[Gipfelsoli Newsletter] 11th July 2007 Heiligendamm -- Hokkaido

[International Newsletter]

11th July 2007 Heiligendamm -- Hokkaido

- Call for the Anti-G8 Action July 2008 By NO! G8 Japan
- Collective legal action 07. June - "Wichmannsdorf Wood"
- English translation of the Reddelich camp statement of june 6th:
- An Invitation To The Gatwick No Border Camp 2007
- Anti-G8 demonstration violence in Rostock: questions and contradictions

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Call for the Anti-G8 Action July 2008 By NO! G8 Japan

In July 2008, heads of the states that monopolize two thirds of earth's wealth
will gather at Toya Lake in Hokkaido Japan. Although the so-called Group of
Eight does not have any legitimate right for deciding planetary affairs, they
have self-appointed themselves world ruler. Thus the G8 has driven neo-liberal
globalization at the same time as spreading poverty, violence, hatred,
segregation, and environmental destruction.
At a very critical moment of world capitalism during the 1970s, the G8 was
established to form a consensus among the imperialist nation-states. Ever since
it has become the cornerstone of the neo-liberalist globalization that we are
confronting. The 'consensus' signifies nothing short of finding out the most
convenient means of driving global financialization, privatization,
commercialization, and militarization and camouflaging these processes as if
they were for the public well-being.
In the past the G8 has expressed concerns about human rights and poverty. German
Chancellor Angela Merkel stressed the need for a human-faced globalization. But
then, who is it that violates human rights on the pretext of the "fight against
terrorism"? Who is it that is eliminating public education the world over? Who
is it that privatizes almost all the resources left for humanity -- land,
water, and food -- and preys on the increasing global poverty? Who is it that
produces and exports more than 90% of the world's weaponry? At the 2007 summit
in Heiligendamm, one of the main themes was the poverty in Africa, but what
they proposed as a measure to combat it was, shockingly, the deregulation of
investment in Africa. From its behavior we have learned that for the G8, even
human rights and poverty are just another opportunity for capitalists'
expropriation.
At the Toya Lake summit in 2008, the main theme will be environmental problems.
What a deceit! It is the G8 that ravages the natural resources of the
world--even resorting to arms--and discharges more than 40% of the planetary
carbon dioxide, hence instigating the climate changes. Shinzo Abe, the prime
minister of Japan hosting the 2008 summit, has invented a vain slogan:
"Invitation to the Beautiful Stars," which proposes in substance the
exportation of nuclear power plants to developing countries--nothing that
counters capitalist interests and works for true enduring development.
We are no longer silent. Neither do we intend to make a petition for a better G8
through conversation. By way of direct action, we will demand the termination of
2008 Toya Lake Summit and the decomposition of G8.
Also we will demand the immediate liquidation of the Abe administration of
Japan, the sole participant in the G8 from Asia. The Abe Administration is in
the midst of pushing for neo-liberalist reforms and the fortification of the
security-state in Japan, while persisting in sending troops to Iraq as a
simple-minded follower of the US strategy for its global military rule. At the
same time, its main objective is to amend Japan's constitution in order to
complete the long-lasting ambitions of imperialist Japan. Thus, to thwart the
ambitions of the Abe administration is no longer a concern of Japan alone, but
a must for the struggle against the neo-liberalist expansion and militarization
in the entire Asian region. Our objective to terminate G8 is inseparable from
these regional tasks.
We appeal to you, all the people struggling in different regions of the world,
to join No! G8 Japan in July 2008 in Toya Lake, Hokkaido Japan. We consider our
project as a continuation of the planetary anti-G8 struggles, especially those
coordinated by Dissent network. We seek to add a new phase of it in the Far
East. Let us organize together the widest possible global network and create an
unimaginably varied, rich, and powerful spectacle of struggle. By so doing let
G8 know that a world that is totally different from the one driven by the
capitalist principles, a world that is based upon the principles of autonomy,
mutual aid, and bottom-up decision-making, is possible.


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Collective legal action 07. June - "Wichmannsdorf Wood"

Intro
During the 2007 G8 summit in Heiligendamm estimated 200 people who were on their
way to the protest actions and demonstrations of the day were arrested in a
forrest near the protest camp Wichmannsdorf on the pretext of "participation in
a burning barricade". The detentions were carried out mostly without any legal
base and outside of the special zone were all actions, demonstrations and
gatherings were disallowed. A mailing list is meant to help co-ordinate legal
proceedings, organise collective legal action, discuss how to make police
harassment and repression public and generally make a political resumee of the
events possible.

