[Onthebarricades] Germany G8 Blockades 2 - mainstream media reports part 1

[Andy]

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070606/G8_summit_070606/20070606?hub=Politics

Water cannons fired on protesters at G8 summit
Updated Wed. Jun. 6 2007 11:29 AM ET
Associated Press
ROSTOCK, Germany -- Police used water cannons to scatter stone-throwing 
demonstrators Wednesday as several thousand protesters swarmed a 
12-kilometre fence surrounding the G8 Summit where U.S. President George W. 
Bush and German Chancellor Angela Merkel met.
An estimated 10,000 demonstrators had reached the fence by the afternoon, 
police said, while other protesters blocked roads leading from the airport 
to the summit site of Heiligendamm on the Baltic Sea coast in northern 
Germany as leaders began arriving on the first day of the three-day summit.
"If we can block them, if they can get their lunch with a few hours' delay, 
that is fine,'' Emil Begtrup-Bright, who said he was a member of the 
left-wing grassroots group called Socialist Youth Forum, told Denmark's TV2 
News channel.
Police planned to clear the roughly 9,000 people who continued to block the 
main traffic routes around Heiligendamm and the Rostock airport, spokesman 
Lueder Behrens said, insisting they would do so in a way that would 
"de-escalate'' the situation.
At least eight officers were injured in clashes with protesters earlier in 
the day, Behrens said, none of them seriously. There was no immediate 
information on injuries among demonstrators.
"We are more than happy with our performance,'' said Christoph Kleine of the 
protest group Block G8.
After protesters rushed to the fence, Germany's constitutional court upheld 
a lower court's ban on a protest march that would have begun at various 
points and converged on Heiligendamm. The Karlsruhe-based federal court 
upheld a ban against protests within 200 metres of the fence.
At one section, hundreds of protesters chanted "Peace'' and "Free G8! Free 
G8!'' while inside riot police gathered, wearing helmets and bearing 
transparent shields.
Some police held the leashes of dogs as they watched the protesters, who 
numbered more than 150 near the small town of Hinter Bollhagen, less than 
three kilometres from the summit site.
"What they're doing behind that fence is illegitimate,'' said Philipp 
Schweizer, a 26-year-old social worker from Munich. "They're making 
decisions about countries who don't have any representation.''
Elsewhere, one group laid branches across a small-gauge railway used to 
transport journalists to Heiligendamm from the summit centre in nearby 
Kuehlungsborn, running in various directions until a detachment in riot gear 
corralled them in one area.
Police spokesman Manfred Luetjann said the protesters had managed to block 
two routes leading from the airport in Rostock and to breach security to 
reach the imposing fence surrounding the resort.
Protesters who reached the fence also targeted two police control points, 
pelting them with stones before authorities turned water cannons on them, 
Luetjann said. He had no information about injuries or arrests.
Video taken by AP Television News showed a water cannon firing over the 
protesters, but two volleys could be seen hitting protesters directly.
The incident came after a protest Saturday in nearby Rostock, where several 
thousand black-hooded protesters hurled rocks and bottles at police near the 
end of a march and rally by some 25,000 people. About 400 police officers 
were injured.

http://www.eux.tv/article.aspx?articleId=9359

Wednesday, June 06, 2007 at 17:02
Subject: /G8-Demos/Germany/

ROUNDUP: Protesters block gates at G8 summit in Germany
Eds: epa photos 401030438, 401030386 available

Heiligendamm, Germany (dpa) - Thousands of anti-globalization protesters 
blocked the main gate to the G8 summit in Germany for hours on end 
Wednesday, after evading police checkpoints around the event.

The demonstrators ignored a legal ban on protests in a zone extending more 
than 6 kilometres from the summit hotel, although that ban was confirmed by 
Germany's constitutional court in the southern city of Karlsruhe.

Summit leaders were able to fly by helicopter from a nearby airport into the 
exclusive Heiligendamm beach resort, but lesser staff in cars and buses were 
caught in traffic jams on the ground.

Other access roads to the summit and a steam-railway line for tourists were 
blocked for hours too.

Police used tear-gas and water-jets from special German anti-riot trucks 
when missiles were thrown at them near the welded-mesh, steel fence, erected 
at a radius of 2 kilometres from the summit hotel.

The crowd later fell back 50 metres when police with plastic clubs and 
shields lined up. An informal truce was established under the police 
"de-escalation" policy.

But reporters said the situation was tense, amid the pounding noise of 
helicopters coming and going with police reinforcements.

