[Onthebarricades] Germany G8 Blockades 5 - liberal media coverage (Guardian, Independent, New Statesman)

[Andy]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g8/story/0,,2097183,00.html
 
'We will block you' - at least to a moderate degree

Patrick Barkham in Heiligendamm
Thursday June 7, 2007
The Guardian 
It was billed as the day they would bring the eight most powerful nations to their knees by sitting in the road, but by 9am the idealists, anticapitalists and anarchists had already been forced to take a hike. 
James Foley, 22, a student from Glasgow, had risen at 7.15am at the tent city in Rostock to join thousands of anti-G8 demonstrators marching on the luxurious Baltic spa resort of Heiligendamm where world leaders were gathering. 
When their shuttle buses were stopped by police, Foley and thousands of his comrades decided to walk the 14 miles to the resort. Straggling lines of children, students, mothers and the occasional flag-waving granny waded waist deep through grey-green wheat like a medieval army, jumping ditches and passing under twirling windfarms. 
By lunchtime, the demonstrators cheered news relayed by loud-hailer that 10,000 people had breached the restricted zone placed around the G8, blocked the main roads into the summit - in some cases by felling trees - and even halted in its tracks the miniature steam train shunting journalists from the press centre to the secure compound. 
German police said eight officers had been injured in skirmishes when protesters twice broke through police lines to continue their march on Heiligendamm. Dozens of anti-G8 marchers reported burns and bruises from water cannon used to clear roads of peaceful protesters. The police claimed protesters threw stones but there was no repeat of the pitched battles that injured 1,000 people and embarrassed the authorities last weekend in Rostock. 
This normally tranquil rural corner of Germany was filled with police dogs, horses, helicopters, armoured cars, unmarked vehicles and units of black and green-clad riot police racing to cut off the route to Heiligendamm. 
After batons and teargas, the 16,000- strong German police discovered a more devilish weapon: the power of tedium. Protesters were corralled in small groups and painstakingly - and very slowly - searched. 
"They stopped us for three hours and checked every bag, and they were doing it very slowly," said Janina Reivold, 22, from Heidelberg. "Now they are out to escalate the situation with water cannon." At every turn, police slowed down the marchers, who sang songs and even evoked the power of rock group Queen - chanting "We will, we will, block you" at riot squads as they sat down in country roads. When the protesters passed the 10-mile mark, armed riot police moved swiftly, jogging into a field and dividing the main march, before splitting them again into smaller groups. 
While a few anarchists in black hoods and caps cut through barbed wire police had laid near the fence, most of the march became becalmed in the village of Borgerende, where they sat in the street in the sunshine surrounded by more than 100 police vans. Bemused locals took photographs. One pensioner offered the perspiring revolutionaries refills of water. 
Many of the marchers felt the police tactics to stop them getting within shouting distance of George Bush and his peers infringed their freedom of assembly. "By sheer force of numbers our right to peaceful protest has been completely curtailed," said Foley. 
By late afternoon, the majority of the marchers had conceded defeat in their attempt to stop G8 going ahead. 
Some British protesters felt the German protest leaders had been too cautious and failed to organise the protests. "The organisers seem to be worried about being too German, being too organised and giving orders," said Marie from Manchester, who travelled to Germany on Ryanair with her 15-year-old daughter, Mia. 
But most believed their march on Heiligendamm had scored some successes. At the modest end of the scale, the Japanese prime minister's wife was forced to cancel a walkabout in a nearby resort. The more important thing, protesters insisted, was that they were questioning the legitimacy of capitalist globalisation by our world leaders. 
Brian Christopher, a student protester from Derry, said he had journeyed to Germany to point out it was "abhorrent that there are people who can meet to dictate the fate of the world when all the decisions they have taken have led to greater inequality and more wars. 
"We have got the G8 on the run because they now have to have it in the middle of nowhere," he said. "The fact that they have to hide from their own citizens is a sad state of affairs."



http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/sasha_simic/2007/06/flocking_to_the_fence.html

 

Flocking to the fence

Today, police didn't know how to react when a carefully planned demo saw thousands of peaceful protesters head for the G8 exclusion zone.