What needs to be done
* Those affected by the detentions or witnesses: please subscribe to the list as
soon as possible. If you know others who were affected by the mass detentions in
the Wichmannsdorf forrest on Thursday, 7th June, inform them about this wiki and
the mailing list and ask them to subscribe.
* The german list of police harrassments, breaches of law etc. needs to be
translated to english

What's happened so far
* Wiki-page started
* mailing list started
* contacted the legal team

Contact / mailing list
We will coordinate our efforts via a mailing list. Please subscribe to the list
if you were affected by or witnessed the detentions. To subscribe, enter your
email address in the form at http://lists.riseup.net/www/subrequest/sammelklage
and hit the "subscribe" button. You will then receive an automatic confirmation
mail that you should answer to be subscribed. If you have problems handling the
list, please write to sammelklage-admin [at] lists.riseup.net .
You can contact us via the mailing list at sammelklage [at] lists.riseup.net .

List of police harassment and breaches of law
Could someone please translate the german list above

publications
* the legal team has published a statement about the general conditions in the
detention centres: http://de.indymedia.org/2007/06/183093.shtml (german)
* On Indymedia a report has been published, parts of which deal with what
happened in the Wichmannsdorf forrest:
http://de.indymedia.org/2007/06/184573.shtml (german)
* A short version of this report (german) was read at the Hearing "What happened
in Heiligendamm" that was held on the 27th of June 2007, following which a
number of press reports about police harassment and violence during the G8 was
published (as far as we know, the detentions in the wood were not mentioned).

[http://wiki.dissentnetwork.org/wiki/Sammelklagen]


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English translation of the Reddelich camp statement of june 6th:

"Following the police provocations outside the anti-G8 camp Reddelich early on
Tuesday morning and outside the Rostock anti-G8 camp on Tuesday afternoon, the
spokes council of the Reddelich camp has agreed to the following conduct:
Camp Reddelich will not initiate any one-sided aggression against the police. In
the case of a police attack the camp will collectively and resolutely defend
itself with the options available to it in order to protect its participants
and its structures."

Reddelich, June 6th 2007


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An Invitation To The Gatwick No Border Camp 2007

>From 19th to 24th September 07 we will gather at Gatwick Airport for the first
No Border Camp in the UK. This camp will be a chance to work together to try
and stop the building of a new detention centre, and to gather ideas for how to
build up the fight against the system of migration controls.

Gatwick Aiport - The Border Point

Gatwick is a border in the middle of Britain. People arrive here everyday.
People are forcibly deported from here everyday. It is a place where people are
imprisoned for unlimited lengths of time without trial, where people are forced
to hide underground and be invisible, where people are treated as criminals for
the 'crime' of crossing the border.

In Britain, the government has recently announced its intention to build a new
detention centre, near Tinsley House, another detention centre at Gatwick
airport. This will be another in a long line of barbarous prisons across the
world, imprisoning people who migrate.

Unless we stop it from being built.

Not far from Gatwick there are other border fortifications: the immigration
reporting centre at Croydon, the airline companies who charter deportation
flights and the ID Interview centre in Crawley. And a few miles away are the
border posts at Dover and Folkstone, where fear of detection by the border
police forces people to risk their lives hiding under lorries, or in
suffocating containers.

While the physical borders get fortified, governments also tighten up the
internal controls: from international databases to video surveillance,
biometric ID cards to electronic tagging. Just recently, the UK government has
announced the introduction of the Sirene System.

This will grant Britain access to the SIS (Schengen Information System), a EU
wide police database for refugees and migrants, planned to be extended to keep
protesters from moving around.

A Tactics Laboratory

How does daily life, from the need to work for survival to the welfare system,
reinforce these borders? How can we fight against the common acceptance of
borders, the idea of an inside and outside? How can we claim freedom of
movement as a basic right? How do we assert our ability to decide whether to go
or stay, according to our needs and desires, not the needs of the state or the
economy? How can we escape control, and start building a movement powerful
enough to challenge the divisions between people?

We need to share knowledge with those who have broken these borders, the hackers
who escape control, those who survive without work and money, those who fight
the detention system , those who question identities, those who have learnt to
organise themselves without hierarchy or divisions.

