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Weds 1st April: G20 protests - discussion, reaction and chat

ymu said:
Interesting comment on Craig Murray's blog.



g11_18502305.jpg
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that was so staged...

who wears an entire outfit of brand new clothes to a protest?

and if that was a properly violent riot type incident why are none of the photographers scared of getting their heads caved in for taking the pictures that will put people inside? eh?

smells fishier than a fishmongers bin on a hot day...
 
In terms of the 'well dressed protester' above, and others who were seen doing windows, hurling things or emerging from the RBS, I haven't seen any 'Name these Thugs' mugshots in the paper. Has anyone else? If not what is the implication? Does that mean they were all arrested at the time (some certainly were, and charged the day or so after)? It would be odd if the police had got everyone they wanted so soon. Hmmm... Especially after the Ian tomlinson death, I'd have thought police would have been doing everything they can to build up the 'we were facing real threats' line.
 
4thwrite said:
In terms of the 'well dressed protester' above, and others who were seen doing windows, hurling things or emerging from the RBS, I haven't seen any 'Name these Thugs' mugshots in the paper. Has anyone else? If not what is the implication? Does that mean they were all arrested at the time (some certainly were, and charged the day or so after)? It would be odd if the police had got everyone they wanted so soon. Hmmm... Especially after the Ian tomlinson death, I'd have thought police would have been doing everything they can to build up the 'we were facing real threats' line.
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not strictly true .. a couple have already been in court .. lithuanian (?) punks .. but the guy in the photos above seems very dodgy! lol!
 
durruti02 said:
not strictly true .. a couple have already been in court .. lithuanian (?) punks .. but the guy in the photos above seems very dodgy! lol!
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Yes, without checking I remember about half a dozen were done for property damage, drunkeness and theft (of the computers, I think). I just thought it odd that we haven't seen the Poll Tax style 'Can you name these thugs' pictures of various peeps. It could be seen as a sign that some of the more visible ones, like Denim Man above, were dodgy, though I don't think there's anywhere near enough evidence to start concluding that. Anyway, we might start seeing the Wanted Posters over the next few days.
 
As a keen football fan i know how quickley the police publish such 'mugshots' of people wanted in connection, it strikes me as odd as well. Surely that is one of the points of Kettling, let them do what they want in a controlled space, we will get them after e.t.c.


Mind you, the IPCC say there is no cctv covering Ian Tomlinson, it might not be wise to then release CCTV of protesters.
 
Something had been bugging me since last week that I have finally been able to put my finger on. I found many of the police at climate camp hostile but I could not explain exactly why, then it hit me. Several of them were doing the 'stare down' thing where they tried to draw me into staring contests. This must seem so inconsequential but when you are caged for 6 hours and whenever you go near the edges certain members of a heavily armed militia want to stare you down it gets your back up. You either cower down or react by staring back or getting verbal with them. This is common sense as to how a man would react, it’s natural.

To my mind this is the antithesis of de-escalating a situation. It is winding people up. A bouncer who engaged in this kind of subtle but provocative behavior would be out of most night clubs in a short time. Few owners need the grief.
But if feeds into my suspicion that the police engaged in what could best be described as ‘riot engineering’. Not simply the provocation of a civil disorder event. Not so crass, but the enhancement of the environment for one to emerge, the containing of it and the safe dispersion of those involved afterwards.
I will not claim that this was conscious behavior but it certainly may have been. It also has the effect of chilling the will of people to engage in anti government direct action.
I have since learnt enough to know that it was TSG (identifiable by the U on their helmets) at Camp Climate. Not just some rozzers from Surry drafted in for the day, nor some BTP grabbed in a hectic grasp for any manpower available. It was a dedicated force of ‘storm troopers’ or ‘shock troops’. The only dedicated level three civil order unit in London. They were a high value asset whos availability would have been limited and placement meaningful. The use such an asset is a strong indicator of priorities.