Sasha Simic

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June 6, 2007 7:00 PM | Printable version

We woke up early this morning and followed careful instructions to get to the village of Admannshagen, 10 minutes out of Rostock and much nearer Heiligendamm. We were going to blockade the G8. There was no way we were going to stop it, our action was to be purely symbolic, but we were going to carry out a well-organised blockade of the G8 summit which was going to get as near to the exclusion zone around Heiligendamm as possible. And it was going to be peaceful. 

Yesterday evening a group of us went up to Camp Rostock - the huge campsite on the edge of the town - for training in non-violent resistance. There are two huge circus tents on site surrounded by hundreds of individual tents laid out on a grid that's bisected by "Via Rosa Luxembourg" and "Via Guliani" and "rue Durrutti". Yesterday the last groups of hundreds were trained in impressive sessions in non-violence in those tents. Tied between two trees is a huge, rudimentary map with our target, the excluded town of Heiligendamm, marked as if it was Mordor from Lord of the Rings. 

At 7.30 last night a meeting pulled the whole strategy together which has been a year and a half in preparation. We were going to carry out the strategy of the "five fingers" as developed by Germany's anti-nuclear protesters. We were going to start as close as possible to the exclusion zone. Then we were going to split up into five different lines following five different coloured flags and we would approach the exclusion zone on different routes. The police could not stop us all. We were not interested in fighting with the police. The point was to get to the security fence. Any protesters faced with arrest were instructed to offer no resistance or violence to the police. We were all given phone numbers where we could get legal advice but once caught we were not to endanger the main protest with any macho heroics. By yesterday evening, 1,500 people had already joined one of the five groups. 

This morning when we arrived at the designated tiny playing field in Admannshagen, hundreds were already there. Two hours later, 10,000 anti-G8 protesters had joined us. We were ready to go. But would would everything go as smoothly as it had been planned and outlined to us the previous evening?

It did. The police were completely overwhelmed by our numbers but we were entirely non-violent. The police, whose armoured cars and water cannons lined the road, didn't know how to handle us as we swung into open fields. As we got nearer and nearer to the two main roads that feed Hieligendamm, the security forces sent nine helicopters to meet us. They arced impressively in the sky over us for a while, like something from a Vietnam film. I remembered the same tactic was tried in Gleneagles where police officers were transported over the heads of protesters in Chinooks which flew so low we could see them flicking the Vs up at us on the open ramps at the back.

But they might have had helicopters ... but what were they going to do with them? And they had the body armour and the tear-gas and the riot shields but we weren't giving them an opportunity to use them. 

The protesters continued to press towards the exclusion zone.

So there we were ... up to our waists in wheat fields watching the snake-like line of black-clad police enter the fields, sway uncertainly while trying to decide which of the five lines dotting the horizon to chase, and then retreat in confusion.

Not all of us got through to the security fence. I didn't. But we've just heard that some have.

paldopice

Comment No. 622547

June 6 20:00

SVK 

My name is Sasha. 
This year I went on holiday for the first time without mum and dad.
Some of my friends from class went too.
I went to Germany.
The bad rich men were having a big meeting there.
We dressed as scarecrows and played hide-and-seek.
To scare the bad rich men.
There were hundreds of gazillions of us.
It was really grate.
Some big bad policeman scared us with a big helicopter.
I was scared last term by a big helicopter too.
I almost won the hide-and-seek.
But I got caught by one of the policemen.
I heard that Giles and Josh in 4A won the hide-and-seek.
I like Josh.
He is my friend.



http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/archives/2007/06/07/things_you_may_not_have_seen_at_the_g8_protests.html

 

Things you may not have seen at the G8 protests
By Patrick Barkham / G8 05:25pm

If you have watched any television coverage of the protests outside this year's G8 you've probably seen plenty of drama. Last weekend there were black-clad hoodies hurling rocks at police. This week there have been water canons fired, missiles thrown and protesters sent hurtling to the floor by police boots and batons.

