Water cannon used on G8 protesters

[cal04]

Source: correspondents in Heiligendamm, Germany

GERMAN police used water cannon and tear gas against demonstrators protesting against the Group of Eight summit today as leaders arrived for the meeting, a police spokesman said.

"Water cannon and tear gas were used after protesters began throwing stones," the spokesman said.

The demonstrators had approached the 12KM-long fence around the luxury hotel on the Baltic Sea where the summit is being held.

Thousands of other protesters tried to block roads leading from the nearby city of Rostock to Heiligendamm in an effort to prevent officials from reaching the meeting.


Read more: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21861653-1702,00.html

[bdamomma]

1. we could learn some lessons from those protestors.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

3. What lessons are those?

Protesters accompany every G8 conference, and there is always much news about the protesters and their conflict with G8 security.

What I don't see, even in the link in the OP, is the message. What are the protesters hoping to accomplish, what message are they trying to publicize, what outcome are they trying to influence. That is rarely if ever in the media.

So, other than having a rollicking good time, what are the protesters accomplishing? What lesson can we learn? Can it help stop a war? Bring about universal health care? Rebuild the ice caps or the rain forests?

[bdamomma]

4. at least those protestors are speaking their minds, what is wrong with that?

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

7. Nothing wrong at all - I'm all for it ...

But in terms of the media, their message, whatever it is, is not being publicized. All that's shown is the conflict.

I used to think that tear gas was an aphrodesiac. After the Anti-Vietnam protests, or campus takeovers, the parties were great!
:rofl:

[roody]

5. Do something!

[Judi Lynn]

6. They've undoubtedly all been photographed in detail, identified, categorized,

had their names added to a central terrorists' list, and will be watched closely for the rest of their lives.

Gotta give them credit knowing how completely it's all stacked against them, and still stepping forward to put in a physical appearance in the name of dissent, anyway.

[maddezmom]

2. Protesters block roads at G-8 summit

Protesters block roads at G-8 summit By DAVID McHUGH, Associated Press Writer

KUEHLUNGSBORN, Germany - Police used water cannon on scattered stone-throwing demonstrators Wednesday as several hundred protesters swarmed a seven-mile fence surrounding the G-8 summit where President Bush and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were to meet.

Other protesters blocked roads leading from the airport to the summit site of Heiligendamm on the Baltic Sea coast in northern Germany, police said, as leaders began arriving on the first day of the three-day summit.

One group swarmed over a small-gauge railway used to transport journalists to Heiligendamm from the summit center in nearby Kuehlungsborn, running in various directions until a detachment in riot gear corralled them in one area.

Police spokesman Manfred Luetjann said that protesters had managed to block two routes leading from the airport in Rostock, and they breached security to reach the imposing fence surrounding the resort.

more:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070606/ap_on_re_eu/g8_protests;_ylt=Aq.3Nwv2sOeMzKm14qr9pdJvaA8F

[Peace Patriot]

8. Sounds like Seattle '99, and I would not trust any reports of violence by the

protesters. Sounds very similar in the effort to block routes to the conference--a very orderly (and totally aweseome) protest in Seattle, which was destroyed by a police riot, and then defamed throughout the corporate news monopolies as a protester riot.

The basic message is the LACK OF DEMOCRACY at these meetings of global corporate predators, where the oppression of the vast majority of workers, the poor and middle class is plotted. That was the message of Seattle--the creation of undemocratic "free trade" institutions that override national and local labor and environmental protections, and favor multi-national corporations who are accountable to no one, and who dibby up the world's resources among themselves. Thus, these sort of protests draw strength from a wide variety of human rights, labor rights and environmental groups. And is it any wonder why their message is muddied up, ridiculed, or simply black-holed in the corporate news monopolies--or why the agents provocateur who throw rocks are always prominently featured, to the detriment of the tens of thousands of peaceful people who are demonstrating? These "incidents" are always used to "justify" police brutality--cs gassing crowds of cornered people, beating people up for no reason, and arresting, jailing and harassing the many, while the few troublemakers are ignored. I saw this with my own eyes in Seattle. And we've seen it so many times at global corporate predator meetings that it's a wonder so many people remain clueless as to methods used to suppress dissent and to prevent the voices of the people from ever being heard at these conspiratorial meetings of the super-rich.

[maddezmom]

9. G-8 protesters evade police

G-8 protesters evade police
800 reach barbed fence before being doused with water and tear gas
By Vanessa Gera and David Rising
Associated Press
A band of more than 800 protesters -- some sporting fluorescent wigs and clown noses -- scampered through woods and across fields to evade police patrols Wednesday and reach the barbed-wire fence sealing off the Group of Eight summit.

Protest organizers claimed victory for getting as far as the barrier, despite being doused by water cannons, struck with tear gas and tackled as they blocked several roads -- including the route from the airport as world leaders flew in for the summit.

``We have successfully taken over all roads leading to Heiligendamm,'' said Christoph Kleine of the Block G-8 group. ``We are very happy with that.''

About 150 members of a group calling themselves the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army -- dressed in wigs, clown makeup and noses, and occasionally in drag -- blocked one of two road entrances to the summit site for several hours near the town of Hinter Bollhagen, about two miles away.

more:http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/world/17335449.htm?source=rss&channel=ohio_world

[TheLastMohican]

10. If that would happen in evil Russia

people would call Putin "evil freedom-supressing commie".

