## Nachricht vom 03.07.01 weitergeleitet/ fwd by LPA Berlin [lpa@free.de] ## Ersteller: skladiste0@angelfire.com<p>I'm not going to waste my time on telling you why we were in salzburg to oppose wef and capitalism alltogether. some information about wef is available at www.antiwef.org and as for capitalism, well if you're reading this then you aint blind, so look around. in the months, weeks and especially days leading up to the wef summit, the austrian media made a lot of propaganda against demonstrators. this was especially visible in their reporting on gothenburg. they did everything to justify future terror by police and a possible ban on demonstrations. [The media in Germoney did the same. LPA] it was announced that "violent demonstrators" (german expression for everybody who is not police provocateur or socialdemocrat and wants to demonstrate) would not be allowed into the country or into salzburg. the city was full of police. the border police reestablished border controls with other schengen countries 24.june-3.july. many people were checked for documents while travelling to salzburg from other parts of austria, or while walking around the city. some were told to go back and some were taken into police stations for questioning-intimidation. an indymedia journalist from berlin was told that he has to leave the country, because he was filming the police and that's illegal (there is no law against filming the police). other journalists were also frequently intimidated with constant document controls, threats of arrest and destruction of photo and film material documenting these police actions. after the congress perimeter was closed one day before the start of the summit, several residents were evicted from it, along with many non-residents. although unregistered demonstrations are illegal, the only group who tried to register a demonstration was the communist party of austria. the police stalled negotiations, until they said on wednesday, 27 june, that they would allow only a picket. the communist party accepted this and decided to make only a picket at the train station on sunday, 1.july. the main groups mobilizing for salzburg in austria were anarchists and communists of all kinds. attac was the only austrian ngo which went to salzburg. this was new, because many austrian ngos had mobilized for prague. many people decided not to go to salzburg because it was too dangerous. others made decision to go in the last possible moment. besides the problem of intimidation, antiwef actions were lacking organisation and coordination. the antiwef koordination oesterreich was a nice, but in reality non-existant group and nobody from salzburg was ready to organise things on major scale. the As and coms in salzburg were prepared to organise sleeping places, but the rest of the organising was left to groups in vienna, which were not prepared or fully capable for the burden. the communist party gave a part of it's volxheim (people's home) to the demonstrators. volxheim was the major place of demonstrators, with free sleeping places and free vegan food, organised by the no border no nation caravan (volxkarawane). others organised private housing or hostels. the volxheim was crowded already on friday evening and got even more so later. the volxheim was under obvious police surveillance almost the entire time. most of the time, there were three or more policemen standing within sight and watching who was comming in and out, what was happening, etc. when there were more people or something was happening, the police brought their official camera team and filmed. there were also many people filming or photographing people and events at volxheim, inspite of the very big poster saying that filming and photographing are forbidden (volxheim is private property). the infopoint for demonstrators was also at volxheim and it contained indiscriminately leaflets and such from all groups organising antiwef actions (communists and anarchists). during the demonstrator meetings, it was decided that there will probably be too few people for a successful attack towards the congress centre and that the main objective for the demonstrators would be to break as many rules as possible while not engaging in military confrontations with police. the idea was to keep together no matter what happens, not to allow groups or individual demonstrators to get isolated or arrested, to keep plain clothed police outside of the demonstration. the major topic were weaknesses and ways to overcome them. there were workshops on legal aid, first aid, singing, how to break police lines, what we are going to do at the big demonstration, etc. it was also decided not to make separate blocks, especially not black blocks, because they would be easy targets for police and also because if people from one block make trouble, they would be easier to find later. the linkswende (trotz group from vienna) tried to instrumentalise the meetings for pushing their own ideas, including the suggestion that the no border no nation caravan should lead an attack against the summit perimeter on sunday. this was refused. some anarchists tried to block the linkswende attempt to take over the meetings. there was lots of discussion on wether to discuss theory or praxis. it sounded a bit like the parliament of serbia discussing wether to discuss some issue. linkswende wanted theory, because they already had prepared speeches on this and they wanted to recite them, anarchists and others wanted praxis. the discussion was often blocked because of these divisions. a rerun of the story in vienna. I hope next time there are more people from other