2009-01-13
- International Dissent! meeting from the 16th to 18th January 2009 in Strasbourg
- Thousands Expected to Protest NATO Summit
- France: More cars burning, more police
- Smash we can! Sabotage the State of War!
- Links Anti-NATO 2009
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International Dissent! meeting from the 16th to 18th January 2009 in Strasbourg
The revolts which are presently rising in Europe and the other parts of the world are a reaction to the global economic and social situation which deteriorates at an exponential rhythm.
The impoverishment of resources also causes numerous conflicts. IMF have already asked the countries to get ready to face numerous uprisings due to the generalized recession, insisting on the importance to be able to control those resistances to insure the safety of capitalism.
Actually NATO seems to have the will to appear as an army in the service of a global security, merging interior and external security, what implies a military vision of the management of every type of crises. Naturally we know that it is only their own interests which they try to protect and to widen…
The 3rd and 4th April, representatives of the countries members of NATO will meet again to celebrate their 60 years of domination, but also in order to develop their new plan to “defend freedom” and quoting the terms of their own generals: “A great strategy for an uncertain world.”
From the 1st to the 5^th April 2009 we will be present in Strasbourg and we’ll oppose their “globalization by force” with the creativity of our actions of resistance: direct actions, blockades, civil disobedience, demonstrations, meetings, alternative village, convergence centers, autonomous arts, concerts, …
The success of these action days depends on an efficient international network which enables to succeed in taking decisions and preparing actions for the next NATO summit in April and for the longer term. Until now those networks have always been set up temporarily before international summits and it is important to meet to reactivate them, enrich them and to think about eventually finding ways to make them durable to gain in resistance ability…
This international meeting of the radical resistance movements will be held on the 17th & 18th January 2009 in Strasbourg. It aims to strengthen international networks and achieve concrete actions during the counter-summit.
This would be the only international Dissent! assembly before the NATO summit, a strong mobilization and the presence of all on this occasion is essential.
Actually we had to reserve a place including meeting rooms, kitchen and sleeping places (bring sleeping bags) which costs us quite a lot of money. We are still waiting for the answer of two other places which would be much cheaper.
We have to ask all participants to demand to their groups if they can help financially as actually all the money is coming from personal funds of individuals who take parts in the organization of this meeting.
Of course this is absolutely not an obligation and nothing will be asked to those who cannot afford to help ! If we have enough money we will try to help those who have diificulties to pay their travel expensies. Discussions will be in English and will be translated by groups in French and German. We do need more volunteers ! Moderation will be done by a group. Those willing to participate to this group are invited to take part in the preparation meeting of this group who will happen on the Friday 16th afternoon. To participate to the translation or the moderation group, please contact us at this mail address : dissent_fr@riseup.net
For security reasons we do not want to announce publicly the place of the meeting. To receive all informations please send a mail to dissent_fr@riseup.net
If you have any problem you can contact us from Thursday 15th at this phone number : 0033.660.372.501 or 06.60.37.25.01
Friday, 16th January 2009
* 19.00 : Participants arrival
* 20.00 : Crisis, repression and resistance. Discussion about the actual situation and perspectives. An international mobilisation has to stay abreast of changes and actual situation. We propose participants to give an overview of what is going on in their country and to analyse altogether the global situation and the resistance possibilities.
Saturday, 17th January 2009
* 10.00 – 11.00 : Participants presentation by themselves and overview of the international mobilizations
* 11.00 – 12.30 : Lunch – Discussions
* 12.30 – 14.30 : Discussion about the political content of the action days :
Relation with ICC (International Coordinating Committee) : Do we want to be part of it by signing their call ? Do we want or not to coordinate ourselves with them for a choreography of actions ?
Quick presentation of the proposal for the action days (we have propositions on fighting repression, crisis and G20, blockades). Please try to come with some other proposals.
* 14.30 – 15.00 : Break – Discussions
* 15.00 – 17.00 : Workshops :
1. 1st Action day
2. 2nd Action day
3. 3rd Action day
4. 4th Action day ?
