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From: "Jari-Pekka Raitamaa" <
Subject: [luokkataistelu] Brussels report: thousands protest against EU
summit
Thousands protest against EU-summit
Before the Belgian presidency started prime minister Guy Verhofstadt
announced it would become a "historic" presidency in the further
develoment of the EU. To achieve this the government was prepared to
go along with anyone. Minister of Foreign Affairs Louis Michel had to
make sure he appologized to the Austrian government after having
appealing everyone not to visit Austria anymore after the coming to
power of a coalition including the FP�. With Berlusconi Michel had to
repeat this apologizing strategy. Verhofstadt himself when seeing
that the antiglobalisation movement was a lot broader than the
protest of G�teborg (when he called the movement "political
hooligans") announced he wanted a "constructive dialogue" and even
organised a conference in Gent at which Naomi Klein came to speak. In
an open letter to the antiglobalisation movement Guy Verhofstadt
said "you ask the right questions, but have the wrong answers". It is
clear that all this public relation efforts of the Belgian government
to counter the opposition against its presidency has not led to a
succesful presidency.
The impact of the developping world wide economic recession is
particularly visible in Belgium where the national airlines company
Sabena went bankrupt with 12.000 becoming unemployed. In october
alone the unemployment figures rose with 10%, amongst youth even with
17%! The attempts of Guy Verhofstadt to calm down opposition against
the rightwing policy of the government have failed. The anger against
the capitalist system and its effects is growing and led to massive
demonstrations against the Brussels EU summit.
Trade union demo
On thursday 13 december more than 100.000 people demonstrated in
Brussels at a trade union organised demo. There were large
contingents of the French trade unions. In the very large Belgian
union contingents there was a huge presence of Antwerp dockers,
public service workers and traditional strong union companies such as
Caterpillar. The CWI had its own contingent on the demo and appealed
to all the workers to join in the demo of the 14th as well.
The demo showed the huge potential power of the workers' movement,
but unfortunately also showed that we can not trust the trade union
leadership to use this power. The day after the demo those "leaders"
announced it was a succes as the EU had promised to set up some sort
of social commission with representatives of the "social partners"
(the bosses and the unions). That however was not really the reason
why many workers came to the demonstration!
After the demo the CWI organised a strong meeting in a nearby hall
with over 200 present. Speaking at the meeting were Silvio Marra
(Forges de Clabecq), Roger Bannister (NEC-member UNISON, the biggest
public services union in Britain), Ursel Beck (from a leftwing union
network in Germany) and Clare Daly (shopsteward Air Lingus in
Dublin). Silvio Marra explained how a legal procedure against 13
shopstewards who led a historic struggle at Forges De Clabecq keeping
this factory open untill today, is now restarting for the third time.
When Forges de Clabecq restarted its activity 500 workers were
expelled because of their militant role in the struggle. The leading
shopstewards were expelled from the union as well who thought they
were too political! The legal procedure had to be stopped the
previous times after courts declared themselves not competent to
judge in this case. The process was each time postponed untill after
important mobilisations. Now again we see the restart of the process
to take place the 17th of December! A collection at the CWI meeting
to support the workers in the court case against the Clabecq workers
raised over 10.000 Belgian francs.
25.000 at antiglobalisation demo
On the 14th the EU summit started in the royal palace in Laeken
(Brussels). 25.000 activists demonstrated from the "Petit Ch�teau"
("Little Castle", a detention centre for asylum seekers) in the
direction of the "big castle" (the royal palace). The demo was
organised by a coalition of D14 (representing over 100
organisations), NGO's and Attac. After the success of the Gent
demonstration at which 20.000 were present, the NGO's and Attac
decided to take part in a mobilisation for the 14th as well.
In a freezing cold weather we marched with a contingent of hundreds
of CWI-members, we probably had over 1000 present. In our delegation
we had people from all over Europe and had speeches and slogans in
Dutch, French, English, German,... Other big delegations included the
NGO's, Attac, anarchists and left political organisations. After the
demo the CWI organised two meetings with several hundred on both
meetings.
The demo started very peacefully but unfortunately some anarchists
did destroy a few banks, a police-station and attacked some of the
press. While the Frenchspeaking national television RTBF was doing a
live interview with one of the D14-spokespersons, Guy Van Sinoy (a
member of the CWI), and asked him if there was any violence Guy said
it was very peaceful but was interupted by anarchists who attacked
the TV-crew. While we understand the anger against the capitalist
system we oppose the strategy of destroying cars, banks, camera's,...
We need an efficient strategy against the capitalist system, that
means building mass movements who turn the massive opposition against
the system into powerful concrete political struggles. "We don't want
any fights with the police because that would play into their hands
and put pressure on the movement," said CWI-member Els Deschoemacker
to the BBC.
After the demo the police used a water cannon against a small group
of demonstrators. They even blocked the "Thour&Taxis" complex where
the demo ended and where speeches were being held. About 30-40 were
arrested including a supporter of Widerstand International in
Germany. As before the demo the press was already pointing out to the
German anarchists as the main threat for violence it was clear that
the police needed to arrest some Germans. 50 people who did a small
protest action outside the police station to protest against the
arrests were arrested themselves! Everyone arrested has now been
released, the Germans were sent back to Germany after having spent 20
hours in the police station in an unheated place and without getting
food.
Launching conference of International Socialist Resistance
On the 15th hundreds of ISR-members and supporters came to an
international conference at the Frenchspeaking Brussels university
ULB. The planned meeting hall turned out to be too small for the huge
presence of youth. Over 500 enthusiastic youth were present. The
participants came from all over Europe, but also from South Africa,
the US, Australia, Russia,...
The conference had discussions on several topics such as the
environment, anti-capitalist politics, education,... The conference
was closed with a discussion on the platform and the structure of
ISR. International Socialist Resistance will build for international
actions. One of the proposals was to have an international student
action in May when the education ministers are meeting in Spain. It
was also decided to have follow-up meetings to have close links in
the international resistance movement. This meeting was a starting
point and proved to be a strong showing of the young generation of
CWI-members all over Europe.
Geert Cool
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