-----Original Message-----
From:   [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   20 June 2001 17:34
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        [maydaywhiteoveralls] Re: No-g8 Genoa TIPS

The only responsibility of the  escalation of  violence in Goteborg goes to
the Swedish police; there is no proportion and there must be no rapport
between stones and bullets.
A police force, provided with shields, helmets, protective padding cannot
have any justification for shooting at an unarmed crowd. Who is violent? Who
is the criminal? Certainly not the poor kid who was shot in the back and now
lies in a coma with a hole through his liver. Nor the other two youths who
had 9mm bullets removed from the leg and groin.
For what concerns the rumors about a badly injured police officer:
This person was treated for a minor head injury and was dismissed from the
hospital after a few hours. There were no other reported casualties among
the police.
The photographs and the films that appeared in the papers and the Internet
show evidence of an 'accident' that looks like an attempted summary
execution. Nevertheless, virtually all the articles that appeared in the
Sunday Times, Observer, Independent and the Guardian follow the 'official
line': the notion that the what happened in Goteborg is the responsibility
of 'travelling vandals', the so called Black Block. If we hold the view that
human life is more important then a broken window this is very worrying.
First, before any demonstration even took place the police raided the
various convergence centres arbitrarily arresting coordinators from the
various groups and social organisations, because of so called 'preventive
reasons'. Thus disrupting the plans to have coordinated non-violent actions
of civil disobedience.
Second, during the preparatory meetings also the much demonised Black Block
had agreed to practice these tactics of civil disobedience along with other
groups including the pacifists.
Third, it was the violation of the right of people to protest and the mass
arrests carried out before the demonstrations that set the scenario for the
skirmishes that occurred later. With spokespeople and coordinators arrested
most of the planned activities had to be aborted, and is no surprise that
some people, chased and harassed by both police and Nazi-skins eventually
reacted.
Fourth, while on British television they have repeatedly shown the same 25
seconds of people breaking a  couple of windows, as an evidence of the
violence of these 'dangerous' Black Block, the majority of the protesters
did not engage in any violence and in fact spent their time trying to
protect themselves from police abuses (i.e.  forced off a bus and forced to
lay down on the asphalt for over an hour).
Fifth, the SHOOTINGS: The shootings happened on Friday evening when the
demonstrations were over and people had gathered for a dancing celebration!
Activists and local youth had gathered in a square for a Reclaim the Street
party when about three hundred nazi-skins attacked people who were walking
towards the party. Some activists reacted and many nazi-skins found refuge
behind police lines. At this point the police advanced towards the center of
the square in an attempt to disperse the crowd. Skirmishes erupted and some
protesters threw stones at the police, at this point shots were heard and
three people at different points of the square fell to the ground having
being hit by bullets.
Unlike other TVs around the world the BBC opted not to show the footage of
the shooting and preferred to concentrate on people breaking windows -an
interesting choice!- On the other hand the evidence of what happened are
available for any one to see in several Internet sites- www.indymedia.org
and www.sweden.indymedia.org have posted at least two footages for anyone to
see.
In spite of the different views about the reasons behind the shootings,
whether this is part of a strategy against the this new, growing movement or
whether it is only attributable to the negligence of the Swedish police -it
is clear who the real terrorists are.
These summits, contrary to what that smiley-idiot Tony B. says, are
not important work meetings. They are self-celebratory rituals
designed by the racketeers of world profit to legitimise their status
as 'world-leaders', or i. e. priviledged members of multinational
mafia-cartels. It is clear, however that when these inflated egos need
to open fire at against thousands of protesters and when, as in
the past three years, they cannot hold a meeting without provoking the
anger of thousands of people from India, to Corea, to Bolivia, to
Equator, to Brasil, to Australia, to Mexico, to the US, to
France, to Switzerland, to South Africa, to the Check Republic, to the
UK, to Italy, to Canada and to Sweden.... well, it is clear that
something is happening and is not business as usual.*

*all the countries mentioned were the site of massive protests for humanity
and against neoliberalism occurred in the last three years. I am sure I have
missed many.



garimpeiro (soon to become Tzigari)


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