CINA

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Especially the German bourgeois media is writing about the - in fact - senselessness of the G8 Summit. Actually it's just a show event of the "leaders" of the "leading" industry countries (plus Russia) - without any result. Except, according to a guest comment in yesterday's Der Spiegel (THE German "leading" bourgeois magazine), that the G8 will try to strengthen the front against the "developing 'power' China" ("The western industry nations are seeing China's boom as an attack against their own supremacy and fearing a World War about/for prosperity - what they only can lose", so today's Berliner Zeitung).

Of course another result will be the increasing repression against the anti-capitalist movement, especially in the days before and during the summit. And last but not least the excessive increasing of security measures and together with it the massive waste of public finances (the money of the "ordinary" tax payers).

Alone the "security fence/wall" around the Heiligendamm costs 12 million Euro (about 15 billion Won). The entire "security measures", incl. 17,000 cops, 1,100 heavy armed soldiers, US Navy war ships etc.. will cost at least 100 million Euro (around 125,000,000,000 Won^^) - for only a three-day "event"!!

Preparation for a "civil war"?

Anyway.. About the latest developments Der Spiegel published in the last two days following:

Security Tightens as G-8 Summit Approaches

With just a week left before the G-8 summit in Heiligendamm in northern Germany, authorities are ratcheting up security precautions. On Wednesday, the razor-wire fence surrounding the venue was closed. But criticism of German authorities for their draconian security measure remains intense.

Even as foreign ministers from G-8 countries are meeting in Potsdam with their counterparts from Afghanistan and Pakistan on Wednesday, security along the Baltic Sea coast continues to get tighter. At 7 a.m. on Wednesday morning, police officially closed off public access to the seaside resort of Heiligendamm where the G-8 meeting of leaders from eight of the world's most economically powerful countries is to take place next week from June 6-8.

The early lockdown is part of an elaborate security strategy being pursued by the Germans to ensure that protests against the G-8 summit -- to be attended by Britain, Germany, Italy, the United States, Russia, France, Japan, and Canada -- don't get out of hand as they have in the past. Authorities have built a 12-kilometer long, 2.5 meter tall, razor-wire fence around the resort at a cost of some €12.5 million ($17 million) and only residents and those on official business will be allowed inside starting Wednesday.

Additionally, the coast in front of the resort will be patrolled by warships and all other boats are banned from the area.

German officials have been heavily criticized for their security strategy ahead of the summit meeting. Not only have demonstrations been banned near the site of the meeting, but police have been making headlines recently for a number of seemingly invasive tactics. Earlier this month it was revealed that the police were collecting odor samples (more...) from anti-globalization activists so that dogs could identify them more easily at demonstrations. Last week, it came out that investigators were opening mail addressed to anti-G-8 groups in Hamburg.

On Wednesday, the mass-circulation tabloid Bild reported that German politicians were considering confiscating the driver's licenses of protesters should they participate in violence. "I have nothing against peaceful demonstrations," conservative Christian Social Union politician Renate Blank told Bild. "But if it becomes violent, then courts have to also be able to ban people from driving."

A number of pre-G-8 protests have already descended into violence. On Monday evening in Hamburg, a 5,000-person-strong protest against the ASEM summit of Asian and European foreign ministers got out of hand as police cars were destroyed and barricades had to be erected in the streets. Earlier this month, another protest in Hamburg likewise turned ugly following police raids on the offices and apartments of violence-prone left-wing activists...