The inner perimeter of Climate camp could have been policed by a group of special constables in dress uniform.
I am possibly coming across as a conspiracy nut here but, having thought long and hard I am going to say this. The purpose of the police is in theory to keep the Queens peace, enforce the laws of parliament with ‘consensual’ policing. But IMHO the policing of climate camp certainly did not follow this model. It was policed with a mind to the needs of the labour party and its leaders media profile during the G20. Climate Camp did not pose a sizeable threat to public order but had it still been going at about 6am, it would have made the early news headlines. It was aggressively cleared at midnight to clear it off of the news agenda. The police have been used as an extension of state policy and not merely to enforce the laws of parliament.
 
I was with you until the last para. It's been on the news agenda for a whole week, thanks to the TSG! You need to rehash your theory: New Labour planned all the "fascist boot boys beat up the greens" headlines.

Have you been at the cider? :D
 
There's an irony that, within the 'movement', climate campers are often derided as hippies, liberals etc. I'm not getting into that here, but there is a sense in which the CC lot are actually the most numerous and organised green/anticapitalist group (however defined). Certainly over the last couple of years they had had some success with lock ons, publicity stunts, invasions of airports (Plane Stupid) and the like.

It may be that the OB were also thinking along these lines and expecting more organised direct action from CC - more than the black block and more certainly than class struggle groups. That could have been why the TSG got the CC job.
 
A more inaccurate assessment of the relationship between the various groups you mention would be hard to come by outside NSY's press office.
 
winjer said:
A more inaccurate assessment of the relationship between the various groups you mention would be hard to come by outside NSY's press office.
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Assuming that was aimed at me, I didn't say anything about the relationship between any groups. I'm just saying that, from a police perspective, CC types have done more things that plod have had to respond to than any other (in the last couple of years).
 
From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/11/g20-protest-witnesses-police-actions


6: 9.45pm, Bishopsgate, Louise Broadbent, 27, environmental consultant, from London
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I was sitting down in the climate camp with my boyfriend, we'd been there for two or three hours. We were laughing and joking with the police. About half an hour before it happened, they started saying, 'We've got a little surprise for you,' but they wouldn't say anything more.
Then, with no warning that I could hear, the police just steamed in. They were doing a lot of kicking and punching. Two police got hold of me, one on each side, and pulled me away. They had me in a wristlock on both sides, my arms pulled right up behind me, telling me they were going to break my wrists.
Once I was outside the cordon they were saying, 'What shall we do with her now?' and laughing. And one said, 'Let's chuck her back in.'
They shouted, 'Coming through!' and literally threw me into the air, head first, booting me in the back. Luckily I landed on top of someone, but I've still ended up with an egg-sized lump on my head.
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So, a premeditated and co-ordinated assault. What sort of animal says this to a woman that he is planning on beating up as soon as he gets the order?


'We've got a little surprise for you,'




'We've got a little surprise for you,'
 
4thwrite said:
Fucking scum. The reports at that link were truly sickening.
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And from a different witness later in the page "As we got funnelled out down the south end of Bishopsgate the police there were taunting us, saying, 'Good night, sweet dreams, hope you had fun.'"

That's the sound of people who know there's no touching them.
 
4thwrite said:
Assuming that was aimed at me, I didn't say anything about the relationship between any groups. I'm just saying that, from a police perspective, CC types have done more things that plod have had to respond to than any other (in the last couple of years).
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Likely, it was CC the Met were talking about in all those pre-briefings about intelligent protesters who understand their tactics.

Face it: a bunch of black-clads milling about outside the Bank of England shouting their powerlessness is a piece of piss to police. Not a lot different from a football crowd.

But a bunch of fluffy-as-fuck-and-in-your-face types who respond to the certainty of kettling by bringing tents, food, water, toilets and music?

I don't know whether there's an active policy of trying to reduce all social movements to a hardcore motivated mostly by bitterness at the cops and devoid of strategy and vision and denouncing joie de vivre as not properly working-class. The attack on the CC could have been an expression of such, or it could just have been fear of protesters who are smarter than the Met, collectively, is.
 
