N30 in Europe

England

LONDON WAKES UP TO GLOBAL ACTION

In an action designed to raise awareness of capitalism and the WTO, around fifty people gathered in and around Euston station at 9:30am to begin distributing leaflets and stickers to passers-by. Previous to their arrival the concorse had already been staked out by dozens of police teams and even more media. The assembled crowd was later joined by small autonomous groups from other areas of London, and continued to hand out large amounts of information.

CONSTRUCTION WORKERS SAY NO2WTO

At 12pm the Construction Safety Campaign held a demonstration outside the Canadian Embassy (Canada House) on Trafalgar Square. The construction workers and their supporters were protesting at Canada's attmpt to use the WTO to reverse the decision by several EU countries to ban asbestos use. Under WTO rules on this is seen as a barrier to free trade. Here in the UK, the Institute for Cancer Research expects the current numbers of asbestos related cancers to double in the next ten years.

Like the previous action, the protesters were accompanied by large numbers of police and journalists, and the event passed off peacefully.

Following the demonstration the crowd marched past Downing Street while others briefly blockaded Oxford Street in a sit down protest.

STUDENTS TARGET CITYBANK

The Lewisham branch of Citybank was picketed throughout the afternoon by a small group of students. The bank is one of the major holders of students loan debt. The global trend to underfund and privatise services that accompanies the expansion of free trade has hit education in the UK, with student grants being scrapped in favour of personal loans. The latest round of trade talks threaten to expand this trend throughout health and transport.

NIGERIANS PUT THEIR PRESIDENT AND SHELL ON TRIAL

President Obasanjo of Nigeria and Mark Moody-Stuart, of Royal-Dutch/Shell faced a people's court in London to answer a number of charges relating to human rights abuses and environmental devastation in the Niger Delta. This piece of street theatre was performed by Nigerians exiles and British environmental activists outside the Magistrates Court in Covent Garden at 2:30pm Others from different campaigns had also attended to show solidarity. ****LINK!!!****

RALLY AT EUSTON STATIO

Nearly two thousand people gathered at Euston station at 5pm for a rally jointly organised by Reclaim the Streets and the London Strike Support Group designed to highlight the links between the free trade agenda of the WTO and the privatisation of public transport in UK. The event was endorsed by the London Transport Council of the Rail Maritime and Transport Union (RMT), whose speaker detailed the opposition to Tube privitisation and the real concerns for safety should it go ahead. As banners were hung the rythms of a samba band mixed with speeches from representatives of various campaigning groups. Although the main focus of the rally was transport, there were also speakers covering a wide array of issues linked to the WTO and the system it governs.

Genetic Engineering Network illustrated how free trade rules make impossible for people to choose what they eat, putting them in the hands of corporations that push GMO's down their throats.

A speaker from Voices in the Wilderness criticised the British and American governments for maintaining heavy economic sanctions against Iraq. The group openly break sanctions to take medical supplies to Iraq, where it is widely accepted the sanctions are causing severe shortages of food and medicines killing thousands, particularly children.

Campaign Against the Arms Trade highlighted the links between politicians and the global arms market. While admitting it was not the WTO that controlled the worlds arms production, the speaker went on to place the blame for the worlds conflicts on companies like the UK's GEC Marconi, the labour government's so called ethical arms policy, and the inherent greed for profit that places money before lives.

There was also support for the plight of American journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, in death row since 1982 as a result of a thorougly rigged trial in which he was convicted of shooting a Philadelphia policeman. A former member of the Black Panthers and the environmental-anarchist community MOVE, he is widely considered a political prisoner.

Talking from Reclaim The Streets another speaker urged the importance of placing the WTO in the context of capitalism and its effects, and cited the growing nature of international solidarity and protest. One of the final speakers called on people to 'Reclaim Mayday' in the year 2000 as part of global day of action.

As advertised the speeches ended at 7pm to resounding cheers with a final speaker congratulating everyone on a successful day and remarkable gathering of issues.

RIOT AT EUSTON STATION

At around the same time as the first reports of police violence in Seattle arrived to London, part of the crowd that had been previously attending the rally at Euston station made an attempt to walk into one of the main traffic arteries in the capital. Although the whole area was surrounded by police, protesters were directly met by a small number of police officers and a confrontation erupted. Police were initially driven back but a line of officers in riot gear rapidly formed and a series of charges and skirmishes on both directions ensued. There were diverse opinions among the protesters about the right course to follow, many openly calling to pro-activelly confront the authorities while others opted for passive resistance and some for withdrawal.

A small group of protesters switched their attention to an unmarked police van and proceeded to turn it over, to a mixture of booing and cheering from fellow protesters. In the following half hour there were several attempts to set the van on fire which on some occasions were thwarted by other demonstrators. Finally, the van caught fire and was surrounded by around 30 photographers, at which moment police decided to clear the station parade in perfectly structured lines. The van had been left isolated and unattended near the crowd for several hours, with 12ft metal poles attached to its top, in a remarkable flaw of police organisation.