5. 5th Action day ?
* 17.00 – 17.30 : Break – Discussions
* 17.30 – 18.30 : Workshops progress reports
* 18.30 – 20.00 : Dinner – Discussions
* 20.00 : Discussion on the relevance of creating a perdurable international Dissent! Network
Sunday, 18th January 2009
* 10.00 – 12.00 : Discussion on the relations with the authorities and the non-radical organizations and media
* 12.00 – 13.00 : Lunch – Discussions
* 13.00 – 15.00 : Workshops :
1. Villages – Convergence Centers – Kitchens – Infopoints
2. Anti-repression, Legal Teams
3. Infotour
* 15.30 – 17.00 : Workshops progress reports, discussions on the means to communicate together and proposal for a next international meeting
* 17.00 : Goodbye – Never Ending Discussions…
Some more informations
When people meet up to speak about their common perspectives and to organise resistance, the government agencies are always interested in.
From the official files of the inquiry, it has been proven that the German intelligence service observed the meetings of preparation for the G8 Summit 2007 in Heiligendamm. It is certain that at two meetings (Dissent! Meeting, October 2005 in Hamburg and January 2006 in Berlin) have been used IMSI-catchers. A device called an “IMSI-catcher” pretends to the mobile phones in its vicinity to be a legitimate base station of the mobile phone network, mobile phones in the coverage will log in there automatically. The users don’t realize that, they can still use the telephone in a normal way as the device passes on communications to the mobile network. Phone calls can be directly tapped as well as SMS.
Furthermore are also recorded your International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI, the serial number of your mobile phone) and your International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI, your identification number on the network).
Moreover, the intelligence service installed in Berlin a video camera to identify afterwards the visitors of the meeting.
We think it is important to make this public, not to cause paranoia, but to your and our security. Looking closely the conditions under which we move and act has become more important than ever.
If you have mobile phones but can stay without for 3 days, you may as well leave them at home or shut them before you arrive. Keep your eyes and ears open so you can come to the meeting without any fear !
http://www.dissent.fr
http://www.gipfelsoli.org
http://sommet-otan-2009.blogspot.com
Source: email
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Thousands Expected to Protest NATO Summit
TEHRAN (FNA)- More than 20,000 people are expected to take to the streets of the German town of Baden-Baden and the French city of Strasbourg, both of them being venues for hosting NATO's 60th anniversary, to demonstrate against the western military alliance.
The aim is to prevent the summit which is slated for April 3 and 4, organizers of the protest camps announced Friday in the southwestern German city of Offenburg.
There are plans for mass protests and blockade, according to German press
reports.
According to the Islamic republic news agency, two major camps, hosting up to 18,500 protesters, will be set up in Strasbourg and its neighboring German town of Kehl.
A broad spectrum of demonstrators, ranging from Christian to radical leftist groups, will take part in the anti-NATO demos.
More than 20,000 police are to protect the NATO summit amid mounting fears of riots and terror attacks, press reports said earlier.
German police will closely coordinate its security measures with their French counterparts to ensure a peaceful NATO summit as around 3,500 political representatives from 35 countries are expected to take part in the high-profile event.
Germany was the scene of violent demonstrations and bloody riots during the 2007 Group of Eight summit in the Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm.
Source: http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8710210833
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France: More cars burning, more police
President Nicolas Sarkozy vowed to crack down on France's car burning after more than 1,100 vehicles went up in flames overnight on New Year's Eve.
Sarkozy said he had asked authorities to be "uncompromising" with vehicle arsonists and said those caught burning other people's cars should lose their own licences until the damage had been paid for.
"There is no reason why honest people should have to pay the consequences of the behaviour of delinquents," he said in an address to emergency service staff who worked over the evening of December 31.
Car burnings are regular occurrences in France, where some 36,700 were recorded in the first 11 months of 2008, according to interior ministry figures.
