because of the double life style that I've chosen to live. Even though I can revel in the realization that my job as an infiltrator has a greater purpose for my country and its citizenry, it's still hard to cope with and, somehow remain grounded in reality. At times when it gets rough, I just need to forget who I was, and stay focused on who I am. To breach my persona of Louis Thibodeaux, former University of Quebec student, could cost me my life.