Subject: Fw: German protesters greet U.S. president
Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 01:53:55 +0100


Forwarded FYI
H

Subject: Re: German protesters greet U.S. president


> > 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