But these sporadic outbursts of violence don't reflect the overall character of the antiG8 protests which have, so far, been remarkably good natured.

I've stood and watched 24 hours of the biggest demonstrations outside the G8 in the past three days. Obviously my experience of the protests is not comprehensive - mini demonstrations are breaking out all over the place within a 20-mile radius of the G8 and I have to dash back to the media centre to file this blog - but I think I've seen a representative slice of the major protests.

The protesters are like a cross between a medieval army, a modern music festival crowd and performance theatre. They straggle across fields and then break into song, dance or aerobics when confronted by lines of riot police. Almost all of them have been admirably peaceful so far.

Contrary to press reports, I've not witnessed any rocks or bricks or dangerous missiles thrown by protesters. (Grand total of missiles thrown that I have seen: one plastic bottle.) I'm not denying it's happened but it has been rare, so far.

In case you think I'm getting all cuddly with the protesters, from what I've seen, the police operation has also been fairly intelligent and certainly effective (although I wasn't in Germany last Saturday when reports of police brutality were widespread after rioting in Rostock). At the protests I've attended, officers have talked to the protesters and haven't needlessly provoked them.

You wouldn't mess with these cops, however. They are enormous, and formidably equipped with bulky riot uniforms, batons, guns and leather gloves. A female officer batted me away from police lines today with the ease of swatting a fly.

>From what I've seen, however, there has certainly been more violence used on the police side. The authorities would say that is their job - to stop the G8 being disrupted. So they tend to be the ones trying to force the issue, charging at protesters and beating them with batons to move them back from the roads around the resort.

They also use the water canons fairly liberally and if you think water is some kind of fluffy anti-riot option, it is not, especially when laced with pepper spray. The Guardian's photographer Graeme Robertson was hit in the face and chest this afternoon and was in agony (and he's a big man who can take care of himself). The weapon leaves burns on the skin and dozens of protesters - and another photographer this afternoon - have needed medical treatment.

So far, at least, moments of confrontation remain relatively rare and are soon over. Beyond the lines where police meet protesters, there are ordinary people enjoying the sunshine in the German countryside: overheated police sitting on their riot shields and downing energy drinks or playing doing crosswords in their vans; protesters lying on the grass reading newspapers and chatting with friends.

This afternoon, just as police were trying a show of force by landing nine helicopters in a field right by 3,000 protesters, a German Green MP cycled up. He wheeled his bike through the line of police riot shields and went to chat to the protesters. He was given a polite round of applause. Maybe one of the G8 leaders should try meeting their people.