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,485609,00.html

Related:

☞ Anxious Locals Proving Good Neighbors as Activists Move In (Der Spiegel)

☞ A Protest Culture Attempts to Reawaken Itself

☞ ABC-Waffen sollen G-8-Demos verhindern ("interview"^^, Die Welt)

☞ An Interactive Map of the Summit Site: World Leaders Fenced In

For latest news/informations:

☞ G8 Protests Timeline (indymedia Germany)

BTW.. if you don't know so far: It's absolute possible (^^) to make "good business" (aka maximum profit) in the name of "Another World (is Possible)":

"Bionade - The Official Drink of a Better World" (German commercial)

^^ With the "alternative" (the brand new) capitalism against the "old-school"

and the new (aka neoliberalism) capitalism!!^^

*****

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While parts of the German ruling class and their collaborators, aka the state, are "welcome" the protests against the G8-summit - for example the minister of interior W. Schäuble (actually he's one of the most conservative hard-liners in the gov't!! More about it later..) the German police yesterday performed in Hamburg their first "public training"(^^) likely(??) under the motto

'Provoke and Smash the Anti-G8 Protest/Movement'

Yesterday (5.28) at least 6,000 activists gathered on the streets of Hamburg to protest against the 7th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) and the comming G8-summit. There was a massive police presence and the entire march was surrounded by several riot police lines.

The procession was repeatedly stopped and provoked by the cops, while snatch squads and other units tried permanently to penetrate the demo. Water cannons, pepper spray, kicks and punches were used repeatedly. So the organisers eventually decided to call the demonstration off and participants then dispersed in small groups. A large part of the demonstration, however, was 'kettled' by police while other were 'hunted down' as they headed back to a social center. At least 86 people were arrested, some still detained.  

☞ We declare war on the leaders of the world... (GipfelSoli, anti-G8solidarity)

☞ ASEM-G8 Protest in Hamburg

☞ Violence in Hamburg Streets.. (Der Spiegel, German bourgeois magazine)

☞ ASEM-G8 Protest in Hamburg - pictures

☞ G8: On German media coverage (indymedia Germany)

☞ A Protest Culture Attempts to Reawaken Itself (Der Spiegel)

Related stuff in SK (南朝鮮^^):

☞ Anti G8 첫번째 회의록 (seoulidarity)

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Latest news from Absurdistan (aka the German State):

G8: Ban on demonstrations up to 6 kilometres 

Press release by  Heiligendamm Starmarch Coalition (20th May 2007)

 
Lawyer: "Prohibited zones are unprecendented in the history of the German Federal Republic."

Special department "Kavala" slow to process other registered demonstrations.
During the G8 summit there will be a ten day ban on demostrations and assemblies within as well as 200 metres around the fence in Heilgendamm.
From the 5th to 8th of June, i.e. during the summit meetings, this zone will be extended to a 4km area around the fence. Demonstrations are to be kept at a 6km distance to the conference hotel.

This weekend, on behalf of the starmarch coalition, a group of lawyers lodged an urgent law suit against the injunction at the court in Schwerin. In the appeal the lawyers state that, although the G8 delegations have no legitimacy to do so, they make decisions that have serious international consequences. This is why international protest should be made visibile to them. The "sentiments of the state guests" that the police do not want to upset, must play a secondary role.

Excerpt from the law suit:

"Protests against international politics carry special weight - they must be given the space to be expressed and to be taken seriously by the heads of states of the G8 countries along with the international public. Effective public visibility means specifically that international media must have access to the protests. The necessary visibility of the protests can only be guaranteed if the protests are able to generate media attention at the actual location where events are taking place. The basic right of association is even more important at such supranational events than at national ones."

According to the Hamburg-based solicitor Carsten Gericke, the demonstration bans are for the most part unlawful: "The prohibition zones designated by Kavala are unprecedented in the history of the German Federal Republic", he explains. "If organisers wishing to obtain the permission to demonstrate cannot hold their event, then their rigt to association is irrepairably violated. This is because the demostration in question is irrevocably relevant to the event taking place within the area of the ban," he further elaborates.

The police are also claiming that "extraordinary threats" to the G8 summit exist. However, there are no indications of such a threat. In the law suit that has been lodged it states that the German police and the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution have been forced to admit that "sustainable indications of serious threats or dangers have not been able to be brought forward by the office dealing with the issue."