I guess it is really useful to put dogtags on the politicians and their establishments depending if this country is "friend" or "foe".

[insomnomaniacal]

11. Same Thing, Every Protest

Groups gather at G8 or other Globalish high-level pow-wows. Groups with some sort of agenda gather to protest peacefully, make their banners and signs, give out press releases (I suppose), and they march. So far so good.

Then, a "fringe" group shows up, conveniently unidentifiable because of wigs, balaclavas, or whatever, and charge the police, the cars, and the store windows with rocks and bottles. They know what will happen. We all do. Tear gas, water cannons, and, most importantly, negative media coverage for the entire protest, and little attention paid to just what it was the majority, the peaceful protestors, were trying to get across.

Doesn't this sound at least a bit fishy? Don't you think that something that serves the interests of the high-level conspirators in their safe, well-protected conference rooms is not simply a force of nature that is bound to occur?

I don't think so. Planted provocateurs is an old game, but a reliable one. Even if the crowd of unrulies are fairly numerous, that doesn't mean they are all police or government agents. Those guys are pros, and they simply infiltrate the more militant groups and urge them toward their clashes with the police.

In the end, the public only knows that protestors are violent, dangerous radicals who attack policemen. What's an honest, peaceful protest group to do?

[mare]

12. The problem with your theory is

that German media has made a very good point of stating a difference between peaceful protesters and stone-throwing protesters. The leaders of peaceful protests have been in the news DAILY. Whenever there's a news item about people throwing stones, there's at least one spokesperson of the other side of protesters. Also police spokesmen have made a point of mentioning that overall the protests are peaceful.
Besides that, the Schwarzer Block has been a problem for ages. It did NOT suddenly show up because of G8 and there's nothing fishy about it.

There actually are people who tend to protest not so peacefully and there's not always an evil political agenda of TPTB behind everything.

[insomnomaniacal]

16. That's good to know

I'm not attached to my theory, just trying to figure things out.

I was thinking of the American media, actually. If the German media does a great job of differentiating the violent from the peaceful protesters, and if it does a good job of covering the peaceful, earnest protesters, that's nothing but good news. We need something like that in the U.S., because we do not have it in the mainstream media. We have exactly what I described.

I did not intend to imply that there is an agent provocateur behind every violent group action. Nor do I know whether the German police or investigative agencies are likely to use such tactics.

But, you need only look at the Bush administration to find a willingness to use dirty tricks in secret; or the FBI with its "informants," who are often, if not always, criminal sleaze; or our DEA, which has gone completely beyond the Constitution with it's "drug exception" to the Bill of Rights. If all that, then why not agents provocateurs?

[Odin2005]

19. "Doesn't this sound at least a bit fishy?" Naw, sounds like the Anarchists' MO

A commie friend of mine that has been to many protests says that a few Anarchists or Maoists will come around and incite the police as a way for to "stick it to The Man," screwing the rest of the protesters in the process.

[maddezmom]

13. Greenpeace has boats in the water near the Kuehlungsborn dam

German police chase a boat of the environmental organization Greenpeace in a prohibited sea area outside Kuehlungsborn June 7, 2007. Leaders from the world's major industrialised nations meet in the Baltic resort of Heiligendamm on June 6-8 for a Group of Eight (G8) summit. REUTERS/Pawel Kopczynski (GERMANY)

[maddezmom]

14. Police chase protesters on boats near G8 summit

HEILIGENDAMM, Germany, June 7 (Reuters) - Police intercepted three speed boats that breached a coastal security zone around a Baltic sea resort where world leaders were meeting on Thursday, ramming one of the rubber dinghies after a high-speed chase.

A spokesman for environmental pressure group Greenpeace said the boats had attempted to deliver a message to Group of Eight (G8) leaders gathered in a luxury hotel in Heiligendamm to commit to measurable targets for cuts in greenhouse emissions.

Four protesters ended up in the Baltic waters after the chase. A banner saying "G8 act now" had been displayed on one of the boats.

Nearby, thousands of anti-capitalist protesters converged for a second day on a high-security fence surrounding the summit complex. They left make-shift camps where they had spent the night to march across open fields toward the fence.

more:http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L07650958.htm

[maddezmom]

15. German police capsize protesters' boats at G8

HEILIGENDAMM, Germany, June 7 (Reuters) - Police rammed two inflatable boats that breached a security zone around a Baltic sea resort where world leaders were meeting on Thursday, capsizing the rubber dinghies and injuring three activists.

A spokesman for environmental pressure group Greenpeace said the boats had attempted to deliver a message to Group of Eight (G8) leaders gathered in a luxury hotel in Heiligendamm to commit to measurable targets for cuts in greenhouse emissions.

Four protesters ended up in the Baltic waters after a high-speed sea chase by police boats, while police helicopters clattered overhead. The protesters' boats were impounded.

Greenpeace said it had put 11 rubber boats in the waters around Heiligendamm, but none had managed to reach the summit venue. Several of its activists had been detained by police.

Three protesters and a policeman were injured, police said.

more:http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L07748143.htm

[silvermachine]

17. Well ya know...

...that's the only way those hippies will ever take a shower!!! :eyes:

[RL3AO]

18. Stay away from the security fence and you will be fine.