2007-06-05

G8: Witchhunt Against the “Black Block”

Down With the Witchhunt Against the “Black Block”!

BERLIN, June 3 – The Spartakist-Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands strongly condemns the brutal police attacks on the leftist demonstrators who protested against the robbers of the imperialist G8 yesterday. This brutal police terror was foreshadowed three weeks ago with nationwide raids against leftist opponents of G8. Five thousand cops along with more than a dozen water cannons and armored vehicles were mobilized in Rostock to intimidate and terrorize the leftist demonstrators. Many hundreds of demonstrators (officially over 500) were injured, some so badly that they had to be admitted to the hospital. The cops particularly targeted the leftist Autonomes of the “Black Block” and immigrant organizations. Well over 100 were arrested and are threatened with charges. They are talking about summary trials. We say: Down with police terror against anti-G8 demonstrators! Free all those arrested! Drop all charges!

We are outraged that the reformist and liberal organizers of the anti-G8 demonstration are denouncing the victims of the police attack! Thus, Manfred Stenner (Netzwerk Friedenskooperative [Network for Peace Cooperative]) raged against “the rioters”: “We will find out who the assholes were.” [Rostock demonstration organizer] Monty Schädel made mild criticisms of the police, to better turn around and attack the left: “There is no excuse and no justification for a group of Autonomes to attack a police car.” Thus they join in the witchhunt by the bourgeois media, which is calling for the blood of the “Black Block” and other leftists. This invites only more cop terror. What’s next? Murder, like the shooting of Carlo Giuliani at the 2001 anti-G8 protests in Genoa? If such naked police terror is not combatted, it will be a precedent for further state attacks on the left, the workers movement and immigrants. We say: An injury to one is an injury to all! Down with the witchhunt against the “Black Block”!

Meanwhile, in Schwerin, where the NPD fascists wanted to stage a provocation, the bourgeois state banned all demonstrations. The Nazis shifted their demonstration from Schwerin to several cities, including Berlin where they marched through the Brandenburg Gate for their program of genocide. In Schwerin, 150 anti-fascists were arrested and threatened with charges. State terror against the left, as in Rostock or Schwerin, fuels the Nazis’ deadly terror and strengthens them. This shows once more that state bans against the Nazis are, in the end, used against the left. What we need are mobilizations of the multiethnic working class at the head of all the fascists’ potential victims to stop the Nazis.

Rostock shows again that the capitalist state – with the police, army and courts at its core – is not neutral. Rather its purpose is to maintain the power of the capitalist class and to oppress the working class and all who stand in the way of capitalist rule. The police are the professional thugs of the bourgeoisie. They have no business in the workers movement. Police out of the DGB [trade-union federation]! While the G8 leaders are behind closed doors in Heiligendamm planning imperialist war and their next attack on the workers, the police are making clear how they will deal with anyone who resists the imperialist rulers. The attacks on the anti-G8 demonstrators are in the end directed against the entire working class! It is necessary to have mass protests by the workers movement and its allies to oppose state terror against the opponents of G8!

Spartakist Leaflet