----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, September 25, 2000 8:47 PM Subject: [STOPNATO.ORG.UK] activists observations on Prague... STOP NATO: �NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK In a message dated 25/09/00 10:35:16 Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: << ----- Original Message ----- From: "Grant Kien" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, September 25, 2000 10:21 AM Subject: anti-capitalist excitement in prague > > > Greetings from Prague. (Genny and Brian here) > > We're writing this email on Monday the 25th, the day before the big > demonstrations agaisnt the IMF and World Bank. We've been in Europe for > the past few weeks and making our way here have encountered many different > groups organizing and preparing for the "next Seattle and Washington". > There are many diiferent ideas of how to go about organizing against such > instituitions but we wanted to let you all know the things we've seen and > expereinced so far and hope it offers some energizing thought and action > material for those of you back in North America (doing solidarity actions > or organizing for other things like the Summit of the Americas in Quebec > City). > > Making our way to Prague, we came across much propaganda and events geared > towards getting people to Prague. Film nights showing films made by INPEG > about the IMF/World Bank and why one should come to Prague including a > history of actions in the Chezck Republic. In each country we found > different booklets full of information, maps, and material to pump us up > and link the the issues back to local struggles. (in amsterdam, much talk > was made about 's26' getting peopel pumped for a big squatters defense on > Oct3) It was amazing to see how much work was put into these as many were > almost full size booklets with multiple colours and could be found in > bars, theatres, bookshops...well tonnes of places. And the posters > too...big multi couloured ones all over, seems to be the style here. > > Like at every mass action against globalization there are tonnes and > tonnes of people getting into the city every day. The convergence space > (an awesome complex of warehouses...like big airplane hangers) is croded > with people from all sorts of countries speaking all sorts of languages. > Large contingents of Engliish and of Spanish speaking people seem to > dominate most gatherings (spokecouncils operate in those two languages), > but there are also sizeable groupings of germans, italians, with > noticeable contingents of folks from tonnes of other countries including > latin america and parts of south east asia. Little Chezk involment in > noticebale however and we are left wondering to what capacity the chezck > radical community is involved. > > All the small border crossings into the Chezk Rep. were closed down in > order to reroute travellers through the larger crossings which were highly > policed and backed up for miles. We came through in a bus full of > activists from Berlin. We were delayed at the border for 5 hours, all > our lugaged checked passports processed. This seemed to be what all > potential protesters faced when coming into Prague. A whole train of > Italian activists (from anti IMF group known as 'Ya Basta') were kept from > entering the country. > > Every day there has been a flury of activity with at least one demo each > day. On Saturday when we arrived there was a large anti-fascist demo to > counter a group of neo-nazi's who had come to Prague to demonstrate as > well. The antifa crowd drew about 1000 people who marched around town and > kept the neonazis behind police lines trapped in a square. Apparently the > news coverage of this went fairly well and 'won us some favour' with the > locals. The existance of big gangs of neo-nazis adds a bit more tension to > the week in addition to dealing with cops checking passports non-stop. On > sunday there were three demos . An anti-globalization one in the morning > followed by a solidarity demo with the italians stopped at the border (at > the Ministry of the Interior), and a spontaneous evening demonstration to > 'welcome' the spanish trade minsister into the country. > > Groups of people from all different countries are organized into affinity > groups mostly based on the cities they come from. But there is one large > international afftinity group known as the samba band that energizes the > whole convergence area and camp sites with their loud sounding drums and > pieces of steal and homemade shakers. Of course there are also spontaneous > meetings happening all over the convergence space alongside the typical > medical, direct action, legal, street action, and 'how to use a gas mask' > trainings. Some of these meetyings are also inforamtion specific such as > one we attended by PGA latin America about plan Columbia, an issue which > seems to pop up more and more frequently (and another reason to organize > against the Summit of the Americas in Quevbec City this April). Some > delagates from the Colombian black communities called 'Palencas' have been > making use of the large international gathering to spearhead the formation > of a solidarity network with Colombian people and other communtities that > are being affected by Plan Colombia and the capitalist globalization/FTAA > agenda. > > This is just the tip of the fist er..iceberg and there are many other > gatherings around the city such as a large 3 day counter conference with > international speakers, an art of resistance music festival, banner making > parties, campsites and hostels crawling with 5 radicals for every cop > (there's 2 cops on every corner :-). One theme which has shown up again > and agian is the Globalization of Soldiarity. In fact the first thing you > see as you look down the hill towrads the convergence space is a large > banner way up on one of the hangers reading ' Globalicemos la > Solidaridad'. Everyone knows what this means it seems and we can't wait > until tomorrow when we see it in action. > > resist! > Brian > Ginny > > > This is the Toronto Email List > http://toronto.tao.ca > > For help goto http://lists.tao.ca >> ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------- Advertisement: New Customers at Vitamins.com get a FREE bottle of St. John's Wort and take $10 off your first order of $10.01 or more! Just enter the discount code SAINTJ at checkout to get your free gift. Shop Now! http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/HealthCentral