countries, so viennese dont dominate the discussion again. the no border no nation caravan made street theatre on friday. it was about media lies, so some of them carried a big black block and were hitting UN troopers with it. the police checked the IDs of all performance participants and escorted the group. on friday evening was a party in a park, organised by viennese autonomes. free vegan food and drinks, music, nice atmosphere and weather. some police were present on the edges, but didnt walk into the party. police filmed the party from a distance. after the party, most people were going to volxheim anyway, so they made spontaneous demo, passing also hotels which housed wef participants. the demo was heavily escorted by police and near the congress center the police started checking the identity of demonstrators, but another group marched from volxheim to join them and together they demonstrated back to volxheim, numbering less than 150 people. on saturday some other group made a demo towards a mcd and a group from volxheim went off demonstrating in the same direction, with the idea of uniting both demonstrations. the demo from volxheim was about 100 strong when it left and it quickly got a police escort, but was not stopped until it got one intersection away from mcdonalds. there, police with body armor, shields and helmets were awaiting us. the police seemed to be considering wether to kick our asses or not, so the demonstration sat on the ground, jumped around, sang and shouted. that's the first time I saw masked autonomes shouting to the police that all they want to do is to demonstrate peacefully. some people picked flowers from the nearby meadow and gave them to the police. at this point there were like 80 people in the demonstration, including the 20 standing on the side. the police boss negotiated with some trotzkists posing as demo-bosses and agreed to let us go one more intersection - far enough for people in the mcd to see and hear us, but hardly far enough to reach it with hand-thrown stones. we caught a glimpse of two socialdemocratic youth flags in the distance, before our demo went back to volxheim. during this demonstration, members of linkswende were carrying transparents with linkswende written all over them and I got the impression that they instrumentalise the demo for their own advertising - as usually. later we heard that the socialdemocratic youth had entered the mcdonalds for a short time. very many salzburgers reacted neutrally, many reacted positively and very few negatively to our actions. some of them were interviewed by indymedia and said that they feel as if salzburg was under foreign occupation. all demonstrations were compact when necessary and very very loud. a bit later on saturday, people from the no border no nation caravan filled large tires with air, for their performance at the sunday demonstration. the tires were left lying in front of the building. a kronen zeitung paparazzo made a few photos and ran away as if a black block was chasing him. the next day, kronen zeitung published an exclusive article about the secret weapons depo, which they discovered at volxheim. on saturday evening, a drunk punk was insulting every policeman within hearing distance, so riot police showed up and surrounded the volxheim. the punk was quickly dragged into the building by friends, while everybody else made a live wall in front of the entrance. people started singing and shouting things like give peace a chance, peaceful protest, this is what democracy looks like, haut ab (go away) and demo slogans. rain started suddenly, drenching both demonstrators and police. after a while, the police retreated, but the people gathered at volxheim continued shouting for a while longer. the attac countercongress was as boring as expected, or so we heard. almost none of the demonstrators sleeping at volxheim went there. attac members were very conspicuous when looking around the demonstrator part of volxheim and tended to leave quickly. attac's marketing didnt seem to have had much effect - they announced they would distribute 300 tickets for the discussion between their bosses and wef representatives. the tickets were to be distributed at the countercongress and the discussion was to take place on monday, 2.july. the big picket on saturday started out small. the legal demo-place, coralled by unmanned police fences was dotted by some 200-300 people. there was a small stage stage from the communist party, with a single transparent of the glb (commie fraction of the state trade union - OeGB). a very poor sound system was playing music from the stage. as the demo from volxheim arrived, an organisation of workers from turkey (atigf) took up a position within the fence, shouting something in turkish or kurdish and showing off their transparents (antiimperialist, anticapitalist, antiwef stuff) and their portraits of marx, engels, lenin, stalin, mao and some young guy I didnt recognize - probably new kurdish leader). linkswende however, went demonstrating outside of the fence and a part of the fence was taken down and falted at this time, as parts of the scattered anarchists went to join them. the demo outside the fence was faced by riot police as it tried to leave the train station area, so it went back. the no border no nation were doing their thing with a big rubber monster called wef. workers were dragging the wef while being whipped by UN troopers. there was a plan that wef overruns mozart, but I dont know if this happened. after demonstrating around the demo-place, everybody settled down. people were either sitting on the ground, walking around or listening to