http://www.newstatesman.com/200706070002

 
Day three: the protest
Tamsyn East
Published 07 June 2007
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The police are confronted by well trained and organised anti-G8 protesters
As we rose this morning Rostock camp was a hive of activity. While Leila and I were putting the finishing touches to our presentations for the alternative summit, thousands of activists set out to take part in blockades around Heligendamm as the official G8 summit, or as one activist put it 'Kings on Tour' got under way.
Reports from yesterday indicate that over 6,000 protesters took part in blockades and there do not seem to have been that many arrests. It seems that such numbers were not expected by police and as one activists described it: 'when I arrived at 8am at the meeting point I was surprised by the lack of police. Soon we were 1,000 people strong. It was then that the helicopters arrived, I think 10 in all, circling menacingly above our heads.'
I spoke to one UK activist who took part in a blockade at the village of Rethwisch. "I was part of an affinity group with 7 others. It was my first time doing civil disobedience but I trusted my group, and over the last few days we had undergone a large amount of training that I felt confident about how to act in different situations, and that we would look out for each other. We set off in groups following different flags, aiming to get to specific roads - and I think we all managed to get to our target spots. The tactics we were taught worked. That said it was a very tense situation
- the police used tear gas and water canons, but we did not let that put us off. We kept ducking off into adjacent fields to avoid the spray before pushing on till we got to where we wanted to go. I am glad that I did it for the cause.'
Whilst thousands of people were taking direct action, thousands of others were taking action in their own way - whether it was sharing experiences at the alternative summit, using art as a political tool, or engaging in creative stunts, everyone has their niche, and it is this combination of activities that makes protests at the G8 in my mind so powerful. In Germany the dominate view is that the G8 is illegitimate and people are expressing this in whatever way reflects them best. There is even space to discuss the role and remit of the 'black-block' in a way that is not just centred on violence.
While more reports about the blockades drift back to Rostock, we have just heard that our camp has been surrounded by police and people are not allowed to enter or leave. It looks like a search is imminent but as yet the police do not have a search warrant. It looks like yet another intimidation tactic by the police and the activists are not rising to the bait.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/world/german-police-arrest-900-protesters-in-g8-battles/2007/06/09/1181089377478.html
 
German police arrest 900 protesters in G8 battles
June 9, 2007 - 12:16PM
After a final clash on the Group of Eight frontlines, German police said they had made more than 900 arrests over four tense days of demonstrations and defended their summit security operation.
Activist groups said they were delighted with their campaign of blocking roads leading to the summit venue on the Baltic coast, while police denied they had been outwitted by protesters.
Having succeeded in intruding into the maritime exclusion zone around the summit hotel in speedboats a day earlier, environmental group Greenpeace tried to fly over it in a hot air balloon, but police helicopters forced it to land.
Two activists on board carried a yellow banner which read "G8: Act Now".
There were renewed scuffles between thousands of demonstrators and police in the nearby city of Rostock yesterday, but nothing to compare with the violent clashes of previous days.
Police said they had arrested a total of 932 people since the main demonstration against the summit descended into pitched battles between masked protesters in Rostock last Saturday.
Knut Abramowski, who commanded the 16,000 police deployed for the summit, rejected accusations that he had been taken by surprise by the size and nature of the protests, insisting "we knew what to expect".
He said that although his officers had started out with a policy of trying to avoid clashes, they had been forced to resort to "harder measures" when protesters had repeatedly tried to approach the 12-kilometre fence surrounding the summit hotel.
At times the protesters had shown "a potential for violence that could not be over-estimated", Abramowski said.
Protest groups claimed they had achieved their aims in attracting the world's media day after day to see a series of sit-ins on roads, sometimes featuring demonstrators dressed as clowns.
Police used water cannon to clear some roads but on Wednesday the sit-ins had effectively sealed off the summit to traffic.
Summit organisers were left red-faced when protesters on Wednesday blocked the tracks of the vintage steam train which was supposed to take journalists to the heavily guarded summit hotel.
"We succeeded in paralysing the roads to the G8 for its duration. So we are more than satisfied," said Lea Voigt from the Block G-8 protest group.
Another protest organiser, Manni Stenner, said: "We guaranteed democracy."
Thanks to the security fence around the summit venue, the closest protesters came to the focus of much of their anger - US President George Bush - was when he landed at Rostock airport to jeers from anti-war demonstrators.
Aside from the logistical problems caused by the demonstrations, many of the participants appeared to have little political agenda other than pure opposition to the meeting of the world's wealthiest nations - Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States.
A concert on Thursday featuring rock star and campaigner Bono attracted 70,000 people.
The summit produced a pledge from the world's most industrialised nations to pursue "substantial" cuts to greenhouse gas pollution and leaders said they would "seriously consider" the goal of halving global emissions by 2050.
AFP
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21858276-401,00.html
 