But registering the New Year's Eve total has become something of a tradition since rows of blazing vehicles became one of the most potent images of the violent rioting that shook many of France's poor suburbs in 2005.
Authorities said 1,147 cars were burned on December 31, up from 878 last year, with a regional breakdown showing the Seine-Saint-Denis region near Paris the most heavily affected.
With riots in Athens heightening worries that the economic crisis will spark a resurgence of the violence seen in the run-down "banlieues", 35,000 police were mobilised on New Year's Eve, some 7,000 more than last year.
Officials were also on guard against possible attacks after five sticks of dynamite were left in a Paris department store just before Christmas by a so-far unidentified group demanding a withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan.
Police made 288 arrests, compared with 259 last year, and four officers were slightly hurt. The interior ministry said that overall, the night had passed off calmly with no significant incidents.
"The very rare clashes that occurred were brief and sporadic," the ministry said in a statement.
Source: http://tvnz.co.nz/world-news/sarkozy-tackles-frances-car-burners-2432556
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Smash we can! Sabotage the State of War!
February, 2009 - once again, the leaders of the NATO-states and their allies, as well as representatives of the military industry will be meeting in Munich. The so called Security Conference is, according to it's new chairman Wolfgang Ischinger, the "most important forum for decision-makers in international security policy to exchange their thoughts". The result of this military "security policy" means death and oppression for millions of people.
April, 2009 - on a date close to the "Security Conference", the warmongers of the NATO-states want to gather in Strasbourg/Baden-Baden, to celebrate the NATO's 60th birthday. 60 years of murderous politics - for them, a reason to pat themselves on the shoulder. Not for us!
We'll be planning, demonstrating, sabotaging - we won't allow them to prepare wars or celebrate imperialist politics! So, come to Munich, come to Strasbourg!
No peace with NATO's politics of war!
In october, 2008, the German parliament has extended the mandate for the German ISAF-troops in Afghanistan and decided to send more soldiers, for a total of 4500. Thus, a policy of war is acknowledged and continued, a policy with devastating consequences that become increasingly clear in an Afganistan that is occupied by NATO for 7 years now.
Tens of thousands of people were killed in the course of the war, hundreds of thousands are fleeing. Besides the direct dangers of an open war, the population is facing disastrous foodshortages and the destruction of the social infrastructure. The neoliberal capitalism that has been violently enforced by the western powers, with a heavy participation of Germany, for their own profit is worsening the poverty of the population. One example for this policy is the treaty for the protection of investments that has been dictated by the west. Aside from reductions in tariffs, it offers protection for foreign investors: 100% ownership of enterprises with a far-reaching protection against expropriation, tax breaks and complete transfer of any earnings out of the country are all guaranteed. The cynical talk about "reconstruction" and a humanitarian mission as one of the official reasons for the occupation is completely false. The alleged civil "development aid" is subordinated to the military logic and turned into profits for the west. A good deal of the money Germany provides for "development aid" is used for training and equipping the Afghan police which is under German supervision. Most people in Afghanistan oppose the occupation.
In Europe, the critical voices against an endless, escalating war are becoming louder - but for a fundamental change, we need to put anti-militarism into practice. The so-called "War on Terror" in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere has to be denounced as what it is - a brutal war, led by capitalist interests and fought in the context of western drives for hegemony and control. We´ll confront it with our diverse forms of resistance!
Against your wars, against your peace!
The participants of the "security conference" know the power of harmless terms quite well, when they're gathering again in February 2009 to plan wars und push arms deals. The word "Security" is trendy. Only recently, a NATO chief of staff titled a strategy-paper as "Towards a Grand Strategy in an Uncertain World", thus describing his belligerent thesis as a way out of an supposedly all-encompassing "Insecurity". There's hardly any political context in which some "Security" is not the, supposedly self-explaining, aim. These times, there's hardly another label that indefinite, while at the same time circumscribing and legitimating that much violence.
