Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2004 11:06:11 -0700 (PDT)
From: andrew robinson <ldxar1-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: AUT: On the barricades: earlier and forthcoming protests



MORE ON EARLIER STORIES

 

OOPS!  These should have been in the last newsletter

PALESTINE:  Residents resist home demolitions (20th July)

(rather biased report from the perennially crap Israel National News)

IDF soldiers involved in the razing of illegally built homes in Barta, west of Jenin, are being attacked by area residents. Soldiers are using riot control adjuncts, including rubber bullets. One border policeman was hit in his chest and face with rocks and was transported to Hillel Yafeh Hospital in Hadera. PA sources are reporting eight injuries, one serious.

 

DILI, EAST TIMOR

It appears the demo/uprising was organised by annoyed ex-guerrillas who are being ignored by the post-independence government.  It happened after activists occupied the Prime Minister’s seafront office, and the government sent police in to smash the occupation.  It was a protest against a failure to provide for guerrilla veterans who have not been given posts in the new army, and about the misuse  of funds which were supposed to go towards helping such veterans.

This piece is a transcript of a news report where background details are provided (an audio download is also available from the site) – although one interviewee, the East Timor PM, is keen to minimise both the size and the significance of the demonstration.

http://www.abc.net.au/ra/asiapac/programs/s1160805.htm

 

HARMONDSWORTH:  Report from Workers Power Global

>>BRITAIN: SHUT DOWN HARMONDSWORTH ‘REMOVAL’ CENTRE; FREE THE 

DETAINESS

Workers Power Global, London

Simmering anger finally erupted in a widespread uprising among detainees held at the flagship Harmondsworth immigration “removal” centre near Heathrow airport in west London late on Monday 19 July. By the following afternoon a combination of prison officers, operating in so-called Tornado squads, and riot cops had eventually suppressed the revolt by scores of the more than 440 detainees. The immediate spark to the unrest was the discovery of the corpse of a detainee, tentatively described as a man of Ukrainian origin in his early 30s. Harmondsworth officials have suggested that the man committed suicide by hanging. If true, this was the second suicide by an inmate at a UK immigration detention facility in the past three months. A detainee at Haslar, near Portsmouth, killed himself in April. One of the more than 400 detainees transferred after the uprising on 19 July has committed suicide at Dungavel detention centre in Ayrshire. He was from China. The July uprising at the 550-bed
 facility, operated under a Home Office contract by UK Detention Services (a subsidiary of the French-based multinational, Sodexho), follows repeated allegations of verbal abuse and physical Brutality against detainees. Five Harmondsworth officers still face criminal charges for allegedly beating a detainee last February, while The Observer has carried serious allegations against officers at both Harmondsworth and the Yarl’s Wood centre in Bedfordshire.

 

 

 

G8 GEORGIA:  Up to 40 undercover cops; cops have photo database

(snipped from a report by Russ Bynum for Associated Press)

Hitchens said some of the protesters, as many as 40, were actually undercover police officers who took classes before the summit on how to dress and blend in with the crowds. "The Secret Service accused me, the first time they saw some of them in the Multi-Agency Command Center, of bringing protesters into the MACC," Hitchens said. "They blended right in." The undercover cops, split into four teams of eight to ten officers, also had access to a database of digital photos to identify potentially violent demonstrators, he said. "Everybody in this country that was involved in anarchist movements, the leadership and anybody who had been tagged for being involved in violent demonstrations before, they had pictures of every one of them," Hitchens said.

 

Carol Bass of the Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition, one of the G-8 protest organizers, said protesters suspected police might try to infiltrate their demonstrations. Keeping photograph records of protesters is more troubling, she said. "Anybody who wants to change the policies of their government is basically turned into a very bad person in a database where all the police have is their pictures," Bass said.

 

 

ARDOYNE (report from WP Global)

Andy comment:  If there’s “peace” in Northern Ireland, how comes the whims of British-backed bureaucrats are enforced by soldiers armed with lethal weapons, against the will of the local population?  The “peace” of the conqueror is not peace but repression!!!  Troops out now!!!!

 

Lodges from Ligoniel, North Belfast passed by the Ardoyne ghetto on their way to their march venue-with only minor incidents. However a ruling by the Parades Commission - set up by the Belfast Agreement -that only marchers and not bandsmen be allowed to pass by the contentious flashpoint caused tension which rose throughout the day. It reached flashpoint when the orangebigots predictably flouted the ruling. Therefore a massive army and police presence was put in place with heaps of police Landrovers and  armoured “personnel” carriers effectively sealing in all entrances to Ardoyne from the Crumlin Rd - imprisoning the catholic people of the Ardoyne ghetto - overwhelmingly working class and militant.

 

Trouble was therefore inevitable when the Orange marches returned – many of them blind drunk and inspired as usual by their hero, King William of Orange, who defeated the catholic king James II at the  battle of the Boyne in 1690. The troops and the IRA knew an intense clash loomed. They judged correctly as was shown when mistakes by a squadron of troops allowed a large crowd to surround a big batch of soldiers. The masses enraged by day long imprisonment in their ghetto and by the savagery of the Orange provocations and more generally by the cul de sac the IRA had led them into under the Belfast Agreement had every intention of killing the troops. But SF and their IRA, correctly expecting clashes, were heavy on the ground. Their leader Gerry Kelly was given every chance to call for calm- roaring against the crowds and repeatedly asking the question “Do you want to go back to the violence which has failed?” Not only did the crowd not obey - they shouted and drowned out his appeals.
 And sections of them ripped up trees as high as 18 feet and rushed,10 abreast, at the armoured cars; while others dragged troops out through the broken windows and doors of the “pigs”.  Troops, already prodding the front of the crowd with their rifle bayonets were ordered to cock rifles. Clealry may of the protestors were prepared to risk serious injury or death in order to exact revenge for decades of murderous assaults on the anti-unionist community in the North. At this point Gerry Kelly joined the side of the troops along with other IRA members and effectively saying ;“If you kill them you’ll have to kill me too-your leader”.

 

 

===========================================================
 

FORTHCOMING ANTI-CAPITALIST PROTESTS

 

RNC:  Call for “un-protest” (posted on various forums, lists etc. – don’t ask me who’s come up with this idea…)

Please spread the word about the "un-protest" in NY. As you may have heard organized demonstrators at the GOP convention have been confined to a long narrow highway many blocks away from the convention. Progressives accross the country are planning to meet for an "un-protest" To be an un-protester is simple:

1. Arrive in NY as a pedestrian.

2. Carry no signs, wear no costumes or make-up, no guitars, etc.

3. Carry only a progressive-themed or anti-BushT-shirt in a pocket or purse, do not wear it until the designated time.

4. Visit the wonderful city of NY, gradually making your way towards Madison Square Garden during the convention.

5. When you are as near the convention as possible, don your T-shirt and look for other un-protesters.

6. Gather peacably in your Tees. Let the demonstration grow as a giant organism and devlop but without any pre-meidated plan or organization. Remember: organized demonstrations are not allowed, but you are free to wear a T-shirt as a visitor to NY!

7. The numbers will speak for themselves and any action will grow out of the moment, rather than from organization. Do not plan any other specific activity in advance.

8. Spread word of this message, even if you do not plan to go.

Peace!

I.P.

 

Note:  INFOSHOP NEWS APPEARS TO HAVE EITHER CRASHED OR BEEN SABOTAGED – my attempts to access the site, and links followed from other sites, have all brought up error messages.

 

Meanwhile – Yahoo shuts down activist list which has exposed DNC security blunders

http://boston.indymedia.org/newswire/display/23892/index.php

 


		
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