Furthermore, the suit criticises the police organisation Kavala: "Creating a special department "Kavala" within the Rostock police force to process this injunction is unlawful", Gericke writes. Equally, the creation of this special department with hundreds of civil servants has led to a situation in which the registration of many assemblies and demonstrations have not been processed at all or only very slowly:

"The effect has been that the office has not acted in accordance with its constitutionally determined duties to cooperate because this special department had to first be made operational and is staffed by external civil servants. Because of this, the rights of the organisers registering the demonstration have been denied."

Other registrations have also been affected by the ban. The organisation "Jewish Voice" has registered a protest rally with 150 activists from Palestine and Israel on June 5th. The 5th June is the 40th anniversary of the start of the Six Day War. The organisation has still not even received a written response to their request.

"We are very pleased with the broad and even international media response and sympathy with the protests against the G8 summit", say the organisers of the star march on June 7th. International calls to demonstrate against the G8 continue.

[Starmarch Coalition]

Related stuff:

☞ A Long Hot Spring - a Season of Protest (Der Spiegel)

☞ A Taste of the Coming Showdown

☞ 매일 '민주주의' (독일)

For more news/informations about the Anti-G8 Struggle:

☞ G8 Germany 2007 (indymedia UK)

☞ dissentNetwork

☞ Anti-G8 Alliance for a revolutionary perspective

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Last Friday (5.12) Hankyoreh published following report about the daily hardship of street vendors especially in the area in and around Dongdaemun Stadium (*):

City’s plans mean vendors face another forced move

 
After being shifted into another district due to development, park plan threatens new home

 
"What do we do when the city fails to keep its pledge whenever its mayor is reshuffled?"

The face of Cha Jeong-ho, 79, was twisted in anger as he talked to the Hankyoreh. Cha sells small electronic gadgets such as electronic calculators and remote controls at a flea market around Seoul’s Dongdaemun Stadium.

"I came here because the city government promised it would build a world-renowned flea market here. But now the government tells me it is just going to bulldoze this area. Where will I go?"

Cha is not alone. The flea market he works in contains 894 vendors. All are afraid regarding their future after the city government informed them June last year that demolition of the area would begin from the end of this year.

Sohn Myeong-u, 51, who sells T-shirts at the flea market, said, "After the city announced the plan to demolish the market, the number of customers coming here dropped by a third."

Although the city government plans to demolish the market starting in November, it has not announced a solution regarding a new home for the vendors who operate their stores there.

For these vendors, the demolition moves represent yet another in a long line of broken promises from the Seoul government. This was not their original place of work: they were moved here from the Hwanghak-dong flea market after former Seoul city mayor Lee Myung-bak implemented a restoration project of the Cheonggye stream in 2003. At that time, the vendors believed the former mayor’s pledge to build a world-renowned flea market. However, the pledge changed shortly after incumbent mayor Oh Se-hoon took office in May last year, as one of Oh’s campaign promises was to build a park and a design center nearby Dongdaemun.

Oh’s words understandably drew protest from the area’s vendors. Since June last year, the city government has formed a body to seek a solution with five representatives of the vendors, but no agreement has been forged. In fact, the two sides have not met since April due to the government’s failure to call a meeting. Additionally, there was no public hearing or survey of vendors regarding the plans.

A Seoul government official said, "The region around Dongdaemun Stadium was a temporary space for vendors while the city was in the process of restoring Cheonggye Stream. After taking into consideration their situation as compared with that of other street vendors, we plan to map out rational measures," the official said, asking not to be named due to the sensitivity of the subject.

Moon Seung-guk, Seoul city’s official in charge of the project, said, "We are now in discussions with the vendors; therefore, we could delay the demolition by March of next year."

In the meantime, the Seoul city government announced on May 10 that it will select eight domestic and overseas architects to build the park around Dongdaemun Stadium. After receiving a draft design for the park on August 10, the government said it will announce a winner shortly thereafter, which means the vendors around Dongdaemun Stadium that will be displaced by the new park must quickly find a new home.

http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/208806.html

* Well, that's the result of the creation of a "Clean, Attractive and Global City", declared by the Seoul Metropolitan Gov't.