While wars are being fought for "external security", the "interior security" won´t stop bothering the ruling class, too. With their paper "Security-Strategy for Germany", the CDU/CSU faction in the German parliament is once again pushing to enable a deployment of the German army in the interior. "The seperation between interior and foreign security or between a state of war and peace" can't be kept up any longer, they claim. "A completely new understanding of security-policy" has to be the basis for a new "German security architecture".
The seemingly evolutionary blurring of the line between war and peace and "interior" and “foreign security", which is used as to argue for repressive innovations, isn’t cause, but consequence of politics repressively enforcing capitalist rule and control locally and globally. On a European level, new organizations are constantly beeing formed, in which military, police and organizations for civil aid are cooperating, with far-reaching competences on international territory. It's their aim to establish the fortress Europe as the globally most powerful economy, to enforce its global control, to arm its borders and to be able to combat political opposition and resistance more efficiently. The EU is not only creating repressive and military-regimes around the globe, it's also constituting itself as such.
Once again, this is affirming our knowledge about the so-called "security" - It's the security of the ruling class, for most of humanity this "security" means poverty, social insecurity, war, repression and oppression.
We don't want their "security"! Let's smash it!
Abolish Frontex! For an unlimited Freedom of Movement!
Frontex, the agency for guarding the EU's external borders, is one of the organizations active in the amalgamation of police and military. Frontex' policy of fighting migration is not "only" about guarding the EU-border - the war on refugees is to be waged everywhere along the routes of migration: In the countries of origin and transit, border police are equipped and transporting firms are obliged to enable deportations. In the Mediterranean Sea, but also in the coastal waters of of several West-African countries, European warships are patrolling, to interdict boat people. These missions force refugees and migrants to choose longer, more dangerous routes, leading to thousands of deaths each year in Mediterranean and the Atlantic sea. The immediate border of the EU is also militarized, for example by the use of military drones or by including the ministries of war in the "border management".
For the interior of the EU, Frontex is planning a database that registers all entries and exits af EU-territory, to automatically produce warrants of arrest for "visa-overstayers". The tens of thousands of refugee camps in the EU, on the other hand, are older than Frontex, as are the countless denials of their basic rights refugees and migrants are facing all over Europe.
With this racist border-regime, the EU is violently excluding all those who aren't needed as cheap, rightless labor in Europe. The shutting out of all the unwanted people is also a form of capitalist crisis-management; whenever people are fleeing from wars or the results of economic breakdowns, the metropolitan states try all they can to stop refugees far before they can reach Europe. It is no coincidence that NATO states "uncontrolled movements of migration" as a reason for war.
Against these politics, we offer our practical solidarity with the struggles of refugees and migrants! Open borders for everyone - Freedom of movement is everybody's right!
You can't forbid resistance!
The amalgamation of "interior" and "foreign security" will also be visible in the situation we'll be facing in February in Munich: It's not one of history's little jokes that the "security" of the "security conference" will be "secured" by a new law that comes close to an abolishion of the right of assembly. Again, it becomes clear the discourses of the "security"-strategists about "civil-military cooperation" and "networked Homeland Security" are put into action not only in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also on our very doorsteps.
July 2008, the state of Bavaria has passed a new law regulating the right of assembly. This law practically means the abolishing of the freedom to gather, and gives the police a huge leeway for arbitrarily forbidding or stopping demonstrations. Probably the most absurd part of law is the "prohibition of militancy". According to this, it is forbidden to "wear similiar clothing as an expression of a common political attitude, if it has an intimidating effect." Wether a demonstration is intimidating or not is, of course, up to the police to decide. This paragraph could be used to criminalize the black block, as well as a unionist strike post. And it would be wrong to see this law only as an expression of the well-know repressive "Bavarian way": It wouldn’t be the first time for repressive laws tried successfully in Bavaria to become a nationwide standard.
The new Bavarian law governing the right of assembly is a fitting building block for a repressive state, that's answering to a growing social insecurity in a crisis-ridden capitalism with supervision and control.