Police had earlier used water jets and tear gas to clear thousands of 
protesters off Highway 105 which runs past Heiligendamm at a distance of 
about 6 kilometres.

Another sit-down protest halted traffic on the autobahn near Rostock 
Airport, where the non-German delegations were landing Wednesday to travel 
to Heiligendamm by road.

Exultant demonstrators voiced surprise that the police had not stopped them. 
Organizers said they had fielded 10,000 protesters in the countryside near 
Heiligendamm to disrupt the summit.

"We just walked over the fields where the water-cannon couldn't follow us," 
said a spokeswoman for the protest group Block G8, which regards the summit 
as illegitimate.

A police spokesman denied the special summit police force, which had met 
frequently beforehand with protest organizers, had been surprised by the 
invasion. Police said about 8,000 protesters were in the fields and woods.

The protesters, hailing from several European nations, were mainly in their 
20s, many wearing colourful casual dress or humourous costumes, but with a 
few wearing the hoods and the black clothes that mark out militants.

Two Spanish men aged 20 and 21 were meanwhile sent to jail at a summary 
trial for their part in an anti-G8 riot four days earlier in the port city 
of Rostock.

The younger man was given nine months for throwing stones at police and the 
elder ten months because one of the stones actually hit an officer. Defence 
lawyers said they would appeal against the convictions.

The previous day, the first rioter to be convicted, a 31-year-old, received 
10 months on similar charges.

An estimated 2,000 black-clad protesters fought with riot police Saturday.

http://www.worldnewsaustralia.com.au/region.php?id=137553&region=3


Mass protests target G8
8.6.2007. 06:55:18


German police battled thousands of anti-globalisation protesters with water 
cannons to stop them getting close to the annual summit of the world's rich 
nations.

Police fired jets of water late yesterday to clear one of two main roads 
into the Baltic resort of Heiligendamm that had been blocked for several 
hours.

More than 140 people were arrested during the day and eight officers were 
injured in a hail of stones as they fought to stop demonstrators approaching 
a 12-kilometre long barbed wire fence protecting the summit venue, police 
said.
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- G8 Protests

An estimated 10,000 people took part in protests around Heiligendamm as the 
Group of Eight presidents and heads of government started their summit.

Shortly before darkness fell, police moved in and sprayed powerful jets of 
water at activists who had blocked the main road.

Police on horseback also helped pushed protesters off the highway.

The main flashpoint was the fence surrounding the exclusive resort hotel 
where US President George W Bush and his counterparts were meeting.

Police said that when about 800 people tried to fight their way to the 
barrier, a small group began hurling stones, prompting the police to fire 
water cannons.

One activist group said tear gas had also been used against demonstrators, 
but police could not confirm it.

Protesters jailed

Two Spanish protesters and a German were sentenced yesterday to up to 10 
months in prison for their part in violence on Saturday in which hundreds of 
people were injured.

But a major demonstration planned for today was called off, the organisers 
said, after German authorities banned the event. About 11,000 people had 
been expected to attend.

Demonstrations to continue amidst security fears

But other anti-globalisation groups have vowed to keep up the protests until 
the summit ends tomorrow and 16,000 German police were to remain around 
Heiligendamm.

In the three-day meeting, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, 
Russia and the United States are discussing climate change and aid to 
Africa.