Camp(aign)ing Against Borders

This camp is continuing the tradition of the No Border camps across the world
since the late 1990s, and like the camps taking place this year in the Ukraine
in August and on the US/Mexican border in November. It will be a space to share
information, skills, knowledge and experiences. A place to plan actions together
against the system of borders which divides us.

We are aware that the struggles for "no borders" reach far beyond "open
borders". Without borders the idea of states will become obsolete, without
states the national economies will be history. In a world without borders,
nobody will ask for papers anymore.

The camp will also be a laboratory of political and practical self-organisation.
The camp will consist only of people's contributions to this. We are aware of
the borders, which divide ourselves from each other, be it sex, class, race,
nationality, or whatever. The border camps are experiments in how to overcome
these artificial and separating identities.

No Borders

No Borders is a network of groups struggling for the freedom of movement for all
and an end to all migration controls. We call for a radical movement against the
system of control, dividing us into citizens and non-citizens.

We demand the end of the border regime for everyone, including ourselves, to
enable us to live another way, without fear, racism and nationalism.

We move, we meet. We talk, we fight.

Come camp with us.

[http://noborders.org.uk/]


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Marius Heuser and Ulrich Rippert: Anti-G8 demonstration violence in Rostock:
questions and contradictions

The acts of violence that occurred during the mass demonstration against the G8
summit last Saturday in Rostock have led to noisy appeals from the German
political and media establishment for tougher police measures. Many
commentators have chosen to blame the mass of demonstrators and the organisers
of the protest for the excesses, and then sought retroactively to justify the
attacks on the right to demonstrate and freedom of assembly that preceded the
demonstration.
Reinhard Mohr writes in Spiegel-Online that, as far as he is concerned, the
demonstrators as a group were responsible for the riots because they did not
distinguish themselves clearly enough from violent anarchist elements
(so-called "autonomes"). Anyone who labels the elected heads of government and
other G8 summit participants "gangsters and criminals" should not be surprised
at the outbreak of violence, Mohr concludes. The author began his journalistic
career as an editor of the Frankfurt anarchist pamphlet "Pavement Beach," which
justified the street battles fought in the 1970s by his colleagues Joschka
Fischer and Daniel Cohn-Bendit.
Michael Bauchmüller from the Süddeutschen Zeitung draws a link between the
burning of cars and masked stone-throwers and a political perspective that
questions the existing social order. "All those, however, who together with the
G8 want to consign the whole system to history [... ] should remain at home for
the next few days. They are the bearers of discord in a world that is
struggling for a better future."
While the photos of street battles and reports of a thousand injured, including
430 policemen (it turns out that of the reported total of 400 injured and 30
severely injured policemen just two visited a hospital and these two were not
so badly injured that they had to be kept in overnight), are being eagerly used
to criminalise any fundamental criticism of capitalism, there is a decided lack
of interest on the part of politicians and the media in determining precisely
what took place in Rostock.
In fact, the demonstration began peacefully and proceeded for many hours before
marchers arrived at the final rallying place at the city's docks. At this point
the protest had a decidedly festive character with theatre and cultural groups
at the forefront. Demonstrators and organisers were shocked by the sudden
outbreak of violence, with participants making a number of attempts to pacify
both the stone throwers and the police.
In addition, it should be borne in mind that hard-liners in the German interior
ministry-in particular Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble (Christian
Democratic Union-CDU)-had announced the probability of outbreaks of violence
weeks before, and then on the evening of the demonstration, with news stations
showing burning cars and road barricades, called for a further arming of the
police. Meanwhile CDU politicians are proposing the deployment of the notorious
anti-terror GSG9 commando force at demonstrations and the equipping of police
with rubber bullets. The next step can be predicted: a call from Schäuble for
the use of the German army to suppress domestic opposition.
If, however, one begins considering the Rostock events by posing the question,
"Who benefited from the riots?" then it is clear that the demonstrators lose
out on all fronts. The interior ministry, on the other hand, is using the riots
to justify both those attacks already carried out against freedom of assembly
(as well as the assault carried out against left-wing organizations and
globalization opponents, whose offices and dwellings were raided in the middle
of May) and to prepare new and even more far-reaching attacks and police
measures.
In this respect it is necessary to examine a number of obvious contradictions in
the behaviour of the police and the security forces.
How is one to account for the fact that the police had warned weeks before of
"autonomous rioters," but then allowed a closed formation of "black bloc"