And of course in this f.. "Clean, Attractive.. City" there is no place for street vendors, for the poor in general.

Actually since several years I followed this kind of "city development" and many times, since Nov. 2003 I wrote reports about the resistance of the affected people especially in the areas downtown Seoul, such as Jung-gu and Jongno-gu (but also in other areas, cities, such as Ilsan, Uijeongbu..)

For more please read/watch following:

☞ RESTORATION MEANS DESTRUCTION

☞ Street Dealers.. Vanish As Seoul Seeks to Modernize (Yonhap, 2004.07)

☞ [청계천 노점상 생존권 사수 투쟁] 제1부 ("Struggle" video. VERRY IMPRESSIVE!!!)

☞ [청계천 노점상 생존권 사수 투쟁] 제2부 (Docu, interviews)


For more informations (in Korean) about the recent/current struggle of street vendors in Jung-gu (Cheonggyecheon/Dongdaemun..) please check out:

☞ 청계천 투쟁/전노련


Somehow related:

☞ 2004 StreetNetFestival 동대문운동장

☞ 용역 깡패, 의정부시청 박살내자!

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Well, yesterday's Chosun Ilbo (yeah, the reactionary S.K. daily!!^^) has been asking:

Why Are the Anti-FTA Protesters so Quiet?
   
On June 3 last year, three days before the first round of Korea-U.S. free trade negotiations opened, 1,300 anti-FTA protesters held a rally at the Jongmyo Shrine in downtown Seoul. Some 40 anti-FTA demonstrators went to the U.S. to oppose the trade talks, waving banners and took to the streets. Eleven months later, Korea started the first round of free trade talks with the EU on Monday. But there were no big anti-FTA protests in Seoul during the negotiating period. About 20 anti-FTA protesters gathered and called for the cancellation of the trade talks in front of the Shilla Hotel, the negotiating venue, on Monday morning, but that was all. Seoul Metropolitan Police said no anti-FTA rallies were reported.

Anti-FTA protestors just held press conferences and issued statement. Even the notorious lawmaker Chun Jung-bae, who staged a 25-day hunger strike against the trade treaty with the U.S., welcomed trade talks saying an FTA with the European bloc will be in Korea’s interest. Of course, it is welcome that anti-FTA protesters express their opinions in a reasonable way such as a press conference rather than massive rallies. Still, the question remains: what made them change their attitude?

Despite differences in detail, trade talks are trade talks and will require Korea to reduce tariffs and open its market. Indeed, an FTA with the EU could have a bigger impact on the Korean economy than one with the U.S., since the EU’s average tariff rate is higher than the U.S.’ On my way to the Shilla Hotel to cover the talks, my taxi driver said, “Why are they so quiet this time? They were noisy when trade talks with the U.S. were going on.” Many people must have the same question. Did they in fact just oppose a trade pact with the U.S. due to anti-American sentiment?

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200705/200705090025.html

Related:

☞ S.Korea launches free trade talks with EU (VoP)

☞ Korea, EU wrap up first FTA talks (Korea Herald)

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Germany: Wave of Repression

Against Anti-G8 Structures

Today since the early morning naerly 1000 police officers, including anti-terror units, were/are raiding offices and private houses of anti-G8 activists. Especially in Berlin and Hamburg the Federal Criminal Agency (BKA) is searching for "evidence" against a "terrorist organisation" with the "aim of preparing militant attacks against the G8-Summit" next month in Heiligendamm (north-east Germany).

 
Alone in Berlin at least six offices/social centers and several privat houses were raided..

Well, actually the entire "operation" is just aimed to intimidate/oppress the entire anti-G8 movement in Germany.

Press release:

Since Wednesday (May 9, 2007) morning 8 am a wave of searches is taking places against left structures throughout Germany. Targeted are social projects and private persons that are organizing against the coming G8 summit - or suspected to do so.

