Press release from Disarm DSEi. Let's see what gets into the mainstream media - they've been conspicuous in their silence so far. Hard to push the line that 'violent' anti-capitalist anarchists are targeting an entirely moral and above board arms fair I suppose - even for the Sunday Times!
Anti-capitalists to target arms fair
Thousands of anti-capitalist protestors are preparing to converge on London Docklands next Tuesday to disrupt Europe’s largest arms fair, the Defence Systems and Equipment international (DSEi). A ‘Fiesta for Life Against Death’ has been called by Disarm DSEi, with active support from London Reclaim the Streets and the Wombles.
The Fiesta will be a bold celebration of humanity and creativity in the face of a trade that sees 2000 children killed, maimed or psychologically affected by its product every day. The seriously playful mass action in the spirit of the June 18 1999 and Mayday protests will explode in a shower of pink and silver on the streets of East London. All across the country banners, costumes and puppets are in readiness and a 'critical mass' of cyclists are standing by to mobilise against the DSEi arms fair. The hypocrisy of a government that describes protestors as violent and incoherent yet actively promotes arms sales to countries with appalling human rights records will be exposed in a joyous carnival of music and colour on the 11th. It is intended as a move away from protesting against global economic institutions, as part of a growing recognition of the wider destructive nature of capitalism.
Jo Bookchin from Disarm DSEi said:
“We are calling for people to gather together to prevent the serious breach of the peace that will be committed at DSEi. It is the trade in weapons that allows exploitation and murder to continue around the world, like the UK's support of a corrupt military to protect western oil interests in Colombia. On the 11th we are setting our sights on the arms trade, which peddles the commodity that enforces all other commodities.”
Notes to Editors
1. Disarm DSEi is a coalition of activists from direct action and anti-capitalist groups.
2 DSEi is being held at the newly built Excel xhibition centre on Royal Victoria Dock, E16. It runs from September 11-14. The Fiesta for Life Against Death will assemble at Tidal Basin Rd E16 at 12 noon on the 11th.
3. The 'critical mass' bike ride meets at 10am by Waterloo Bridge on September 11th. Critical mass is a gathering of cyclists, rollerbladers,skateboarders (and anyone else on wheels) that takes back the road from
motorised vehicles.
4. According to the UN Human Development Report, in 1999 the world’s governments spent an estimated $719 billion of our money to run their military machines of which more than two-thirds ($520 billion) was spent by Europe and North America alone. This is 14 times more than is needed to eradicate the very worst ‘absolute’ poverty from the world.
5. The arms industry employs 0.3% of the UK’s workforce. There is a £12,500 a year government subsidy for each of these 90,000 jobs.
6. Other demonstrations are being organised on the 11th and for the remainder of the fair by Campaign against Arms Trade and other activists.
Further information can be found at www.disarm-trade.org
www.caat.org.uk
www.reclaimthestreets.net
www.wombleaction.mrnice.net
Disarm DSEi office: 020 7281 4621
Thousands of anti-capitalist protestors are preparing to converge on London Docklands next Tuesday to disrupt Europe’s largest arms fair, the Defence Systems and Equipment international (DSEi). A ‘Fiesta for Life Against Death’ has been called by Disarm DSEi, with active support from London Reclaim the Streets and the Wombles.
The Fiesta will be a bold celebration of humanity and creativity in the face of a trade that sees 2000 children killed, maimed or psychologically affected by its product every day. The seriously playful mass action in the spirit of the June 18 1999 and Mayday protests will explode in a shower of pink and silver on the streets of East London. All across the country banners, costumes and puppets are in readiness and a 'critical mass' of cyclists are standing by to mobilise against the DSEi arms fair. The hypocrisy of a government that describes protestors as violent and incoherent yet actively promotes arms sales to countries with appalling human rights records will be exposed in a joyous carnival of music and colour on the 11th. It is intended as a move away from protesting against global economic institutions, as part of a growing recognition of the wider destructive nature of capitalism.
Jo Bookchin from Disarm DSEi said:
“We are calling for people to gather together to prevent the serious breach of the peace that will be committed at DSEi. It is the trade in weapons that allows exploitation and murder to continue around the world, like the UK's support of a corrupt military to protect western oil interests in Colombia. On the 11th we are setting our sights on the arms trade, which peddles the commodity that enforces all other commodities.”
Notes to Editors
1. Disarm DSEi is a coalition of activists from direct action and anti-capitalist groups.
2 DSEi is being held at the newly built Excel xhibition centre on Royal Victoria Dock, E16. It runs from September 11-14. The Fiesta for Life Against Death will assemble at Tidal Basin Rd E16 at 12 noon on the 11th.
3. The 'critical mass' bike ride meets at 10am by Waterloo Bridge on September 11th. Critical mass is a gathering of cyclists, rollerbladers,skateboarders (and anyone else on wheels) that takes back the road from
motorised vehicles.
4. According to the UN Human Development Report, in 1999 the world’s governments spent an estimated $719 billion of our money to run their military machines of which more than two-thirds ($520 billion) was spent by Europe and North America alone. This is 14 times more than is needed to eradicate the very worst ‘absolute’ poverty from the world.
5. The arms industry employs 0.3% of the UK’s workforce. There is a £12,500 a year government subsidy for each of these 90,000 jobs.
6. Other demonstrations are being organised on the 11th and for the remainder of the fair by Campaign against Arms Trade and other activists.
Further information can be found at www.disarm-trade.org
www.caat.org.uk
www.reclaimthestreets.net
www.wombleaction.mrnice.net
Disarm DSEi office: 020 7281 4621
e-mail:
Homepage:
Comments
Hide the following 8 comments
a corporate lackey writes....