4thwrite said:
Assuming that was aimed at me, I didn't say anything about the relationship between any groups.
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You did, two things: that it's only outside of 'climate campers' that some of them are derided as hippy liberals, and that the direct action attributed to the 'CC lot' is readily distinguishable from that involving 'the black block' etc.
 
winjer said:
You did, two things: that it's only outside of 'climate campers' that some of them are derided as hippy liberals, and that the direct action attributed to the 'CC lot' is readily distinguishable from that involving 'the black block' etc.
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winjer said:
Wahey, an even more inaccurate assessment.
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are you just picking fights for the hell of it?:hmm:

there are readily distinguishable features between the climate camp's version of direct action and black blocks version.

that's not to say that there's not cross over between the groupings in terms of membership and ethos, but AFAIK the Climate Camp positively discourage anything other than highly targeted damage to property, whereas the black block generally view the property of pretty much any multinationals as being fair game.

Also, the climate camp go for full non-violent defensive resistance to police violence in a fairly militant way as their tactic, where as the black bloc tend to view attack as at least a legitimate form of defence, and arguably as their preferred tactic at least when they've got sufficient numbers.

If you really can't see the difference, then I'd suggest you try lobbing a bottle at police lines from within the climate camp and seeing how the climate campers react to you doing that, then doing the same from within a black bloc grouping... or just standing there and watching someone else doing it. I promise you there is a difference.

Not that there really is any serious scale black bloc in this country anyway, they're only really a force of any note when there's a sizable contingent across from the continent for the UK lot to tag along to and learn from.

I'm not passing judgement here, just stating a fact as someone who's had to try to mediate between the 2 groupings in the past... ok so climate camp didn't actually exist then, but it essentially formed from the ashes of dissent, based on those who'd wanted to disassociate themselves from the black bloc's vandalism of shops and other property in Stirling. that's precisely where and when and why the germ of the idea of climate camp was formed, and why dissent quietly slipped away, so I really don't see how you can argue that there's no difference between them.
 
david dissadent said:
Something had been bugging me since last week that I have finally been able to put my finger on. I found many of the police at climate camp hostile but I could not explain exactly why, then it hit me. Several of them were doing the 'stare down' thing where they tried to draw me into staring contests. This must seem so inconsequential but whe It was aggressively cleared at midnight to clear it off of the news agenda. The police have been used as an extension of state policy and not merely to enforce the laws of parliament.
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they must have a number of very active cliamte camp people organising the thing, what better way to turn people against them ,then bring violence to it.
 
winjer said:
Not sure what time these arrived, or how much of the time they were inside the cordon, but they did exist:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rooreynolds/3404545629/
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They weren't there when I was there. If the Met were hell bent on their potentially illegal, dangerous and hugely inflammatory 'kettling' tactics, the portaloos should have been there from the start.

Or, even better, they should have let peaceful protesters leave, rather than aggressively incarcerating them for hours on end.
 
winjer said:
No, I'm just frustrated by the divisions in 'the movement', and those who seem to seek to reinforce them, on both sides.
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well, you'd probably be better off if you actually understood where these divides have come from and why before mouthing off at people who from what I can tell know a lot more about it than you.

the black bloc and climate campers would doubtless acknowledge that they are on the same side, and would give give each other mutual support on stuff like legal assistance, medical help, prisoner support, and potentially even co-ordinating actions to divide police resources etc. but their tactics are mutually exclusive.

Individuals or groups of people will no doubt move freely between the 2, but would have to take on board the different tactical ethos's of each group and modify their behaviour accordingly, or I'd expect they'd be pretty quickly asked to leave.

IMO
 
Rutita1 said:
They were probably for the use of the police anyway. :)
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yep, which is pretty obvious being as they're inside police lines... other than one that's very oddly located actually in the police line, almost like the police are daring protestors to attempt to use it:hmm:
 
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