speeches from the stage. small commie groups were drowning everyone in their leaflets and trying to sell their magazines. the communist party made a really original program - speech, music, speech, music - just like on radio. the speakers were some guy from rifundazione communista, a girl from the OeH (state trade union for students), a woman from the women-lesbians-girls center in vienna, etc. everybody was on the edge of getting bored to death and fried by the sun, when the socialdemocratic youth demo arrived from their sleeping place. actually this was just a small trotzist fraction of the socialdemocratic youth - Die Funke. quite a number of people went to greet their demo and join it. the remaining parts of the police fence were brought down and falted. the socialdemocratic youth demo, now significantly reinforced, arrived at the train station. the front of it, including the leaders, marched into the legal picket place. the middle, now consisting mostly of autonomes, started to demonstrate away from the train station and shouted "demo jetzt" (demo now). they were quickly joined by most of the others at the train station, even the ones with the green party transparent. the demo went northward a bit, because the unofficial information from police was that demos away from the congress center would be tolerated. at the next intersection, the front of the demo went north, but the next group quickly turned west and started to run. the police escort was under heavy gear, so they couldn't outrun the demonstrators. the streets were tight and the demonstrators numerous, so the police had a hard time getting through toward the front, while trying not to push people. the demo went forward to the first defense line around the congress perimeter, and stopped some 20m in front of it. the front lines chained their hands and advanced to the police lines, shouting like hell. the demo stayed awhile, until everybody was tired of shouting, then went east. it quickly passed the tunnel under the railway. the black block was again at the front and running, while everybody else had a hard time keeping up. a group of 10-15 police attacked some people at the middle of intersection. this was a calculated action to make the black block turn back and face them. it did. then the police made a line, as if trying to hold the demo from going further east. the demonstrators went around the police on both sides and went east fast. at the next intersection, another group of 10 police was trying to stop demonstrators. of course it didnt work. my impression is that the police knew exactly what they were doing - they were keeping us busy and away from the congress center. at the third intersection east of the tunnel, there were no police, but a police line was visible to the south, so the black block went running toward it. other people were not enthusiastic for this action, but some went along to prevent black block being cut off from the rest, while others stayed at the intersection for the same reason. most were still in the street behind the intersection. the demo front reached the police lines, stayed a bit, then went back and some people did get cut off down there, but were not held by police, so they circled around and rejoined us at the next intersection. we demonstrated around and came back to the railway tunnel. at this point, some people were wanting to go back to the train station, but most went west and the black block was running again, all the way to the first defense line of the congress perimeter. others followed, while the middle of the demo was indecisive for two minutes. as we rejoined them, the black block was concentrated at the police line. people were throwing food and beer cans and we could hear them hitting the shields. there was a group of police, standing along a wall to the side, doing nothing. we recognized the danger of those police attacking, maybe cutting off the blackblock, so we made live wall in front of them and shouted that they should go away. they looked scared, since their backs were to the wall and they were almost surrounded by masked demonstrators. as we shouted that they should go away, they retreated reluctantly and seemed to ease off a bit as nobody was attacking them. when the black block got tired of their joke-attempts to storm the police line, the demo went on, east and south again. at the next perimeter defenses, there were police lines preventing us to go south or west and a unit standing by at the north wall, in case help is needed. people were again hitting against the shields and throwing things and this time people also attacked the unit on the side, which judged it wise to retreat quickly before it gets fully surrounded. although our attacks were more to ventilate frustration (the attacks were totally harmless and had no chance of breaking through the police lines), the cops looked scared shitless. there were teenagers dressed in blackblock uniforms like those on television, hitting cop shields with sticks which couldnt kill a bug. as we got to the first intersection east of the perimeter line, there was a cop line preventing us to go north and another perimeter line at the next intersection south. some people made chains in front of the immediate police group, while some black blockers went to the one south and back. just when I was starting to tell people that we should move on east, a part of the black block and some commie trade unionists (non-OeGB) got into a frenzy and charged the police line northward. this was kind of pointless, cause we had no buisiness to the north - the congress center was to the southeast! besides, we were already