Date: 25 May 2002 01:28:00 +0100
Subject: Re: German protesters greet U.S. president



> http://www.billingsgazette.com
> May 23,2002

> German protesters greet U.S. president
> Knight Ridder Newspapers

> BERLIN - As President Bush arrived in Europe Wednesday to promote an
> expanded war on terrorism, he probably could not have picked a more
> ambivalent first stop than Germany.

> Their ancestors slain in shooting wars and divided by Cold War, thousands of
> protesters massed in the streets of the German capital to condemn the Bush
> administration's talk of possible military action against Iraq.
The Tuesday protest march according to media had 70,000 participants,  
while police spoke of a mere 18,000... Experience says this means there  
were more than 100,000. Wednesday saw 18,000 protesters according to media  
reports. There were no clashes with the police reported on Tuesday. About  
10,000 officers had been sent to Berlin from all over Germany, as well as  
additional water cannon trucks and 24 helicopters. Police sent down divers  
into the river Spree and into the sewage system to look for bombs, hope  
they enjoyed it there.

Police apparently was sh****ing bricks about the planned protests. The  
reason given was the 'tradition' of Mayday protests in Berlin, which have  
developed a stereotype choreography on both sides. Another argument was  
that globalization opponents allegedly intended to make the protests  
violent 'like in Seattle, Prague, Gothenburg, and Geneva' which police  
said they were prepared to prevent. Large areas of Berlin were declared  
no-go areas and practically sealed off so that Bush was never in danger of  
having to witness any protest.

A Berlin police spokesperson prior to the protests announced their  
strategy would be to strike back and act firmly against protesters, and  
this strategy was applied on Wednesday. Indymedia reported that part of  
the participants in the protest march were blocked by police after the  
protest march dissolved, without any reason being given or any obvious  
reason, since the march had been peaceful and there was no rioting.  
Mainstream papers today say that police cut the previously agreed demo  
route without notifying the organizers which caused irritation among  
participants who did not realize that the final speeches had already taken  
place and the march was supposed to dissolve.

When the crowd only dispersed hesitantly, police immediately advanced and  
brought in reinforcements and water truck cannons. Obviously the crowd did  
not quite appreciate that, and some, as media reported, burned flags (it  
was not specified which flags got burned). Police took this as a pretence  
for harsher action. There were special squads dashing into the crowd to  
pick out individuals for arrest. 58 arrests were reported by mainstream  
media, while an Indymedia report that night mentioned 60 and still  
counting.

Wednesday's main news show (state owned channel) said that the protesters  
were rioting. The film material they showed gave a different picture: you  
see protesters standing in the street doing nothing in particular, mainly  
waiting for police to let them continue their way home, and then time and  
again, there's police officers in full riot gear advancing into the crowd  
where they viciously beat and kick persons, and then retreat to their  
lines again. As I understand, there was resistance and violence as a  
reaction to this, and some shops got 'de-glassed' (an Indymedia report  
says it was a McDonald's and a huge department store).

Other Indymedia reports say that police (once again) attacked passers-by  
and did everything to counter any de-escalation strategies.
One report written by a person in the crowd says he and a friend meant to  
go home when they got chased back into the crowd by riot cops. One cop  
beat him to the ground, dragged him up and told him to run. When he did,  
he was able to take two steps and the cop again bashed him so that he fell  
down again. He managed to get up and joined the crowd who he says was  
largely peaceful. Since this seems to have been next to a park, a little  
shrub at one point in time was set on fire - but apparently without any  
danger of the fire spreading -, which police again took for a pretence to  
attack. The report speaks about several persons being taken off in  
ambulances, some seem to have been severely injured.

The protests were organized by a broad coalition of left organizations/ 
groups, peace activists, people against globalization etc. The protests in  
Berlin were accompanied by protests in several larger cities, like  
Hamburg, Munich, Hanover, Leipzig which also saw several thousand  
participants each. I saw a photo of one protester in Berlin carrying a  
picket with the old 60ies' slogan 'Fighting for peace is like f***ing for  
virginity'.

One indymedia report mentioned that a German TV station published a poll,  
with the result that more than 50% of the population supported the  
protests.

Protests actions were peaceful and manyfold. The media, as always, were  
primarily interested in getting pictures of persons wearing hoods and  
displaying militant poses.
On Wednesday, there was a Reclaim The Streets action in Berlin which was  
coordinated by a pirate radio station and participants carried radios to  
listen to instructions broadcasted. From a report in a political TV  
magazine, I gather that police reaction to this thing was especially  
vicious. (Such an action BTW took place in Hamburg only a few weeks ago,  
at the main station which the railway company wants to clear of homeless  
persons and has instructed their police to arrest and/or ban person who  
consume alcohol on railway premises, who beg there, and who just hang  
about there; in railway stations, you are forbidden to approach persons  
holding out your hand or otherwise asking for money etc. Classical music  
is being plaid to disencourage homeless persons from hanging about. There  
were about 300 persons taking part in what they called ballet coordinated  
by a local alternative free radio station.)
As pirate radio stations are illegal, police with the assistance of German  
Telecom desperately tried to locate the station in a Berlin neighbourhood  
where quite a lot of politically active people live, but were not able to  
find it. They went through several houses, and apparently cut a few (to  
them) suspicious wires in basements and attics, but only managed to cut  
off TV sets legally owned by the inhabitants of the houses... The pirate  
station was able to broadcast between 12 and 4 p.m., then they prefered to  
stop their activities.

> German leaders, some of whom made their reputations in the peace movement,
> said they, too, want to stop Sept. 11-style terrorism. They have supplied
> troops to the coalition in Afghanistan - no easy task in a nation still
> scarred by Hitler, the Holocaust and the struggles once symbolized by the
> Berlin Wall.

> "I'm in a constant debate and my party is in a constant debate with the
> demonstrators," said German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, who belongs to
> the anti-military Green Party. "Some of them see us as traitors."
There is not much of a debate going on. Large parts of the traditional  
peace movement and the political left here indeed feel that the Green  
Party betrayed another part of its roots by voting for a military German  
participation in Afghanistan. Many also do not welcome the Green  
participation in the decision to send German troops to Kosovo because of  
the German occupation of Yugoslavia in WWII. The Green Party's decision to  
vote in favour of these missions apparently was not taken because of  
changing convictions, but rather in order to continue the coalition which  
otherwise might have got canceled by the Social Democrats. At least it was  
'interesting' to hear a complete change in rhetoric from the Green Party  
from: war is not justifiable and peaceful solutions have absolute  
priority, to: war may be necessary to achieve peace.

catkawin