anarchists to parade unmonitored on one of the two demonstrations? Why wasn't
this "black bloc" accompanied by experienced police units, as is usually the
case? Why was a police vehicle then parked provocatively in the middle of the
area leading up to the final rallying point? According to several eye-witness
reports, the attacks carried out by some members of the "black bloc" on this
vehicle were the trigger for the intervention by police. Why was no attention
paid to repeated calls by the organisers of the rally for the removal of the
vehicle by the large numbers of police escorting the demonstration?
Who gave the order to obstruct photo journalists from taking pictures during the
peaceful phase of the demonstration? Why were the authorities so keen that
photos not be taken?
It is well-known that at the start of the year the German authorities
intensified the infiltration of undercover agents into the "violent autonomous
movement." In its May 14 edition, Der Spiegel magazine wrote, "At the beginning
of the year the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) declared globalization
critics to be an 'operational focal point.' All preparatory meetings are
observed, the groups involved are infiltrated" by undercover agents.
Just one week before the demonstration, on 29 May, the Bild newspaper reported
on "secret police plans" in preparation for the G8 summit. According to Bild,
the first point of a three-point plan reads, "Undercover agents who were
infiltrated a long time ago by the intelligence services are to provide early
evidence of planned disruptive actions."
The question therefore arises: how many undercover agents were operating in the
"black bloc"? What information about acts of violence were communicated to the
police command by these undercover agents, and why was nothing undertaken to
prevent these acts of violence? Moreover, were undercover agents involved in
the outbreak of violence, and to what extent?
These are urgent questions that need to be investigated. In view of the large
number of casualties, it is necessary to clarify the role played by undercover
agents. Until this information is made available, it is impossible to rule out
the use of undercover agents as agents provocateurs on the demonstration.
Genoa 2001
The events of the G8 summit in Genoa in June 2001 took place just a few years
ago and are still fresh in the memory. During the course of the protest, young
demonstrator Carlo Giuliani (23) was killed. His family and other victims of
police violence fought for years to clarify the circumstances leading up to his
death. Finally, the Italian public prosecutor's office declared that the
violence at the Genoa demonstration had been initiated by a hard core of
approximately 200 persons, a considerable number of whom were either undercover
policemen or right-wing extremists hired by the police. The provocateurs
discussed their tactics with police, disguised themselves as anarchists and
mixed with peaceful demonstrators before undertaking their criminal operations.
While the rioters were left largely undisturbed, their violence in Genoa became
the pretext for the police to move with extreme brutality against the rest of
the demonstrators. A good deal of evidence has emerged about the police
provocation. There are numerous reports of the use of massive force on their
part. Guiliani was shot by a cop. At the same time a particularly savage
assault took place on the Pascoli school, where hundreds of demonstrators were
surprised in their sleep and savagely beaten. Afterwards a number had to
receive treatment in intensive care units.
The pretexts given by Italian police to justify its raid on the school were
completely disproved by the public prosecutor's office. Police even brought
along their own Molotov cocktails to plant on the young people sleeping at the
school.
Anyone who believes that similar things could not happen in Germany is simply
ignorant of history.
At the end of the 1960s the undercover agent Peter Urbach supplied bombs and
weapons to members of the Berlin APO (Extra-Parliamentary Opposition), which
later constituted one of the initial elements of the Red Army Faction (RAF).
Ten years later a member of the BND blew a hole in the wall of the prison in
the town of Celle in an attempt to stage a prison outbreak by RAF member Sigurd
Debus and thereby enable the police to infiltrate the organization.
There have been numerous reports in Germany of the use of police provocateurs in
more recent years. In May 1993 when East German miners from Bischofferode
protested in front of government buildings to oppose the closure of their pit,
policemen garbed as anarchists smuggled themselves into the demonstration and
then threw bottles and stones at their colleagues in uniform. When some workers
intervened to stop the rioters and hand them over to the police, the latter
showed a complete lack of interest. Instead the police officers arbitrarily
seized a number of workers and beat them brutally.
There have also been a number of reports of the role of deliberate police
provocations in connection with the Gorleben anti-nuclear protests.
Eye-witness reports
In this connection it is necessary to take eye-witness reports by demonstrators
in Rostock very seriously. On the Indymedia web site, a number of demonstrators
have described their experiences. Almost all of the reports stress that for most
of the day the demonstration had proceeded in a very calm and peaceful manner.
At the same time, several demonstrators observed-independently of each
other-that some members of the "black bloc" functioned independently of the
main body of anarchists and seemed to be in contact with the police.