In Berlin at least seven flats and office spaces are being searched, amongst which two offices in Bethanien, a social centre in Kreuzberg, Berlin, and the Fusion shop in the same district. The latter is a space used by an antifascist organization and the Interventionist Left. Moreover, a bookshop in Mehringhof and the office spaces of several alternative media projects in Lausitzer Straße have been searched.

The criminal investigation police was putting special attention on the alternative Internet server so36.net. Many left and alternative projects have their websites, mailing lists and mail adresses hosted there. This way, the communication structue of the anti-G8 movement is hit on a sensibel point.

In Hamburg the repression is aimed against the social centre "Rote Flora" and diverse housing projects. Also in the surrounding of Berlin searches are taking place. And there are first reports about searches in the city of Bremen.

The orders for the searches are based on § 129a: "Formation of a terrorist association with the aim to stop the G8 summit". The random selection out of many left housing and infrastructural projects makes clear that the investigation is used as an excuse in order to weaken the mobilization against the G8. "Probably diverse cases of property damage serve as an excuse for these investigations", so the impression of the Campinski Press Group. One of these cases occured at the Kempinski Hotel, where the G8 summit is going to take place. The hotel was targeted with paint balls some months ago.

The context of a §129a investigation are instrumentalized in order to gather data about the protest movement. Besides, such measures have, most likely intended, intimdating effects. Only 2% of all $129a investigations result in sentencing.

However: "Who invites the G8 summit, also invites the protest against it", explains Hanne Jobst of the Berlin Bethanien office. "All attempts to criminalize this movement will not prevent us from exposing worldwide inequalities during the G8 summit."

The repressive acts of the criminal investigation police are not entirely surprising. The left and radical left resistance against the G8 has reached an uncontrollable level for the police. "So far, the police only tried to split the resistance in the public media through hallucinating about an army of 'anarchists'. Now they will try to sabotage the organizational structures", Jobst explains further.

"It is noteworthy that the searchces are targeted agaist all those parts of the resistance that refuse to direct claims to the G8, because they refuse the G8 in general as an illegitimate institution", explains a spokesperson of the Gipfelsoli Info Group.

☞ Police Raids against G8 Mobilisation in Germany (int'l IMC)

☞ Police raid G8 'terror attackers' (CNN/Reuters)

☞ Germany Raids Leftist 'Terrorists' Ahead of G-8 Summit (Der Spiegel)

Related articles/links:

☞ THE APPROACHING G-8 SUMMIT (Der Spiegel, Germany)

☞ Uneasy echoes of Berlin in G8 wall (Guardian)

☞ G8 관련 자료


For more informations:

☞ Anti-G8 Protests

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The S.K. "left"-liberal Hankyoreh (in its English edition) published today following:

Labor movement divided on approach to FTA

The nation's two umbrella labor groups are split about the free trade agreement with the United States.

At a press conference on May 2, officials from the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) talked about a joint plan to stop the U.S.-Korea FTA.

South Korea and the U.S. announced in early April that they reached an agreement on the FTA talks between the two countires. The FTA deal has yet to be approved by the two country's congress respectively before going into effect.

When they were about to read a joint statement, however, Woo Mun-sook, the KCTU spokesperson, urgently requested the reporters to remove the Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU) from the list of organizations participating in the statement.

Until now the two umbrella labor unions have cooperated through the ad hoc Korean Alliance Against the U.S.-Korea free trade agreement (FTA). However, once the FTA negotiations were over, the FKTU has declared that it would take a "realistic approach." Even when the negotiations were over, the FKTU employed what it called a "pragmatic" strategy to actively involve itself in the negotiation process rather than urging the government to just halt the talks.

The differences could be seen in speeches made at the two groups' separate May Day events. KCTU chairman Lee Seok-haeng called for the agreement to be nullified, while FKTU chairman Lee Yong-deuk proposed the formation of a "pan-Korean body" to respond to the FTA.

KCTU is against the FTA altogether. FKTU has taken the position that the agreement needs "followup" measures.

