Report: Second preparatory meeting against the G8 2007
The second big preparatory meeting for the radical left for the G8 summit in 2007 took place the weekend 6th to 8th of january in Berlin.
Location for the summit will be Heiligendamm, part of the town Bad Doberan at the Baltic See.
About 180 people were present, and the meeting was focussed on discussions and exchanging information. Some people came from Eastern Europe, Switzerland and great Britain.
According to newest information it is considered to move the time of the summit forward into june or even may, because of "tourism".
The hotel in which the summit will take place is owned by Kempinski and his "Fundus Group" and they try to buy up as much land as possible around the hotel and the area to privatise and restrict usage and to restrict the public's right of way into trespass.
The discussions at the meeting focussed on the organisation of the mobilsation:
Are the PGA hallmarks a suitable foundation? How are decisions made? Which name will the mobilisation want to use? How is the mobilisation organised - as a network or platform for associated groups? Up to now the radical left is described as "Dissent".
Thematically the discussion seemed to focus on theory such as around the defintions of "internationalism" and "globalisation" and associated questions.
Several working groups have discussed following major points:
St. Petersburg 2006, Camp 2006, Practicalities, Trauma, legal, action, communication internally and externally, roadshow, strategies, theory.
In the summer, there will be a camp to mobilise internationally:
Dates are a bit unclear but around the first two weeks of August in the north-east of Germany, also called Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
Several groups work to include migration as a major point in the mobilisation. The roadshow has started, too, with events in Germany, Poland and Switzerland.
There has been an exchange of information and networking about the G8 2006.
And in spring the legal group is starting to work with a campaign against repression.
The next meeting will be in March 2006, after that the following in May in Berlin during a major lefty event: BUKO 29.
More questions might be answered if contacting g8-2007 (at) riseup.net.
In the comments, following points were made:
The dates for the international summer camp vary from 7th of August till 12th to the updated version from 4th till 13th of August. Anyways, usually camps in germany start of Fridays till Sunday the following week, I would assume.
There has been a discussion about the broadness of the "Dissent" network/mobalisation/coalition, if to include trade union(ists), Attac members etc. or not.
There is already a broader network under: www.g8-2007.de/
There has also already been a factual, sympathetic article in the famous TAZ:
www.taz.de/pt/2006/01/09/a0276.1/text