SOURCE: AFP

http://www.thestatesmanonline.com/pages/news_detail.php?newsid=3720&section=1


18,000 Police shield G8 leaders from angry protestors
. , 07/06/2007


As G8 leaders arrived in northern Germany Wednesday for their annual summit, 
German police imposed strict limits on protestors, effectively preventing 
most from getting anywhere near the airport.
It is taking about 18,000 security personnel (about the size of Ghana's 
entire police service) to shield the world leaders from thousands of 
demonstrators by a 12-km (7.5-mile) fence topped with barbed wires.
Meanwhile, the prospect of a positive outcome for millions of poor people 
around the world hung in the balance last night as it emerged that the G8 
was in turmoil over negotiations on Africa.
With Germany the current chair of the G8, Angela Merkel was under pressure 
to show some 'care". She has promised to increase development aid by 750 
million euros a year over the next four years. Max Lawson of Oxfam said this 
was "not enough." To reach Germany's target of spending 0.51 percent of GDP 
on aid, its increase would need to be nearly double the proposed amount.
However, the German government, according to reports, was making eleventh 
hour amendments to the final summit text in a bid to secure agreement on 
aid. This comes amid reports that several G8 countries, including Italy and 
Canada, were blocking progress on Africa negotiations in Heiligendamm.
The arrival of the G8 heads had been a red letter day in the protestors' 
diary from the very beginning.
For the past few days, the issues had been the motivation to protest. Now 
the people responsible for those issues were coming and a predicted 8,000 to 
10,000 demonstrators were ready to give them a welcome they would never 
forget.
The police had other plans. From the early morning, it was evident that the 
"two police officers for every protestor" rumour was no longer in dispute. 
The massed ranks of heavily armoured officers stationed on roads, bridges 
and railway tracks were sending out a visible message: you shall not pass. 
The 16,000 regular police and 2,000 special officers drafted in for the 
summit were being used to full effect.
The first full bus of protestors was ready to head to the summit area from 
nearby Rostock when it was surrounded by police wagons. Officers ordered the 
passengers out of the bus and the vehicle was slowly searched while bags and 
pockets were emptied on demand.
Another bus arrived and was immediately impounded, its human cargo forced to 
get comfortable on the grass verge. For how long, it is hard to say. Many 
never made it out of Rostock.
Police used water canons to push back demonstrators. Several masked 
protestors used clippers to cut through barbed wires. Almost 1,000 people 
were injured during a weekend rally at Rostock in clashes with the police.
Their anger is a mixed bag of anti-globalisation, pro-environmentalism, 
anarchism and anger at the rich nation's treatment of Africa.
"With key countries playing spoilers on aid and HIV, the G8's credibility is 
on the line. Unless there's serious work done in the next day on the G8's 
Africa Declaration, the summit will be over for the world's poorest region 
before it's even begun," Patrick Watt, ActionAid UK Policy Coordinator was 
reported as saying.
The promise of universal access to HIV treatment made in 2005 remains in a 
critical condition, with some countries seeking to remove the few hard 
numbers on financing from the text.
With the G8 falling short of their aid commitments by $8 billion in 2006 
alone, the G8 risks scuppering pledges on HIV, health and education. Germany 
and Italy urgently need to step up to the plate to get the G8 on track to 
double aid to Africa by 2010.
With the leaders and delegations from the G8 nations and the Plus Five 
observer countries jetting into Rostock Laage military air base on 
Wednesday, the summit proper really began.
As if to emphasise that whatever had gone before had just been a dry run for 
the main event, the police made their own statement to that effect. The day 
started with what could only be described as widespread lockdown of 
infrastructure and ended with a heavy-handed clampdown on the opposition.
Still on Africa, a report issued by CONCORD, an umbrella organisation 
representing development NGOs based in Europe, analyses the aid programmes 
of European Union nations. The report is entitled "Hold the Applause."
It states that the amounts promised by European governments do not match the 
amounts actually paid: "If European governments do not improve on current 
performance, poor countries will have received 50 billion Euros less from 
Europe by 2010 than...promised." It accuses European government aid 
programmes of having "security, geopolitical alliances and domestic 
interests" as the main objectives.
The analysis shows 30 percent of the figure for aid claimed by European 
governments was not genuine aid. Amongst the methods used to inflate the aid 
figures is the inclusion of debt relief as aid.
Another is to count cancellation of export credit debts as aid relief. As 
the report points out, export credits are used to support domestic companies 
seeking to do business in developing countries, offering insurance against 
often very lucrative, if somewhat risky, ventures.
Another means of inflating aid figures is to include monies spent on 
refugees within Europe and money spent on educating overseas students within 
Europe.
The report cites Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 
figures showing the percentage of European aid going to Africa is actually 
falling. For 2004 it was 41 percent, and in 2005 it was 37 percent.
CONCORD also makes the point that "tied food aid is often linked to trade 
dumping of surplus food from donor countries." A recent article in the 
Observer newspaper food magazine accused the American government of doing 
the same thing.
It noted, "America's food aid volumes increased massively (up to 20 percent 
of cereal production)...when prices in the US were depressed...but when 
domestic prices are high this figure falls to just five percent."
A report by the development charity Oxfam is headlined, "The World is Still 
Waiting. Broken G8 promises are costing millions of lives."
The report notes that two years since the Gleneagles G8 summit, "the 
unacceptable truth is that they are breaking their promises, with terrible 
consequences." Oxfam calculates that shortfall in money promised equates to 
1 million women dying in pregnancy or childbirth for the want of simple 
medical care and 21 million children under five dying because of extreme 
poverty.
Much was made of the debt cancellations announced at the 2005 G8 summit, and 
yet according to the Jubilee Debt Campaign using the latest information 
available, "The poorest 54 countries have debts totalling between $300 and 
$400 billion, whilst for the poorest 152 countries, it is over $ 2.5 
trillion."
They add, "The total external debt of the very poorest countries (the 'low 
income countries' which have an annual average income of less than $875 per 
person) was $412 billion at the end of 2005. During 2005, these countries 
paid nearly $43 billion to the rich world in debt service (payments of 
interest and principal)-that is $118 million a day."
In April, the Africa Progress Panel was established. Amongst its leading 
personnel are Kofi Busumburu Annan, former head of the United Nations, 
Michael Camdessus, former managing director of the International Monetary 
Fund and Bob Geldof.
In a recent statement, it noted only 10 percent of the pledges made at the 
Gleneagles G8 summit had been fulfilled. Mr Annan met with Merkel at the end 
of April. After the meeting, she commented, "We are going to take things up 
where Gleneagles ended...we don't need to have more conferences and set more 
goals."