"Our basic position is that we urgently need to provide support for sectors which will directly suffer a heavy blow instead of clinging to impractical struggle tactics" said Lee of the KCTU.

In contrast, the FKTU chairman said, "Korea is expected to suffer serious damage, to the degree it will have to change more than 100 provisions of its laws. Therefore, this is not a question to be solved by simply preparing follow-up measures.''

http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/206952.html

PS:
Likely that's just the result of the reformist ("small-bourgeois"^^) alignment of the anti-FTA movement!???? Eh~ sorry, that's just my opinion..

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THE INT'L STRUGGLE DAY OF THE WORKING CLASS

IN ISTANBUL/TURKEY

According to Die Welt (Germany) already in the beginning of the "MayDay" rallies in Istanbul at least 600 labour union activists were arrested. Later massive forces of riot cops (16,000 were on the streets) smashed any kind of protest rallies/demos.

Victims of the cops' violence

For more please see/check out also following:

☞ 1 mayıs direnişleri

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The Int'l Struggle Day of the

Working Class

 

Well, since several days in Berlin the forces of the counter-revolution - aka the bourgeoisie, their state, their media - and the "revolution" are preparing for tomorrow's "struggle day"!!

THE COUNTER-REVOLUTION:

BZ(THE yellow press in Berlin): "ex-terrorist is planning a hate demonstration"

THE "REVOLUTION":

The "Mayday" in Berlin, just some years ago:

Read also the following f.., but funny(?) BS:

☞ Mai-Krawalle – Ausdruck ehrlicher Lebensfreude (Die Welt, 4.30)

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Here some parts of the final "Conference Statement":

"Facing all those challenges the 5th Cairo conference has concluded with the following recommendations:
..
- Organization of demonstrations worldwide against visits by Zionist officials/Bush, Cheney (*)
..
- Development of a website of Boycott of Zionist entity (**)
..
III. Building bridges between the Left and Islamic movements (***) against Imperialism and Globalization"

- etc..

* ?? Cheney, Bush - Zionists? Yeah, the USA are ruled by Jews!!! Only by Jews.. And the Jews - of course - are ruling everything (..and not the - international - capitalist class!!) BTW.. this a "really beautiful" example of pure anti-semitism!!! (*)

** a.k.a. Israel

*** Hamas/Islamic Jihad - "our strong allies"(^^) ..are ruling nowadays Gaza:

- In recent months, about three dozen Internet cafes and shops selling pop music have been attacked in the Gaza Strip, with assailants detonating small bombs outside businesses at night, causing damage.. Palestinian security officials have said they suspect a secret vice squad of Muslim militants." so the Israeli "left"-liberal daily Haaretz (4.15).

- Armed assailants set off explosives at an international school in northern Gaza early Saturday, damaging the building but causing no casualties, Palestinian security officials said.

 
The attack took place around 5 am, several hours before the start of the school day. The attackers overpowered security guards, then set off bombs in several areas of the school, security officials said.

 
The American International School, one of Gaza's best private schools.. has more than 600 students. In March 2006, the Dutch principal and an Australian teacher were briefly kidnapped, and foreign teachers left after that incident. (AP, 4.20)

- etc..

Propaganda for the Iraqi "resistance" on

a German fascist web site

Related stuff:

☞ Towards an International Alliance against Imperialism and Zionism

☞ Campo Antiimperialista (**)

☞ [카이로회의 선언문]"제국주의와 시온주의에 맞선 국제적 동맹을 위해"           

* And this was also one of the main explanations by the NS/fascist Germany why it is/was necessary to exterminate the, at least European, entire Jewish population (because they were/are ruling the capitalism). And as you - possibly - know, this goal (the physically extermination of the European Jews) was nearly "successfully". About 6,000,000 Jews in Europe were killed by mass executions and the industrialized mass murder in the gas chambers.. 

** Campo Antiimperialista - an "anti-imperialist", self-called "communist" coordination site - with strong connections to Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hizbullah...