State scare tactics in G8 run-up

SCARE tactics and propaganda are being deployed by the British state in the run-up to the G8 summit in June.

There is talk of special cells being readied for protesters at an army camp, of  police-state style  security measures and of overworked and stressed-out cops.

The pressure has also been increased by the discovery of a mortar bomb which a dissident republican group says was intended for the G8 summit venue.

The authorities are facing big protests in three locations - in London for a week of action including the J11 Carnival Against Capitalism, in Dublin just before the summit and around the actual venue at Lough Erne, County Fermanagh (pictured above).

"The police and prison services in Northern Ireland have begun arranging for hundreds of extra holding cells in anticipation of protests at this summer's G8 summit turning ugly," reports The Belfast Telegraph.

Work is apparently under way to make available extra cell capacity inside Maghaberry high security prison in Co Antrim, as well as at Magilligan prison in Co Londonderry and Hydebank Wood young offenders' centre and women's prison in Belfast.

The authorities claim a "ring of steel" will be in place around the summit venue at the Lough Erne resort. With the lakes of Fermanagh providing an additional natural barrier between the hotel and outside world, they say it is unlikely that protesters will get anywhere near the complex.

The demonstrators' focus may therefore shift to the town of Enniskillen, five miles away, or further afield in Northern Ireland, says the Belfast Telegraph. It adds: "Indeed London may witness the largest protests" - referring to the actions lined up by anti-capitalists Stop G8 on and around Tuesday June 11.

Police in Northern Ireland told the BBC: "People travelling on 16, 17 and 18 June 2013 will be advised to leave extra time for their journey.

"Previous G8 conferences have also attracted a number of protest groups. Police will be planning for this eventuality and this may again result in some disruption to the transport network.

"As a result there will be a highly visible police presence across parts of the Antrim Borough throughout the duration of the G8 conference."

The police said that there would be a large security presence on all routes around the airport.

There will also be a "larger than normal police and security presence" within Belfast International Airport itself in the days leading up to the arrival of the delegates.

The Impartial Reporter focuses on the pressure on police for what it is being billed  as a bigger challenge than the "troubles". 

It says: "With just 11 weeks to go until eight world leaders including US President Barack Obama visit Enniskillen, police officers on G8 duties in Fermanagh are complaining of being "over-worked" as they patrol the county around the clock. 

"In what will likely be the biggest security operation in the history of Northern Ireland, a considerable number of police officers here have been tasked with ensuring nothing goes wrong in the run-up to the global event. But some of the officers, according to the chairman of the Police Federation of Northern Ireland, feel under pressure by the workload."

The bomb found abandoned  in Fermanagh was claimed by republican  group Oglaigh Na hEireann, which said it was to be detonated at the hotel hosting the G8 summit.

In a coded statement to The Guardian, the anti-ceasefire dissident organisation also admitted responsibility for an attempted mortar bomb attack on the heavily fortified New Barnsley police station in west Belfast two weeks ago.

ONH also provided two photographs of a mortar launching device alongside a printed note stating: "MK1 10KG Mortar, Range 300 Metres."

The group's statement said: "Car bomb defused in County Fermanagh on Sat 23rd March. Target was hotel hosting G8 summit in June."

#J11 - Carnival Against Capitalism in London

A CARNIVAL Against Capitalism has been called for London on June 11 2013, in the build-up to the G8 summit being hosted by the UK government.

Stop G8 has announced the J11 date as part of a week of anti-capitalist and anti-militarist action in the British capital.

It says on its call-out page: "London is right at the heart of global capitalism. And the West End of London, including elite areas like Piccadilly, Mayfair and Knightsbridge, is where power and greed are most concentrated."

It says the West End of London will be the focus for J11 because it is home to:

* Corporations. Many of the world’s most brutal and polluting companies,  including oil and mining giants, arms dealers, and the businesses profiting from cuts and privatisation.

* Vulture funds. Global base of the “hedge fund” and “private equity” industries, laundering the world’s blood money to invest in war, food speculation and debt slavery.

* Tyrants. Government offices, embassies, cultural and commercial fronts of  colonial powers and murderous regimes.

* Playground of the mega-rich. Middle Eastern dictators, Russian mafia oligarchs, and home-grown parasites all see London as a “safe” place to hide and spend their loot.

Explaining the carnival theme, Stop G8 says: "Traditionally, carnival is the time where the people take over the streets, the bosses run and hide, and the world gets turned upside down. It is a time to celebrate our resistance and our dreams, to bring music and colour to the streets. And also to show our strength and our anger.

"The powerful feel safe in London so long as they go unchallenged. But the people looting our planet have names and addresses. On #J11 we will party in the streets, point out the hiding places of power, and take back the heart of our city for a day. Our streets. Our world.