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/europe/news/article_1314334.php/Protesters_block_gates_at_G8_summit__2nd_Roundup_

Jun 6, 2007, 19:03 GMT
Heiligendamm, Germany - Thousands of anti-globalization protesters blocked 
several access routes to the G8 summit site in Germany for much of 
Wednesday.
Riot police stood tensely on guard for most of the day, keeping the gaily 
dressed protesters from pressing up to a 2.5-metre-high, welded-mesh, steel 
fence topped with razor wire surrounding the Heiligendamm summit hotel.
In the evening, police began clearing the roads, manhandling away sitting 
protesters, hosing down larger groups with cold water from police trucks and 
drawing up lines of riot officers wielding plastic clubs and shields.
In a day of manoeuvring and outflanking, protesters ran across fields to 
evade police road-blocks and defy a court ban on protests near the fence, 
erected in a two-kilometre radius from the palaces and grand hotel at 
Heiligendamm.
A main gate, emergency-access routes and a steam railway for tourists were 
blocked, but one main access route remained open all day, so the blockade 
was not complete, reporters said.
Under a soft policing policy named 'de-escalation,' there were only isolated 
clashes and riot police ignored the fact that the protest was illegal under 
a ruling the same day from Germany's Constitutional Court.
The court confirmed a ban on protest in a zone extending more than 6 
kilometres from the summit hotel.
Exultant demonstrators voiced surprise that the police had not stopped them. 
Organizers said they had fielded 10,000 protesters in the countryside near 
Heiligendamm to disrupt the summit, while police counted 8,000.
'We just walked over the fields where the water-cannon couldn't follow us,' 
said a spokeswoman for the protest group Block G8, which regards the summit 
as illegitimate.
The eight summit leaders were able to fly by helicopter over the protesters' 
heads from a nearby airport into the exclusive Heiligendamm beach resort and 
later to a country estate, Gut Hohen Luckow 20 kilometres away, for dinner.
At key points such as main highways, police used water cannon and tear gas 
to clear away protesters. The various clashes caused injuries such as cuts, 
bruises and sprains.
A police spokesman denied the 16,000-strong special summit police force, 
which had met frequently beforehand with protest organizers, had been taken 
by surprise.
The protesters from round the globe were mainly in their 20s, many wearing 
colourful casual dress or humourous costumes, but with a few wearing the 
hoods and the black clothes that mark out 'Black Block' militants.
Two Spanish men aged 20 and 21 were meanwhile sent to jail at a summary 
trial for their part in an anti-G8 riot four days earlier in the port city 
of Rostock.
The younger man was given nine months for throwing stones at police and the 
elder ten months because one of the stones actually hit an officer.
However, they were bailed after defence lawyers said they would appeal 
against the convictions.
The previous day, the first rioter to be convicted, a 32-year-old German, 
received 10 months on similar charges.
An estimated 2,000 black-clad protesters had fought with riot police on 
Saturday.

http://www.indianmuslims.info/news/2007/jun/06/demonstrators_evade_police_g8_summit.html