tired and many wanted to go back to the train station. whatever. the police got pushed back a bit, pushed us back a bit and stopped. after a minute or so, the police started retreating. I figured they were going to let us through, because they had no reason preventing us to go north. we followed them. actually, the black block and trade unionists followed them, and we followed them. the police stopped just before the intersection, so we shouted that they should go away and let us through. when I turned to look back, we were surrounded. new police units had cut us off. there were several hundred people in our group and there was another group with as many people, which was pushed out of sight, but they shouted for the police to release us and we could periodically hear them. another group of 50-100 went from the train station to support us, but they were pushed off the street by police. the socialdemocratic youth (sozialistische jugend - sj) made their own block within the surrounded demonstration and their leaders (die funke) negotiated that their block would be allowed to leave the demonstration alone and go back to the train station, under the conditions that they dont occupy streets or shout. the sj block went through a tight hole in the police line, was cut off from the rest and then allowed to leave. the funke bosses tried to prevent anybody else from mingling into the block. after getting away from the police line, the sj block went back to the train station. other people found different escape routes from the surrounded demo, but many remained surrounded. later, other part of the demo didnt want to leave without those who were surrounded, so they were also surrounded. the first surrounded group was attacked by police several times, without reason and several people were dragged out of it and arrested. the police allowed people to leave one by one at first, but some of those were arrested right after leaving the demonstration. after the first three hours or so, the police told demonstrators that they would be allowed to leave in groups of ten. all had to give their personal IDs and get their faces filmed. it was like a cop checks you out and says if you can go or not. if not, they take you into a police van. in the meantime, the socialdemocratic youth block had reformed at the train station and was shouting support for the surrounded demonstrators, but they didnt leave the train station. at the surrounded demonstration, some people were supporting those surrounded from their windows and a transparent on one of the terraces was saying "lasst sie frei" (let them go). some residents dropped food from their windows. the last 100 surrounded demonstrators or so were not allowed to go, although they had conformed with the procedure. they wanted to return to the train station as a demonstration - together. the police beat them again. after quite some time, they were escorted through a tight line of police, to the train station, arriving after midnight. while going through the tight line of police, some more people were dragged out. at the train station they were offered to take a special train to vienna. some went back to volxheim or other places and were not prevented. some took the train, which left at 2am. the police remained at the train station for a while, to make sure that nobody makes another demonstration from there. during the evening, some 12 police also surrounded the volxheim, checked documents and especially bags of some of the people entering and leaving. as there were few people at volxheim, all visibly relaxed, the police first got out of their robocop gear and later retreated, leaving only the usual several cops watching the place from a polite distance. the police didnt at any point invade the territory of volxheim (private property), despite the kronen zeitung article about the secret weapons depot. interesting: at the demo on 1.july. some people were shouting freiheit fuer (freedom for) slobodan milosevic. so I shouted haengen (hanging) fuer slobodan milosevic. then we united on toetet djindjic (kill djindjic) but they refused to shout toetet milosevic. musical intermezzo: visi sloba sa terazija - slavi narod, kuka milicija! some of the arrested people were released in the night between 1. and 2. july. it is unclear how many remain arrested. one newspaper with good police connections says 30 arrests. on the evening of monday 2.july, there was a street theatre of the no border no nation caravan in front of the volxheim, which turned into a street party. as they tried to move to the brunnauerzentrum on the same street, where a public discussing on effects of globalisation was taking place, robocops blocked their way. maybe this was because the morning edition of kronen zeitung had declared the wef monster to be a dangerous weapon. quite some time later, the robocops got a new order to let the party through, but they stayed within sight. later, the party moved back to volxheim, where kurdish workers made food for everybody. media reporting about 1.july was divided. first reports from orf (state tv) were rather neutral. all later media reports were just trying to justify the police. newspapers in salzburg had large reports trying to justify everything the police did and portrayed the demonstrators as violent hooligans. viennese newspapers did the same thing, but with less space - they gave the demonstrations about the same amount of columns as traffic accidents. all front pages on monday were about the sunday demonstrations. most newspapers made one special article about attac - the good demonstrators. frequent slogans: brecht die macht der banken und