Most of the protestors left the area by 8pm while around 500 people, roughly divided in three groups, continued to clash with police,. The first group was driven towards King's Cross, with several unsuccessful attempts to blockade the road by sitting down. They were finally dispersed after 9pm. A second, smaller, group stayed dancing in front of police lines in Eversholt street and gradually disappeared. The third group was less fortunate and, after some heated physical confrontation, was completely surrounded by a triple line of riot police who identified and photographed all of them before their release. The area was completely clear between 12 and 1am.

The latest reports speak of 38 arrests, 4 of them in connection with the carnival in the City of London on J18, and 7 casualties of diverse type, including a policeman with spinal injuries, none of them life-threatening. Road traffic and public transport were severely disrupted by the events.

PIRATE RADIO BLOCKS YUPPY RADIO

Interference FM, the pirate radio collective that broadcasted all over London on J18, repeated their feat in protest at the commoditisation of the airwaves. They managed to transmit on the frequency of Millenium FM 106.9. This commercial broadcaster prides itself in targeting an A1 audience, those with the highest purchasing power, and fuels values based on greed and profit. The pirates were taken off air at around 4pm in a large operation by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), responsible for enforcing the state control of radio and TV transmissions.

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Italy

PADUA

Friday 26

A peaceful demo in front of the GMO Exhibition "Bionova" -- attended by the top managers of GMO companies -- was wildly attacked by the police, twice (see my previous report on Nov. 26).

MILAN

Saturday 27

A large number of people from the anarchist/ Social Centers area joins a grassroot trade union demonstration (not about n30) and gives it a strong anti-globalization character, sensibilizing the workers at the demo about the dangers of speculative "free" trade and about the "Valzer round" in Seattle. The idea is quite successful, and workers and squatters are -- for once -- again united against WTO.

Meanwhile, a group of "White Coveralls" (direct action group from the zapatist/ social centers area) occupied the first and foremost McDonald's in Milan, in piazza S. Babila, locking themselves on the building facade, hanging enormous banners which denounced neoliberism and its effects and distributing flyers to the amused passers-by in the irrealistic scenario created by the music of the "Banda degli ottoni a scoppio", a squatter music band playing popular music.

The action, undisturbed by the police, lasted a couple of hours and ended when the grassroot trade union demo entered the San Babila square. Then, in a sort of triumph, one representative of the White Coveralls spoke to the demonstrants.

After that, the White Coveralls showed up in the city-wide meeting for the closure of the prison camps for migrants, which was going on at the same time, with a wide McDonald banner hanged upside down to symbolize the non-food served by this multinational of rubbish food.

Monday 29

Students of the new University "La Bicocca" occupy the faculty of "Biological Sciences" to protest against WTO and biotech food.

Tuesday 30

Permanent info tend in Largo Cairoli, a very central square, to inform the citizens about WTO and the reasons of our protests against it -- but also about the Narmada and Iloitz dams, the prison camps for migrants, etc.

The day ended up with a debate at the Social Center Leoncavallo with the partecipation of Andres Barreda Marin, professor at the UNAM University in Mexico City, which spoke about the influences of USA economy on globalization and on the situation in Chiapas. The debate was attended by about 150 peoples.

ROME

30 November

A group of White Coveralls occupied the HQ of the "National Committee for Biosafety", hanging banners against GMOs and WTO. The action was promoted by Social Centers and grassroot unions.

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Germany

Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, 11/30/1999 -- The Parade only finished at 11.15 p.m.! The participants had a lot of fun, despite the cold weather. The Parade pointed out the consequences of neoliberal politics and globalisation at local level with mock slogans and fake banners crying for more order, more security, more police and demanding dry fruit ("Trockenobst"), "Wohlstand fuer Aale" (wealth for eels, a pun on wealth for all). The police were very confused, protecting luxurious restaurants and expensive shops, wondering why these weren't being attacked. Obviously they had not read the call to the demonstration carefully (see http://www.freespeech.org/inter/spack.htm in German) which focussed on the logic of this restructuring process. Slide shows projected on building walls ("Jam the WTO") and a show on Dr. Spack (Deep Space Nine) provided extra entertainment as well as the unusual music ("Schlager").

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France

Paris, France, Sunday, 11/28/1999 -- Hi, this is a message from France. We were in the anti WTO protest in Paris that took place this afternoon. There were about 20000 people there, a gathering of all the various groups composing the French left (I mean the real Left, not the one currently in office). The group that initiated the protest is an NGO called ATTAC (I'm sure you've heard of it), whose goal is financial transactions taxation -- the Tobin Tax. It's only 18 months old but it's doing really well. In the protest, there were militants marching for Mumia - When I saw them, I thought of one of the Z updates and the point that was made about associating the issues. Some more 5000 people also protested in other French cities, peacefully besieging McDonalds for example... Unfortunately, the movement didn't get much attention of the mainstream media, especially TV. But I have to admit that some of "top" journalists were the target of some prostesters, for contributing to spreading the neoliberal "dogma".... So there you are: some news from France.