Workers Solidarity Movement

In July 2008, heads of the states that monopolize two thirds of earth’s
wealth will gather at Toya Lake in Hokkaido Japan. Although the
so-called Group of Eight does not have any legitimate right for deciding
planetary affairs, they have self-appointed themselves world rulers. Thus
the G8 has driven neo-liberal globalization at the same time as
spreading poverty, violence, hatred, segregation, and environmental
destruction.

A member of the WSM travelled to the protests against the G8 in Heilegendamm, Germany July 2007. He reports on the actions that were taken and then on his arrest and mistreatment.

The Build-Up - 2nd June 2007

We travelled to Rostock on one of the 30 buses going from Hamburg. When we arrived the city was awash with people and also a gargantuan police presence. We made our way to the starting point of the rally in which the anarchist block was due to march, the second rally being composed more so of NGOs and political parties. After an hour or so of boring speeches and the monotone gloom of David Rovics, the march set off.

The situation at present as I sit in the convergence centre is that several large demonstrations have taken place in Rostock and elsewhere and the police presence has been heavy and aggressive.

From 6-8 June 2007, the G8 Summit – the meeting of the heads of state and government of the USA, Canada, Japan, Great Britain, France, Italy, Germany and Russia – will take place in Heiligendamm in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern on Germany’s Baltic Sea. The Summit location is the Kempinski Grand Hotel. As there seems to have been a remarkable absense of discusion, debate and practical organising surrounding this years G8 blockade mobilisations in germany this june, ive attempted to collate some info that may be useful for readers.

A look at some of the problems faced and mistakes made in the organisation of the Dublin EU Mayday summit protests in 2004.

The experience of May Day brings up us back to some of the perennial questions thrown up by counter-summits protests: how do we broaden our movement and what role do direct action and confrontational tactics have in that process. These are, of course, the issues that have been mainstay of Red and Black Revolution debates over the past few years but have been usually viewed through the prism of events outside of Ireland. The following article is a personal account of the Dublin Grassroots Network's approach to such issues in relation to May Day and goes on to argue for increased tactical flexibility from anarchists within the anti-capitalist movement.

The 'anti-globalisation' movement has sometimes been characterised as 'One No, many Yesses', meaning that while everyone disagrees with the way things are now they all have different ideas on what they would like to see replace the present state of affairs as well as on the tactics needed to get there. The World Social Forum, and the spread of social forums around the world, in some respects is a reaction to this. One of the ideas of this concept is to allow a space for dialogue for the different actors (trades unions, Non Government Organisation's, social movements etc) to try to hammer out some common ideas on how to reach the future society. However, the process has not been unproblematic and has led to controversies and to accusations that the structure and functioning of these bodies are undemocratic and unrepresentative of 'the new movement'.

This October some 400 industrialists and assorted hangers on will descend on Dublin for the European summit of the World Economic Forum. The city centre will be brought to a halt as the sort of globalisation demonstration we have seen in Seattle and Prague occurs in Dublin. So what is the World Economic Forum? In its own words "The Forum provides a collaborative framework for the world's leaders to address global issues, engaging particularly its corporate members in global citizenship.i" That is from the WEF web page and despite the careful spin should be worrying to anyone reading it carefully.

In December protests were held at the EU summit in Copenhagen. Ian Lynch attended the demonstrations and tells Workers Solidarity a little about it.

In July 2001 after the Genoa G8 summit protests during which Carlo Giuliani was shot dead by police a WSM member and Irish protester Joe Moffat was arrested.  He was held for 16 days during which he was beaten and imprisoned.  On his release and return to Ireland he released the following statement detailing what happened to him during those days of arrest and prison.  For details of what happened in Genoa before these events see Eyewitness account of the Genoa G8 protest written by another WSM member who was there.