Thus Rainer Zwanzleitner reports on Indymedia, "We were part of the demo, which
came from the direction of Hamburg Street, quite near the front. When we
reached the city's docks we observed how a group of police (approx. 10-20)
positioned in front of a building site fence began, as if by command, to calmly
commence putting on their helmets, i.e. to prepare for action. There had been no
incidents up until that point."
Fearful of a police intervention, Zwanzleitner removed himself with his group
from this police cordon and continued to move towards the stage set up for the
planned final rally. "From there we could observe that the police had set off
towards the head of the demo point. At about the same time several police units
from the direction of the city centre piled into the demonstration, which had
come from the railway station." The final rally had already begun and after
approximately 10 to 15 minutes a member of the organising committee appealed by
microphone for the police to withdraw and desist with their provocative
deployments.
Instead the opposite took place. A police helicopter circled directly over the
stage and flew so low that its noise dominated the entire area near the
public-address system, making communication from the stage impossible.
"When it became calmer we left the site of the rally at the docks and proceeded
towards the pedestrian zone. What we saw on the way was nothing less than a
police camp. There were police vehicles everywhere." Meanwhile another
threatening situation was brewing at the university square.
"A group of perhaps between 20 and 30 demonstrators dressed in black entered the
square followed by police units. Some of these demonstrators remained at the
square, some continued on to the city hall. Then we saw another 3 or 4 figures
dressed in black, who differed considerably, however, from the usual picture of
an 'autonome': They were notably broadly built, identically dressed (thin nylon
anoraks, identical trousers and their faces were masked). Under the thin
clothing it was possible to identify body armour. And even more remarkably:
they left the square, fully masked, in the opposite direction to the others,
i.e. directly towards the police, who were moving in. We were then unable to
ascertain where they went to next." (
http://de.indymedia.org/2007/06/180968.shtml)
Other participants on the demonstration report that they noticed that members of
the "black bloc" brusquely rejected political material in the form of leaflets
and flyers. "This is new for me with regard to the autonomous left ... I had
the impression that something was not right with these people, they did not
appear to behave like lefts, nor like left anarchists, " was the report by a
participant, Anna U.
"Organisational stupidity"
It is not only demonstrators who have criticized the provocative behaviour of
the police. In Deutschlandradio Kultur Munich police psychologist George Sieber
described the actions taken by police in Rostock as "operational stupidity." The
police were following outdated tactics and reacted with disproportionate force,
Sieber said.
When asked how the violence came about, he answered, "It was like this: an
escalation had already taken place, long before it really heated up in Rostock.
What everybody could see was how police officers appeared with very unusual body
armour, at first glance one might have confused them with marines in Iraq."
When asked by a reporter whether he thought the escalation had been caused by
the police, Sieber said the escalation had already taken place: "They proceeded
on the basis of extreme danger or actually felt such a danger, and then resorted
to security precautions that represented a severe violation of human rights.
This is what I call escalation-that was in fact the highest level of
escalation."
The demonstration was initially peaceful. "We had two observers on the spot, who
notified us by telephone, 'there is an atmosphere here which resembles the Love
Parade [an annual musical event in Berlin],'" Sieber reported. "Things first
really got going when a police car was damaged and then a great deal happened,
which one would describe as disproportionate reaction on the part of police
officers."
Sieber criticized the fact that the security forces had proceeded almost
exclusively "in fixed formation." Such deployments, "in fixed formation, in the
form of a chain, as a combat patrol," are completely outdated and have been
described since "approximately the 1970s as simply operational stupidity." In
Rostock "everything actually took place in opposition to what is taught in the
textbook. And the officials naturally learn at the police academy that one
should not do it such a way." Therefore "this deployment was from the start
completely inappropriate."
Following repeated demands by the surprised reporter, who asked whether he was
really accusing the police command, Sieber replied, "No, this is not a
reproach; it is possibly even what was politically intended."
This is precisely the question: Were events set in motion with the knowledge
that photos of burning autos and stone-throwing rioters could be used to
justify the attacks on the right to demonstrate that had already taken place
and to prepare for a new assault on democratic rights? Was this what was
"politically intended"?
An investigation is necessary to determine whether the riots were the result of
a planned manoeuvre, in which undercover police operated as agents provocateurs
in the "black bloc," while the police reacted with closed formations and the
police command prepared to carry out a deployment which resulted in several
hundred injured demonstrators.