"Join us. Like any good carnival, everyone’s invited: this will be an open, inclusive, and lively event. There will be a main route with sound systems and public meeting points. Bring music, costumes, banners, friends, ideas. We also encourage independent actions, and will publish soon a detailed map of the area to help you make your own plans. The Green and Black Cross group will provide experienced medical and legal support."

Direct action newsheet SchNEWS reports that protest plans for the G8 are mushrooming, with separate groups planning action in both Dublin and Fermanagh following the London week.

It says: "The powers-that-be must have been so chuffed with themselves when they came up with their cunning game plan for this year’s G8 summit, hosted by the UK government.

"By holding it near Enniskillen, in County Fermanagh, in the north of Ireland, they thought they would kill two birds with one stone - shrugging off those pesky protesters expected on the mainland and showing off to the world how they had got the six counties nicely pacified and under control.

"But things haven’t exactly gone to plan. First there was the rioting by Union Flag-loving parts of the population, which made many locals wonder if taking on another security headache was the wisest course of action they could have come up with.

"Then there were the reported threats to the summit from dissident republican groups who, unlike us unwashed anti-capitalist hordes over here, tend to be armed.

"And now there has been a flurry of excitement in the run-up to the summit in which it appears that there will now be three centres of protest across an eight-day period and spanning two different states. Hardly the easy ride the G8 were hoping for!"

And anarchist blogger Paul Cudenec has called for fellow anarchists to put aside any theoretical  objections to summit protests as a means of resistance, insisting that "capitalism exists on many different levels and should therefore also be countered on many different levels".

London calling for anti-capitalist resistance

 

ANTI-CAPITALISTS in the UK have issued an international call-out for protests against the G8 summit in June 2013.

It includes a big day of action in central London on Tuesday June 11, in the run-up to the meeting of neoliberal world leaders.

Stop G8 says on its website: "This June the leaders of the G8 (the world’s richest countries) are meeting in Northern Ireland. As economic crisis bites, and the planet burns, the bosses and their politicians are celebrating business as usual. Capitalism: a system that kills, exploits, and degrades the many for the profit of a few.

"On June 10-18 we are organising a week of action and events in London. London is at the heart of global capitalism. The corporations, banks, hedge funds, and billionaires looting our world have names and addresses. They are in the glass towers of the City, and behind unmarked doors in Mayfair and Knightsbridge.

"London is the money-laundering den of dictators, the playground of the super-rich. But London is our city too. A city of hope, resistance, and struggle.

"Capitalism is killing us. Unemployment, cuts, and the rise of fascism in the “West”. Poverty, colonialism, brutal exploitation in the “Third World”. War and famine for profit. Private prisons, police checks, CCTV to keep us scared and controlled. Life robbed of meaning and beauty, our dreams and our dignity for sale.

"Don’t ignore. Don’t wait. For our friends and loved ones, for our communities, for our planet, for everything they’re trying to take from us. The time is now. Let’s come together, and fight. One common struggle."

The timetable so far is:

June 11: Big day of action in Central London.

June 17-18: G8 Summit, Enniskillen, North of Ireland.

June 10-18: Week of actions, talks, meet-ups, films, games, concerts, and more, all over London and beyond.


The group says that it believes that any mobilisation at the summit in Enniskillen needs to be started locally. "The StopG8 network will support a locally organised mobilisation. For now, we are keeping the end of the week free. Stay posted for more information."

G8 to front plutofascist war on North Africa

ENDLESS war and plutofascist imperialism will be the hallmark of the UK's presidency of the G8, says prime minister David Cameron.

Ten years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, neoliberal powers are launching a new phase of their phoney "War on Terror", now on the south side of the Mediterranean.

The Daily Telegraph reports that speaking at Chequers, Mr Cameron claimed there was a growing "terrorist threat" in North Africa and talked up the need for a "prolonged struggle" to counter it.

He said: “It will require a response that is about years, even decades, rather than months, and it requires a response that is patient, that is painstaking, that is tough but also intelligent, but above all has an absolutely iron resolve; and that is what we will deliver over these coming years.

“It will also require countries to work together, and I will use our chairmanship of the G8 this year to make sure this issue is right at the top of the agenda where it belongs.”

The Western powers are using the usual bogeyman of "al Qaeda" as the excuse for a military assault on the territory of Azawad, which declared its independence from Mali last year.

But, beyond the shrill warmongering of the corporate media, informed voices are exposing the other agendas that, inevitably, lie behind the military involvement.

Stéphane Lhomme, director of  l'Observatoire du nucléaire, points out that the real reason for the French intervention is to secure the supply of uranium to the country's powerful nuclear industry - the mineral is sourced from mines in the north of Niger, a desert area separated from Mali only by a hypothetical line on the map.

And in a letter published in the Evening Standard on January 17, Dr. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed responded to Nabila Ramdani's endorsement of France's Mali intervention, supposedly "aimed at ridding Mali of particularly sinister insurgents," saying  it overlooks key factors which have now made themselves manifest in the hostage seizures in Algeria.