06.09.2001 12:19
I am in touch with friends/contacts I know from the activist side of things and am hoping to get a clearer picture of what's going to happen. The thing is no-one seems quite sure :)
The other thing is it's very hard to cover a demonstration before it occurs... we don't know how many people will turn out, or what's gonna happen (as with so much in this country the weather will probably be a big factor in how big the action actually is)...
Sure, I could do a pull together of archive material on how the UK is a big seller of weapons -- an darms deals are subsidized with our tax quids, but that is what would be seen as "analysing a process" rather than "witnessing an event" and at the moment the big-shot news people seem more interested in "covering events" than "explaining processes."
Indeed, this may be the crux of the problem with news coverage at the moment, but there you are....
db
db
e-mail:
darius2001@hotmail.com
Publicity
06.09.2001 15:42
Tidal Basin Road, London E16) so that more people turn up, and also a lack of scare stories about machete wielding anarchists, (please!)....
Al
really???
06.09.2001 16:39
'The other thing is it's very hard to cover a demonstration before it occurs...'
which is news (sic) to anyone in this country pior to Mayday 2000 or 2001, World Bank/IMF in Praha, G8 in genova etc etc etc ad nauseam.
go on db, tell us why you aren't covering it beforehand - really?
zedhead
media silence
06.09.2001 16:39
I think the reference was more about print media than broadcast. Given the hysteria about Mayday and anything else with the tag 'anti-capitalist' it does seem surprising that there has thus far been no mention at all of the Fiesta, even in the Evening Standard, which loves a good 'army on stand-by' shock horror piece.
I guess this is partially due to police/media embarassment over Mayday, and probably largely to do with problems around slagging off a protest against an arms fair.
Yadda yadda
Bloody Obivious
07.09.2001 05:21
If we're relying on the straight media to publise our actions - we are doomed - - rather than talking with the wombles and the samba bands - RTS should be working the clubs, the raves, the squats and the bars, basically the hinterland of discontent but politicalty unallied kinda people that made earlier RTS parties/actions soo... sucessfull...=:-)
We gotta reach Out!
Have FUN!!!
Venceremes =:-)
Basic Banality
db *has* told us why
09.09.2001 02:23
I think we can get further if we look at the unintended effects of various processes which have gone to shit, rather than barracking. John Pilger
Cut db some slack - show her some support and something small might change. Bang on and *nothing*'s going to.
dbp
Mainstream git again....
09.09.2001 15:40
It is clear from our planning that we have received very little information from the police about what THEY expect (and yes, sadly, the mainstream will tend to ask the cops what they expect ina potential "public disorder" situation.) So the cops are in the dark about the scale and nature of the protest -- so mainstream planning editors who are used to liasing with police on the coverage of any big public event (from football, to demonstrations to big pop concerts etc) have no idea who or what to deploy.
But another point is that few people or websites I have been to on the activist can tell me what is going to happen. And that includes CAAT, the Fiesta site ("something wonderful" is a bit vague!!) and people I've spoken to personally...
At least in our coverage of Genoa I think we saw the beginnings of an attempt to speak to activists and follow them to (and through) the protests. I would say there was a distinct improvement on Mayday. I produced an item with a Drop the Debt bunch in Brighton and these characters were tracked to Genoa.
The same was done with the SWP/GR train (and the reason the SWP get all this coverage is they engage with the poor embattled hack who is under the cosh from their editor who is yelling "I don't care if they do all call you a corporate scumbag -- I want an interview with an anti-globalisdation activist and I want it NOW!!!!"
At which point Guy Taylor pitches up and happily gives 10 interviews: result Globalise Resistance (through their own willingness to play the media) have a massively increased profile while others who eschew the mainstream sit on the sidelines and moan about the SWP stiching things up.
Our coverage does have a lot of holes and shortcomings in/with it. But soem journalists in the mainstream are trying to get a handle on what is happening... but it would help if people were more open minded.
On this site after Genoa there were a number of postings congratulating the BBC for its extremely strong and moving pieces on Marc (Sky) Covell. "Well done BBC for giving Sky a voice" said one. Similarly, on the streets of Genoa and in the IMC, the general impression I got from activits was that they were surprisingly pleased with the balance in the BBC's coverage.
Following the violence on Saturday 21st July, there was a second package from Brian Hanrahan dealing with the NGOs and more peaceful protesters and the motivation behind the marches (you could say this should have preceeded Jon Sopel's piece on the rioting -- but TV is picture led and a gang of armed lunatics in gas masks randomly attacking anything in sight is always gonna lead over a large peaceful crowd with banners -- but enough about the Carabinieri...
A package I made for Breakfast with Frost (I was told) was one of the best and most balanced mainstream reprots on Genoa, and poor old Norman Blair, who was interviwed off the back of it, thought it was a good report too...
Yet a few weeks later people are posting messages in response to Undercurrents at Edinburgh saying that the BBC's coverage was lamentable etc. etc. As if nothing had changes at all...
Sometimes I think that there are people in this movement who will be hostile to mainstream reporters whoever they are, whatever they do and regardless of what is broadcast/written. I guess the more such folk reject anything that is mainstream the more revolutionary and underground they feel...
Rock on....
No doubt the very same poeple who stare in bemusement at the rise and rise of Globalise Resistance and wonder what conspiricy theory explains that phenomenon.
db
e-mail:
darius2001@hotmail.com
Well someone had to mention violence !
10.09.2001 06:11
References to anti-capitalists, widespread violence and riots.
Just thought peeps would like to know.
We will be running a story a little later this morning on our website- although we coudn't go so far as to call ourselves 'mainstream media.
Andrew
e-mail:
press@surflondon.co.uk
Homepage:
http://www.surflondon.co.uk/