But this new law won't impress us! We and only we choose the style and means of our resistance!
Globalize Anticapitalism!
If there's one consequence of the financial crisis, then it's a further intensification of the redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich.
It's not only the evaporating pension funds and vanishing savings; the states are spending billions to save their financial institutions and in the end they'll raise the money through income- and wage-tax, through shortening the spending for social security systems or social aid programs. The amazement politicians show when talking about this crisis - a crisis that's supposedly result of an "abnormal deviance" of the marketpowers, and that wasn’t predictable - is hiding its origins. Crises belong to capitalism, and the creation of gigantic bubbles of debt is an integral part of neoliberalism, that has been enforced by the globally dominating governments and the economic elites from the 1980ties onwards by deregulating the finacial markets. Those important aspects of globalization shift the social relations of power. The effects of the recent financial crisis will be hitting hardest the poor population of the global South.
Everyone defending themselves against the destruction of their basis of lifelihood is facing militarization and repression. It's not new for a crisis-ridden capitalist system to be only keeping itself running through a global, endless war.
Let’s develop global strugggles for appropriation against the redistribution from the poor to the rich! For an emancipatorical worldwide resistance against their repression!
Direct anti-militarist action!
The strategists of the ruling "security" aim at dissolving the differences between "interior" and "foreign security", between police and military, between raid and war - we should turn their strategy into our weapon and connect our struggles against the different facets of their politics.
Time and again, around the globe, there have been attempts to render military equipment unusable for war. Some refer to this as an active initiative for disarmament, peace activists talk about "ploughsharing" ("swords to ploughshares"), while those in power call those actions damaging of property, arson or terrorism. In Germany, it's the 129ff. in criminal law, that are used to criminalize antimilitaristic actions. But what's the destruction of military equipment, of weapons compared to its deadly use in warfare?
So, it will remain our aim to undermine military morale and to disturb the peace in the hinterland. For more local disarmament initiatives!
Let´s make sure that there is scant regard for the military, let´s take them their feeling of beeing backed by the popuplation.
The militarization of society has proceeded far, we're meeting military personnel everywhere - while riding a train or attending a family event, at recruiting-events in schools and at employment agencies - so we'll be disturbing and intervening everywhere!
Bundeswehr dismissed!
The undermining of military morale can't be separated from the fight against patriarchy, and its most brutal expression, sexual violence.
Wherever war and military dominate people's everyday lives, rape, forced prostitution and trafficking in women are common. This is no coincidence:
Military mobilization and drill use dominant images of masculinity.
Machismo is a ressource for war! Let´s fight patriarchal society!
We express our solidarity with all soldiers worldwide, who have decided to defect from the injustice and cruelty of war, and are put in military prisons or facing other repression! Organize aid and support for deserters!
Solidarity with Olli, Florian and Axel, who are accused of attempting to set fire to military vehicles of MAN in July 2007!
Fight the war, fight the crisis: Let’s develop anti-militarist resistance! Let’s appropriate social wealth.
So, come to munich on 6/7th. February! We'll meet in the internationalist block!
Let's spoil the 60th. anniversary of NATO in Strasbourg on April 4-8!
As every year, there'll be a convergence center at the Kafe Marat, Thalkirchnerstr. 104, 2. entrance, near subway station U3/U6 Goethplatz.