"Firstly, 'al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb' (AQIM) was, according to experts like Professor Jeremy Keenan from SOAS - the most cited academic in the world on North Africa - virtually manufactured in the region by Algerian intelligence services with clandestine US support.

"This short-sighted policy originated with the Algerian military junta's attempts to fabricate a justification for exterminating members of the peaceful Islamic Salvation Front after it won democratic elections decades ago. The policy was reinforced by NATO's intervention in Libya, shoring up Islamist militias with AQIM affiliations across the region.

"Secondly, Ramdani naively ignores NATO's strategic interests in North Africa, described in 2007 by State Department adviser J. Peter Pham as "protecting access to hydrocarbons and other strategic resources... a task which includes ensuring against the vulnerability of those natural riches and ensuring that no other interested third parties, such as China, India, Japan, or Russia, obtain monopolies or preferential treatment.”

"Mali is believed to have significant oil and gas potential.

"A confidential US embassy cable (8 May 2006) obtained by Wikileaks observes that a "significant impediment" to "extracting and transporting oil" in Mali is "regional political instability and terrorist activities."

"With reports of extensive civilian casualties due to French airstrikes, it is far from clear that they will be  beneficial for Mali, even if Ramdani concedes they may be troublesome for France. Such military action will only lend legitimacy to the most virulent AQIM components of the insurgency.

"A better approach would be to cut off AQIM at source - by reigning in Algerian military intelligence. But perhaps that's not the point."

Cameron's declaration of the G8's key role in the neoliberals' war on North African war will intensify protests against the June summit currently being planned in the UK by Stop G8.

 

Spirit of revolt is alive in London

 
THE spirit of resistance to neoliberalism is alive and kicking in London, despite the attempts of the British state to stamp out dissent.

More than 150,000 people marched through the capital on Saturday October 20 to protest against the punitive austerity measures being imposed on the population by the coalition government.

And, off the official route of the TUC-organised demo, angry protesters took to Oxford Street, storming several businesses and forcing others to close.

They were reacting both to the foul workfare scheme, which sees the unemployed served up by the state to big business as slave labour, and to the blatant injustice of those same capitalists being allowed to avoid paying taxes, while the people are bled dry and public services slashed.

The protest began at Oxford Circus at about 2.45pm, when a small group took the centre of the road junction and staged a brief sit-down protest.

It then set off down Regent Street as a wildcat march, quickly attracting hundreds of others, as well as a samba band, as it snaked back up to Oxford Street and headed west towards Marble Arch.

A whole stream of businesses, notably including Boots, Starbucks and McDonald's, were targeted by fast-moving breakaways from the march - on several occasions protesters managed to get inside before the shutters came down or police lines prevented them.

Oxford Street traffic was brought to a standstill and the protest left in its wake a string of closed businesses - police were still protecting the capitalist outlets when the protest later returned along the same route.

The British state clearly hoped that, by handing out punitive prison sentences not only to the 2011 rioters but also to non-violent protesters like boat-race swimmer Trenton Oldfield, it could crush the spirit of rebellion in a British public numbed into conformity by the media circus of the Jubilee and Olympics.

But the enthusiasm and energy of  the "unauthorised" Oxford Street demo suggests it has failed in its repressive aim - the spirit on display bodes well for the resistance to the G8 meeting to be held in the UK in the summer of  2013.

Tensions rise in US spring of resistance

TENSION is already rising in the USA ahead of massive protests planned against the the NATO and G8 Summits  from May 15 to 22.

With dissent on the rise, authorities fear a significant outburst of anger against the neoliberal showcase events.

They have moved the G8 meeting from Chicago to Camp David in Maryland and have been cranking up the machineries of repression.

Occupy protests, no matter how peaceful, are now being routinely attacked by  police, including the Occupy Wall Street anniversary demo in New York.

Said a statement on the OWS site on March 18: "Yesterday, on the 6-month anniversary of the original Occupation of Wall Street, #OWS went back to our origins.

"After a weekend of marches on Wall Street complete with spring training exercises, a St. Patrick´s Day march, street theater, floating tents, and dancing in the intersections, Liberty Square was re-occupied by thousands of Occupy supporters.

"Unfortunately, bringing back memories of November 15th, NYPD violently evicted us from our home once again while Occupiers were hugging old friends and celebrating the coming of spring in the park.

"According to the New York Times, 'scores' were arrested, and more injured, during the attack. Police used city buses to corral mass-arrested protesters. Media were not allowed to cover the events.

"After clearing the Square, NYPD placed barricades around the area - an act specifically barred by previous legal action. At least one person was taken to the hospital on a stretcher. We have also heard reports of seizures and broken bones.

"On Livestream, peaceful protesters are seen being tackled, punched, stomped, choked, hit with batons, and thrown against cars for no reason other than sitting down to peacefully protest inequality in a public park."

Despite the plutofascist clamp-down, OWS declares: "We will not let police repression stop us!"

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