konzerne (break the power of banks and corporations); whose streets our streets - wessen strassen unsre strassen; demoverbot - ha ha ha (ban on demonstrations - ha ha ha); people not profits - menschen vor profite; say hey say ho wef has got to go; smash smash smash the wef; shut shut shut the wef; shoot shoot shoot the wef; wir sind geboren um frei zu sein, kapitalismus sperrt uns ein (we are born to be free, capitalism locks us away); umweltzerstoerung, tausendfacher mord, stoppt das forum jetzt sofort (destruction of the environment, tausend times murder, stop the forum right now); shell shell shell go to hell; revolution - resolution; the workers/ the people united will never be defeated; no justice no peace, fuck the police; mcdreck muss weg (mctrash must go away); this is what democracy looks like; keine gewalt (no violence). there were plenty of other slogans, but I dont remember. special slogans and songs for police: samstags frei fuer die polizei (day off for police on saturdays); sonntags frei fuer die polizei (sundays); haut ab (go away); alles was wir wollen ist friedlich demonstrieren (all we want to do is to demonstrate peacefully); all we are saying is give peace a chance; the song "singing in the rain"; fuer die bonzen steht ihr da - marionetten ha ha ha (you are standing there for the bosses - marionetes ha ha ha); I've never seen so much awareness by demonstrators and it was a fantastic thing that we all gathered there like that. it was also the biggest gathering of revolutionaries in austria this year. but there are certain tactical catastrophes which need to be learned from. the police were even clumsier than us, but that last catastrophe costed us a lot sunday evening. this entire situation could had been avoided, had some people not used their balls instead of brains. I mean at least they could had charged against a police line towards the congress centre and not away from it! if we couldnt break the police lines in the direction of the congress centre, the police standing by to the north would had done nothing. if we managed to break through towards thecongress center, then the police standing by to the north would had been hard to deal with. those who charged the police, I wont name the groups for security reasons, might want to come to organisational meetings next time or send a representative or at least ask what the other people decided or what other people are planning to do. hell, we had a block of obviously inexperienced kids leading us and a company of block-headed trade unionists following like sheep into pointless violent action. it was bound to end up in disaster. when the police started beating their block in counterattack, the commie trade unionists broke their flag poles and distributed the sticks around. this was nice, but those wooden things could only hurt a robocop if you get them under his visier and stab into his eye. they do have a nice psychological effect though and you can always throw them. the sticks carried by a few black blockers were no better. actually the only sticks which were almost usable, were those carrying the antifaschistische linke transparents, and those are the only sticks which werent used in the fighting. I appreciate the desire for grand action and self-sacrifice... but next time, I suggest that the black blockers and kurds... either bring fucking big sticks and stones, hammers, big rubber things, plexiglas shields, helmets, mollys, bullet-proof vests, preferably also kalashnykovs, tanks, artillery and AA missiles (a couple of rocket-launchers could had solved the wef problem better than 100 000 demonstrators) ... or that they go away and sacrifice themselves alone. cause I definitely dont want to be sacrificed with them. had those people been to the meetings (had the kurdish group listened at the meetings) they would had understood why we shouldn't make separate blocks. also the kurdish group kept shouting their own slogans in their language most of the time. I dont mind, but the point was that everybody sticks together and it's hard to stick together when they make separate block and shout something in their own language. when hundreds of germans can conform to shouting half of their slogans in english, why couldnt turkish or kurdish speakers shout a bit more in german and english? when the demo got surrounded, people didnt want to try and deescalate the situation by singing or sitting down or anything. I tried to explain that it worked great yesterday, but they didnt listen. everybody felt the lack of several thousand germans and italians. I would like to know why they didnt show up in salzburg - were they prevented or did they simply not try? with them, we would had had a chance. without them, any attempt to reach the congress center was suicide. I am sorry if some groups feel hurt because their names were not mentioned among those charging the police or distributing sticks, but there are legal reasons for this. throwing a stone against the window of a police vehicle is not the smartest course of action when you are surrounded by police and being filmed by cameras and you should not charge against riot police unless you have a chance to rout them! but even with that last fuckup, sunday was a great day for all of us. we can forget the police shit, but I think nobody can forget the unity and strenght that we lived during the salzburg demonstrations. SMASH THE WEF! Zec P.S. the only ones who can defeat us, are idiots within our own lines - Tito<p>Alter-EE mailing list Alter-EE@most.org.pl http://www.most.org.pl/ cgi-bin/ mailman/ listinfo/ alter-ee 04.07.2001

ralf@anarch.free.de (Ralf Landmesser)