Bush arrives for G8, met by anti-war protesters
By Arnaud Bouvier in Rostock
June 06, 2007 05:03am
Article from: Agence France-Presse
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ANTI-WAR protesters jeered US President George W. Bush when he arrived in Germany overnight for the G8 summit, as a massive security plan swung into action.
Hundreds of demonstrators chanted "Bush, Merkel, Putin, Blair, we will fight you everywhere", as Mr Bush's plane touched down in Rostock in northern Germany. 
The G8 summit will begin on Wednesday (overnight AEST) in the nearby seaside resort of Heiligendamm. 
The protesters were kept about a kilometre from the airport, penned in behind a chain-link barrier patrolled by about 100 policemen with dogs. 
The protesters said they wanted to tell Mr Bush he was not welcome at the Group of Eight summit because of his pursuit of the Iraq war and Washington's controversial plans to place part of a missile defence shield in eastern Europe. 
The plan has triggered a row with Russia that has descended into Cold War rhetoric and threatens to overshadow the summit. 
"I think the shield will only divide Europe more," said Jan Tanasch, a Czech who came to Germany to protest against US plans to locate parts of the shield in his country and in Poland. 
"This will lead to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. I do not believe in this so-called threat. When we were told that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, I did not believe it either," he said. 
Mr Bush flew into Germany from the Czech Republic where he accused Russia of derailing democratic reforms, in a speech likely to further strain ties with Moscow. 
Germany fears that up to 100,000 anti-globalisation protesters will target the summit and has launched a massive security operation to prevent a repeat of the bloody clashes that have marked recent G8 summits. 
Heiligendamm has been sealed off by a razor-wire topped fence to keep protestors from besieging the summit venue. 
A total of 16,000 police are on duty for the meeting. 
Protest organisers said some 12,000 militants who have pitched their tents in nearby towns are planning to block the roads to the resort town to prevent delegations from reaching the summit. 
"We cannot stop (Mr Bush) and the other heads of state flying into Heiligendamm by helicopter, but we can try to stop members of their delegations, people like translators, coming in by road," said one protest leader. 
The run-up to the summit has already seen more than 1000 people injured in running battles between anti-G8 protesters and police. 
The summit will bring together the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the US.



http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article2621808.ece


Anti-G8 carnival turns sour as protesters clash with riot police 
By Tony Paterson 
Published: 07 June 2007 
The Baltic seaside site of Germany's G8 summit was surrounded by thousands of anti-globalisation protesters despite the presence of more than 16,000 riot police who used baton charges, water cannon and tear gas in an abortive attempt to keep them at bay. 
While world leaders were flown in by helicopter, organisers had to rely on an armada of police launches to ferry other delegates to the summit in Heiligendamm, as protesters forced their way through a no-go area and reached asecurity fence surrounding the site.
Jutta Sundermann, spokeswoman for Attac, one of the main anti-globalisation organisations, said two groups comprising about 10,000 protesters had blocked all land routes to the summit venue. "It is our style of civil disobedience and we appear to have outwitted the police," she said.
Riot police used baton charges and fired water cannon and tear gas grenades at groups of demonstrators who attacked road checkpoints. Police said eight officers were injured in the clashes. Police insisted they had not been surprised by the protesters, but had decided to end an earlier policy of de-escalation and respond with force.
Scenes at two police checkpoints resembled a battlefield yesterday afternoon, with the road littered with stones as ambulances sped in to evacuate injured officers. Masked members of Germany's so-called "black block" of anarchist demonstrators fought running battles with riot police. The protests started off in an almost carnival atmosphere as demonstrators, some dressed as clowns, trooped off from two camps south of Heiligendamm towards the summit. Thousands of protesters sidestepped police checkpoints by flanking off into woods or fields thick with poppies. They were pursued, Apocalypse Now-style, by 12 low-flying police helicopters.
Police claimed that members of a group called "the rebel clown army" had sprayed officers with acid. A "clown army" spokesman denied the accusations. 

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