Globalise Resistance, the Irish anti capitalist
network, is calling for messages of international
solidarity and support, following a vicious police
riot on the streets of Dublin last night. 16
protestors were arrested after three waves of heavy
wooden baton attacks, that left many injured and
hospitalised one.

also see Irish Times article at
 http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2001/1011/hom13.htm

The protest was called by GR against the 2nd Global
Summit on Public Private Partnerships (PPP), where
international corporate delegates banqueted with
ministers of finance from countries leading the way in
neo liberal privatisation of public services. The
banquet was held in the exclusive southside Burlington
Hotel. The conference was endorsed by the Irish
minister for Finance, Charlie Mc Creevy, in a move
which many Irish activists interpreted as a statement
of intent that the Government was preparing for a huge
new wave of privatisations in the airports, buses,
rail, health and education.

Many groups were at the protest- the Dublin Anti-Bin
charges campaign, opposing double taxation and the
privatisation of refuse services; the Busworkers
Action Group, a rank and file trade union network that
has led strikes on the capital's buses for proper
funding of public transport, water service workers
from Ballymun (with placards parodying the old Irish
rebel song: Not even our rivers run free), Globalise
Resistance, the Green Party, the Socialist Workers
Party, the anarchist Workers Solidarity Movement and
Joe Higgin's Socialist Party. After speeches from
Green TD (MP) Trevor Sargent and Socialist TD Joe
Higgins, a moving picket began sealing off the
entrance to the hotel. "Our world is not for sale!"
was the chant, "PPPiss off!" on the placards.

The arrival of a street theatre group dressed as the
greedy skeletons of capitalism sparked a spontaneous
attempt to enter the hotel lobby. About a hundred
demonstrators tried to get into the conference, which
showed how inclusive it was by charging £1400 for a
ticket for the three day event. Gardai (Irish police)
and hotel security pushed back, and after a rugby
scrum of about ten minutes, succeeded in pushing
demonstrators out of the lobby and into the hotel
carpark, where a sit down protest ensued. Although
highly spirited, the push into the hotel was non
violent, with no police injuries or property damage.
A flour bomb was thrown which ended up mostly covering
frontline protestors.

After 20 minutes of the sit down protest, the
Super-Intendent instructed the sit down, that unless
they moved within one minute, they would be forcibly
removed. Within 30 seconds, a group of six Gardai,
with numbers removed, jumped forward and began beating
protestors on the head with hard, wooden batons. A
senior cop was shouting "Into them hard", the baton
charge was designed to terrify and punish.

Protestors retreated to just outside the exclusive
hotel, where people recovered in shock. It was the
first baton charge by the cops in Dublin since they
attacked Corporation workers in 1986, and probably the
first baton charge on a political demonstration in
Dublin since the H Blocks Hunger strike march on the
British embassy in 1981, that left hundreds injured.
Many younger demonstrators could not believe that the
Garda Siochana (the Guardians of the Peace) could
behave like this against a demonstration, in a nation
where the police like to pose as less extreme than
other European police forces.

As the protestors regrouped, reinforcements in paddy
wagons arrived. The Dublin police helicopter was
brought in overhead, and members of the Special Branch
(the Irish political police) arrived in plainsclothes
and unmarked cars. Now strengthened, they launched a
second baton attack, this time beating demonstrators
out onto the busy main road and making 9 forcible
arrests. Young teenage protestors were beaten by big
mustachioed men in their 30s, were told to "fuck off
and get moving" and were arrested with baton
chokeholds
around their throats.

Dublin was now witnessing a full blown police riot.
GR activists, now aware that the second baton charge
had succeeded in splitting the group in two, realised
we were being surrounded, and that it was time to make
a retreat. As more police reinforcements arrived,
protestors decided to march to Pearse Street station,
where we were told the nine arrested were taken.
Undercover cops began pointing out GR organisers and
people who had spoken earlier at the picket.

As we began moving away, I witnessed one of the most
horrific police actions I have personally seen, even
compared to Genoa and Melbourne. A snatch squad of
about ten luminous jacketed cops ran, charging at the
march from behind, with the wooden batons over their
heads. People were lashed into indiscriminately.

They were acting in a very organised, political and
violent way. They arrested key organisers, an
Indymedia video camera activist, and my friend Rory
Hearne, past President of Trinity College Dublin.
Rory was arrested by about four huge cops who were
beating him all over his body. One cop was choking
him from behind with his baton. Bloood was pumping
out of his head. His friends who were holding him and
asking why he was being arrested were also batoned,
punched and told to "fuck away off!" I turned and saw
the SWP's Richard Boyd Barrett being punched and
kicked by two cops. An austrian socialist, Thomas,
had his head split open and was covered in blood. He
would later be hospitalised after being arrested for
over an hour and a half.

The use of this snatch squad was highly political, it
was aimed at organisers of both the SWP and GR. The
16 prisoners have now been given bail at £150 each.
Feelings are high in Dublin city at the moment, and
there is a huge determination that we will not allow
the Gardai to criminalise peaceful protest. One
guard's ear covered in flour does not justify three,
organised, highly violent baton charges designed to
injure and punish. Protestors cannot be arrested for
using megaphones, speaking at a public event, or
sitting down. Civil liberties in Dublin will be
tested this Saturday at the Irish Anti War Movement's
demo.

Please send on messages of international support to
the Dublin 16 at

 globalise_resistance@yahoo.com

Send messages to the Irish government and the Dublin
Garda Siochana that our world is not for sale to the
Privateers, and that police brutality will not stop
our democratic right to protest.

For more info, contact me at this email.
 joseph_trotsky@yahoo.com

Joe Carolan, Socialist Workers Party, Ireland.
 http://www.clubi.ie/swp