www.no-nato.de
www.natogipfel2009.blogsport.de
Source: email
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Links Anti-NATO 2009
Germany
* Akuza www.akuza.de.vu
* Anti NATO Bündnis Baden-Baden http://antinatobuendnisbad.blogsport.de
* Bundeswehr wegtreten www.bundeswehr-wegtreten.org
* Büro für antimilitaristische Maßnahmen http://www.bamm.de
* DFG/VK www.dfg-vk.de
* Freie Heide http://clownsfreiheide.de.tl/NATO-_-Jubel-2009.htm
* DHL-Kampagne http://dhl.blogsport.de
* Die Linke http://die-linke.de/politik/aktionen/nein_zur_nato
* Friedenskoordination Berlin www.friko-berlin.de
* Friedenslokomotive NRW http://www.friedenslok.org
* Friedensratschlag Kassel www.uni-kassel.de/fb5/frieden
* G8andwar http://g8andwar.de
* Gipfelsoli http://gipfelsoli.org/Home/Strasbourg_Baden-Baden_2009
* Informationsstelle Militarisierung Tübingen www.imi-online.de
* Interventionistische Linke http://www.dazwischengehen.org
* kulturorganisation gegen den natogipfel 2009 www.myspace.com/stopnato
* Libertad!s Seite gegen das NATO-Jubiläum www.natofeier.angreifen.org
* Netzwerk Friedenskooperative www.friedenskooperative.de
* Newsfeed zur Anti-NATO-Mobilisierung http://nato-gipfel-2009.blogspot.com
* no to nato http://www.no-to-nato.org
* Resistance des deux rives http://natogipfel2009.blogsport.de
* Zusammenarbeit im Web gegen die NATO-“Sicherheitskonferenz” http://sicherheitskonferenz.de
Belgium
* Bombspotting www.vredesactie.be
* Vrede http://www.vrede.be
France
* Coordination anti-OTAN Strasbourg http://sommet-otan-2009.blogspot.com
* Comité de Surveillance OTAN www.csotan.org
* dissent www.dissent.fr
* Federation Anarchiste Strasbourg http://fastrasbg.lautre.net
* IPPNW France http://amfpgn.club.fr/contacts.html
* Ligue communiste révolutionnaire www.lcr-rouge.org
* Mouvement de la paix http://www.mvtpaix.org/
* Pour la République Sociale www.pourlarepubliquesociale.org
Others
* AMK http://fred.dk/amk
* ANTIMILITARISMUS IN HANNOVER http://antimilitarismus.blogsport.de
* Anti-Militaristies OnderzoeksKollektief VD AMOK NL www.vdamok.nl
* Bundesrepublik ohne Armee www.bundeswehrabschaffen.de
* European Peace Action www.europeanpeaceaction.org
* Kampagne gegen Zwangsdienste, Wehrpflicht und Militär www.kampagne.de
* Netzwerk gegen Militärstandorte und deren Auswirkungen www.nema-online.de
* Red Green Alliance DK www.enhedslisten.dk/redgreen-alliance
* Resist the War www.resisthewar.de
* Socialist Worker UK http://www.socialistworker.co.uk
* War Resisters International www.wri-irg.org
* Wiederentwaffnung jetzt! www.wiederentwaffnung-jetzt.de
Media
* Stattweb Baden www.stattweb.de
* Baden Online www.baden-online.de (auch Kehler Zeitung)
* Badische Zeitung www.badische-zeitung.de
* goodnews4baden-baden www.goodnews4baden-baden.de
* Hitradio Ohr www.hitradio-ohr.de
* Pressespiegel R2DR http://natogipfel2009.blogsport.de/presse
* Radio Dreyeckland www.rdl.de
* Stimme http://www.stimme.de/suedwesten/nachrichten/index.html
* Stuttgarter Zeitung www.stuttgarter-zeitung.de
* Südwest Aktiv www.suedwest-aktiv.de
* TV Südbaden www.tv-suedbaden.de
* Dernières Nouvelles d’Alsace www.dna.fr
* L’Alsace www.lalsace.fr
NATO’s meeting places
* Baden-Baden: Bénazetsaal Kurhaus, Weinbrennersaal, Kongresshaus, Dorint-Hotel, Restaurant Medici and surrounding hotels. US delegation residates at Bühler Höhe
* Strasbourg: Palais des congrès www.strasbourg-events.com/site/Le-palais-des-congres-34.html
Source: http://www.gipfelsoli.org/Home/5404.html