Demonstrators evade police at G8 summit
Posted June 6th, 2007 by Tarique
o                        International
By IANS
Heiligendamm (Germany) : Thousands of demonstrators determined to conduct a 
sit-down protest at the G8 summit evaded a police roadblock and streamed 
towards the summit venue Wednesday.
Only 50 police were posted near a protest camp at Reddelich, a village close 
to the summit press centre in Bad Doberan. The protesters ran through woods.
On a road at the other side of the woods, they hurled branches of trees onto 
the tarmac to briefly obstruct police vehicles and enable a further advance. 
Ten police helicopters observed the cat-and-mouse game from above.
Police had earlier warned the public in Germany to expect delays on roads 
near the Heiligendamm G8 summit because of sit-down protests.
Ulf Erler, a spokesman for the summit police unit code-named Kavala, said on 
ZDF television 30 demonstrations were planned for Wednesday in the Baltic 
coast area.
Police have coordinated in advance with the protesters. Under a policing 
approach known as de-escalation, the police are expected to tolerate crowds 
holding up traffic briefly.
Erler appealed to the German public to put up with any delays caused by 
sit-down protesters. This was implicit in the de-escalation strategy, he 
said.
Peaceful protesters, who have condemned rioting and attacks on police lines, 
say they want to disrupt the summit but will only break the law to the 
extent of obstructing arrivals by the mass of their bodies.
The sit-ins are being led by a faction in the broad protest movement, which 
considers the G8 as evil and wants to stop the summit, but disagrees with 
the violent tactics of the most radical faction, known as the Black Block.
Civic groups, which accept the G8 meeting but want to persuade western 
leaders to offer more aid to Africa, have organized rallies, which do not 
disrupt and are attending an "Alternative Summit" in Rostock.

http://media.www.dailytexanonline.com/media/storage/paper410/news/2007/06/07/WorldNation/German.Police.Spray.G8.Protesters.With.Water.Cannon-2912931.shtml


German police spray G8 protesters with water cannon

By David McHugh (The The Associated Press)
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KUEHLUNGSBORN, Germany - Police used water cannon on scattered 
stone-throwing demonstrators Wednesday as several hundred protesters swarmed 
a seven-mile fence surrounding the G-8 summit where President Bush and 
German Chancellor Angela Merkel were to meet.

Other protesters blocked roads leading from the airport to the summit site 
of Heiligendamm on the Baltic Sea coast in northern Germany, police said, as 
leaders began arriving on the first day of the three-day summit.

One group swarmed over a small-gauge railway used to transport journalists 
to Heiligendamm from the summit center in nearby Kuehlungsborn, running in 
various directions until a detachment in riot gear corralled them in one 
area.

Police spokesman Manfred Luetjann said that protesters had managed to block 
two routes leading from the airport in Rostock, and they breached security 
to reach the imposing fence surrounding the resort.

"We wanted to prevent this from happening but now they are there and we are 
handling it," he told The Associated Press by telephone.

He said that several thousand protesters were along parts of the fence, some 
throwing stones at police control points that had been set up along the 
barrier. Police responded with water cannon. It was not immediately clear if 
there were any injuries or arrests.

The incident came after a protest Saturday in nearby Rostock where several 
thousand black-hooded protesters hurled rocks and bottles at police near the 
end of a march and rally by some 25,000 people. Some 400 police officers 
were injured.

Another police spokesman, Frank Scheulen, said most of the demonstrators who 
had reached the fence Wednesday were peaceful, "but of course we have to 
assume that there could be potentially violent protesters among them."

"We will take all necessary measures," to ensure the security, he said.

Luetjann said that protesters had blocked the A19 and B105 roadways from 
Laage airport, where Air Force One landed the day before, and where leaders 
including Russia's Vladimir Putin and Britain's Tony Blair were expected 
later in the day.

"If we can block them, if they can get their lunch with a few hours' delay, 
that is fine," Emil Begtrup-Bright, who said he was a member of the 
left-wing grass roots group called Socialist Youth Forum, told Denmark's TV2 
News channel.

Some of the demonstrators got to the barbed wire-topped fence, which runs 
through open countryside outside Heiligendamm. "The fence was reach by 
several hundred persons," said police spokesman Lueder Behrens.

http://jurnalo.com/jurnalo/storyPage.do?story_id=40052


Heiligendamm
Protesters clash with police at G8 summit
Wednesday 06 June 2007 13:07
An estimated 6,000 anti-globalization protesters blocked roads near the G8 
summit on Wednesday and gathered at a fence around the Heiligendamm venue in 
Germany.
Police used tear-gas and water-jets from special anti-riot trucks to drive 
part of the crowd back from the welded-mesh, steel fence erected at a radius 
of 2 kilometres from the summit hotel.

A police spokesman said the water cannon were used after stones were thrown 
at police from a crowd of about 800 near the main access gate to the summit 
zone.

"Once we use the water cannon, our de-escalation strategy has finished," he 
added. Another group of 300 had approached the second of the two gates in 
the G8 fence.

Police also used water jets and tear gas to clear thousands of protesters 
off Highway 105 which runs past Heiligendamm at a distance of about 6 
kilometres.