----- Original Message ----- From: "Grant Kien" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, September 25, 2000 10:21 AM Subject: anti-capitalist excitement in prague > > > Greetings from Prague. (Genny and Brian here) > > We're writing this email on Monday the 25th, the day before the big > demonstrations agaisnt the IMF and World Bank. We've been in Europe for > the past few weeks and making our way here have encountered many different > groups organizing and preparing for the "next Seattle and Washington". > There are many diiferent ideas of how to go about organizing against such > instituitions but we wanted to let you all know the things we've seen and > expereinced so far and hope it offers some energizing thought and action > material for those of you back in North America (doing solidarity actions > or organizing for other things like the Summit of the Americas in Quebec > City). > > Making our way to Prague, we came across much propaganda and events geared > towards getting people to Prague. Film nights showing films made by INPEG > about the IMF/World Bank and why one should come to Prague including a > history of actions in the Chezck Republic. In each country we found > different booklets full of information, maps, and material to pump us up > and link the the issues back to local struggles. (in amsterdam, much talk > was made about 's26' getting peopel pumped for a big squatters defense on > Oct3) It was amazing to see how much work was put into these as many were > almost full size booklets with multiple colours and could be found in > bars, theatres, bookshops...well tonnes of places. And the posters > too...big multi couloured ones all over, seems to be the style here. > > Like at every mass action against globalization there are tonnes and > tonnes of people getting into the city every day. The convergence space > (an awesome complex of warehouses...like big airplane hangers) is croded > with people from all sorts of countries speaking all sorts of languages. > Large contingents of Engliish and of Spanish speaking people seem to > dominate most gatherings (spokecouncils operate in those two languages), > but there are also sizeable groupings of germans, italians, with > noticeable contingents of folks from tonnes of other countries including > latin america and parts of south east asia. Little Chezk involment in > noticebale however and we are left wondering to what capacity the chezck > radical community is involved. > > All the small border crossings into the Chezk Rep. were closed down in > order to reroute travellers through the larger crossings which were highly > policed and backed up for miles. We came through in a bus full of > activists from Berlin. We were delayed at the border for 5 hours, all > our lugaged checked passports processed. This seemed to be what all > potential protesters faced when coming into Prague. A whole train of > Italian activists (from anti IMF group known as 'Ya Basta') were kept from > entering the country. > > Every day there has been a flury of activity with at least one demo each > day. On Saturday when we arrived there was a large anti-fascist demo to > counter a group of neo-nazi's who had come to Prague to demonstrate as > well. The antifa crowd drew about 1000 people who marched around town and > kept the neonazis behind police lines trapped in a square. Apparently the > news coverage of this went fairly well and 'won us some favour' with the > locals. The existance of big gangs of neo-nazis adds a bit more tension to > the week in addition to dealing with cops checking passports non-stop. On > sunday there were three demos . An anti-globalization one in the morning > followed by a solidarity demo with the italians stopped at the border (at > the Ministry of the Interior), and a spontaneous evening demonstration to > 'welcome' the spanish trade minsister into the country. > > Groups of people from all different countries are organized into affinity > groups mostly based on the cities they come from. But there is one large > international afftinity group known as the samba band that energizes the > whole convergence area and camp sites with their loud sounding drums and > pieces of steal and homemade shakers. Of course there are also spontaneous > meetings happening all over the convergence space alongside the typical > medical, direct action, legal, street action, and 'how to use a gas mask' > trainings. Some of these meetyings are also inforamtion specific such as > one we attended by PGA latin America about plan Columbia, an issue which > seems to pop up more and more frequently (and another reason to organize > against the Summit of the Americas in Quevbec City this April). Some > delagates from the Colombian black communities called 'Palencas' have been > making use of the large international gathering to spearhead the formation > of a solidarity network with Colombian people and other communtities that > are being affected by Plan Colombia and the capitalist globalization/FTAA > agenda. > > This is just the tip of the fist er..iceberg and there are many other > gatherings around the city such as a large 3 day counter conference with > international speakers, an art of resistance music festival, banner making > parties, campsites and hostels crawling with 5 radicals for every cop > (there's 2 cops on every corner :-). One theme which has shown up again > and agian is the Globalization of Soldiarity. In fact the first thing you > see as you look down the hill towrads the convergence space is a large > banner way up on one of the hangers reading ' Globalicemos la > Solidaridad'. Everyone knows what this means it seems and we can't wait > until tomorrow when we see it in action. > > resist! > Brian > Ginny > > > This is the Toronto Email List > http://toronto.tao.ca > > For help goto http://lists.tao.ca
