Anonym: Black Bloc in Rostock

Over the PA we learn that the police have beaten up and arrested some protesters. Marching to the Harbour in Rostock it is clear that the police will likely breach the fragile peace and further escalate the repression. Despite the great threat from the well armed authorities we bravely continue to march, together ready to face violent confrontation and resist. We are all dressed in black, the uniform of the bloc, dark glasses and hats, each in the crowd largely indistinguishable from the others. We move through the streets of Rostock in nervous but bold anticipation.

Arriving at the harbour 10,000 protesters stand amidst a rainbow of flags and the police lurk in the side streets waiting to strike. The bloc put themselves between the crowd and the police, ready to defend our brothers and sisters. All is calm until the police start to baton charge the crowd. It is widely beleived that police agent provocatours were present in Rostock to kick of the violence - a tactic used by the Carabinieri in Genoa. The black bloc will not create violence, its philosophy is to respond to it with opposing force, in self defence. The police need only a tenuous excuse to start the repression. Quickly the situation intensifies as police beat those who stand in their way. During this first wave of baton charges hundreds of protesters retreat into the crowd. Gangs of police bludgeon people lying on the ground covering their heads. Protesters, locals, photographers and even medics are hit, no-one is immune as they beat everone in their path. Soon a swarm of black bloc amass to force the cops back, away from the crowd. The cops retreat into the side streets and the panic subsides a little. Quickly, people start ripping up paving stones and smashing them into pieces to throw. The bloc re-forms and marches straight towards the police line, many now with rocks in hand. The first clash is about to ensue but some clowns and peace activists put themselves between the bloc and the police line to stop the violence from escalating. These bold and well meaning efforts could be commended but for the fact that they failed to take into account the detail of that situation. Non-violence is a useful tactic sometimes, but as an ideology applied in every situation it can be suicide. For a few moments they were able to delay further confrontation but at great risk to themselves and the manifestion as a whole. The bloc was not able to advance but the police were, rendering our tactics less employable while the police remained fully at power to beat us all. The bloc retreated from this point only for those cops to then charge again. Along a parralell street many more cops amassed and baton charged at the crowd. Now hundreds of the bloc responded by hurling rocks and bottles at the police line and they were forced to retreat. They would charge again, the crowd would stampede away, then a great hail of rocks and glass would descend on the cops once more until they retreated. This process was repeated many times as the crowd asserted its control over the area. Tear gas was shot into the crowd only for the canisters to be thrown back at the cops by members of the bloc. There are reports that many cops were thus injured by their own chemical weapons, sympathy is hard to find here. A police helicoptor hovered overhead and informants with cameras and mobile phones directed the riot cops into the battle. In an inspired action a parked car was set on fire. The blaze filled the air with acrid black smoke, not very nice for the environment but it meant that the battle could not be seen from above. Now blind the police became much less effective at holding this street, while the masked up black bloc continued hurling rocks under the shadow of smoke. The bloc were steadily able to advance and take this side street barricading it. For over an hour the police repression was paralysed and the harbour of Rostock belonged totally to the people. The police were visibly intimidated by the crowd. Later they moved in with water cannons filled with pepper spray and aimed directly at the densest parts of the demonstration, making no distinction between any of the protesters. Hundreds suffered the burning affects of the pepper spray. Many people discovered the violent potential of the state first hand. The speeches and music continued regardless. Police snatch sqauds started piling into the main part of the manisfestion to arrest people but were resisted this time by thousands of people with their hands raised in innocence. The police were cautious of escalating the situation now, knowing the force of the crowd and instead formed lines around the edge, under the protection of the water cannons. This stand off then turned into a carnival as people danced to the music, relieving the tension. The situation then became quite surreal as the police held firm but the crowd mocked them in revelry. The lesson of this is that we are peace loving people but DO NOT FUCK WITH US. We will resist this current order and we will fight you if you try to stop us. The manifestation became more peaceful as the cops stopped attacking us and many people started to enjoy the concert. Details of other incidents will emerge later but it is clear that hundreds of people were injured in a situation perpetrated and perpetuated by the police.

It is in the interests of authorities to portray anti-state, anti-corporate globalisation activists as violent people to undermine the legitamacy of their cause in the eyes of the public. The corporate media are complicit and necessary in this conspiracy. Through the manipulation of riot images they portray us as the instigators and the police as the keepers of the peace, nothing could be further from the truth. They are thus able to divide and conquor, setting the ''good'' protestors against the ''bad'' creating an internal policing within the movement and a false dichotemy, with many people become unwitting pawns in the greater system of control. Many well meaning people are manipulated in this way, to the detriment of the movement and the world it seeks to save. Unfortunaly the world is such that we cannot acheive the changes we desire with the means we are given, so we create new means to resist. Not since Genoa has the resistance to the G8 been so hardline, people pandered to the G8 in Gleneagles and it acheived nothing. Now we fight to overthrow this order, but it is not going to happen at this G8 summit or any other global spectacle, for the liberation must be absolute and universal. What we see in these few days is a manifestation of the latent rebellion which permeates our whole world. The age of empire is in its final days, the lines are drawn and its up to you to decide to die with the old world or live with the new.

Long may the bloc fight for the liberation...

[http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/06/372545.html]