Ultraviolent WOBLEs
Chromosome | 19.06.2002 09:10
Prior to the protests against the World Bank ABCDE Development Economics conference the Norwegian corporate media are predicting and inciting violence from both the protesters and the police's side. In effect they are obviously trying to justify a violent police crackdown on the protestors. They are especially focusing their attention on Reclaim the Streets and the squatters/autonomen Blitz.
What I found funny, being a norwegian living in the UK, was the parts on "foreign" activists. According to Dagbladet (a liberal tabloid) the Oslo police have intelligence pointing to that "ultraviolent protesters from England, WOMBLES (a lefty-radical group from London known for its violent squatting tactics) are coming to Oslo for the protests".
Whether the WOMBLES are coming or not (and I hope they do) is not the issue, but where the hell do they get that info from. Ultraviolent, hmm I smell MI5.
Anyway, things are looking serious. Earlier this week the municipality cancelled the lease of dormitories, the police have been arresting well-known activists, they will suspend the Schengen agreement (so that they can turn away activists from Europe), have drafted in several hundered police-officers, have allowed the use of mace and teargas, have been praticing "charge the protestors with dogs, horsies etc.". Basically, what we see is a scenario that was in Gothenburg last year, and Mayday in London two years ago. There will be trouble if the media and police feed the frenzy.
What I found funny, being a norwegian living in the UK, was the parts on "foreign" activists. According to Dagbladet (a liberal tabloid) the Oslo police have intelligence pointing to that "ultraviolent protesters from England, WOMBLES (a lefty-radical group from London known for its violent squatting tactics) are coming to Oslo for the protests".
Whether the WOMBLES are coming or not (and I hope they do) is not the issue, but where the hell do they get that info from. Ultraviolent, hmm I smell MI5.
Anyway, things are looking serious. Earlier this week the municipality cancelled the lease of dormitories, the police have been arresting well-known activists, they will suspend the Schengen agreement (so that they can turn away activists from Europe), have drafted in several hundered police-officers, have allowed the use of mace and teargas, have been praticing "charge the protestors with dogs, horsies etc.". Basically, what we see is a scenario that was in Gothenburg last year, and Mayday in London two years ago. There will be trouble if the media and police feed the frenzy.
Chromosome
Homepage:
http://www.dagbladet.no/nyheter/2002/06/19/338964.html
Comments
Hide the following 3 comments
thought you said Ultraviolet
19.06.2002 12:33
toadflax
Technical point
19.06.2002 20:01
And therefore can´t be a Schengen country so there´d be no agreement to suspend, surely?
confused
Homepage:
http://www.wombles.org.uk
Norway is a member of Schengen
20.06.2002 12:57
The thing with Schengen is that "anyone" can participate. I think that non-member countries can bilaterally negotiate memebership in Schengen. And this is what Norway did. Almost no public debate (though a few activists managed to do some good - not enough though), no political debate and the powers that be just forced us to join.
So yes, if any WOMBLEs are considering to go they might be rejected. They are going to do this with a danish autonomous group (as I said in my original posting).
Another thing that has happened since yesterday is that ATTAC has ostricised Reclaim the Streets, calling them secterian and claiming that the reclaim tactic is completely wrong in the current political climate. Basically what this means is that ATTAC themselves has been the secterians and dichotomised the protesters. I.e. those who have not signed the OSLO 2002 agreement or is not an ATTAC member are violent thugs, more or less justifying police violence against Reclaim in order to keep their members safe.
Chromosome