i C C InterContinental Caravan for Solidarity and Resistance Press release 19th June 1999, 03.30 a.m. – for immediate release!
Critic of the summit not allowed President of the Indian Inter-State Coordination Committee of Farmers’ Organisations in German police-arrest
500 people from the south, who came to Cologne for the World Economic Summit and who wanted to laugh at the “Gang of the Seven”, were stopped by the police even before entering the subway to the city centre. They were surrounded and some of them even arrested. Among them also Vijay JAWANDHIA, president of the Inter-State Coordination Committee of Farmers’ Organisations, and his wife. In this moment (Saturday, 19th June 1999, 1 a.m.) there are still at least 6 people in police-arrest. The Police was talking about 17 people, who where taken to the police office. Our number of people missing is much higher! At least 30 had been arrested. The InterContinental Caravan for Solidarity and Resistance has made a protest tour through Europe for one month now. Apart from India the participants also come from Brasilia, Bangladesh, Nepal, Mexico, Columbia, Pakistan, Chile and the Ukraine. They have made non-violent actions in eleven countries of Europe. Now they wanted to laugh about the heads of the world – and this seemed to be too dangerous. Among the people surrounded by the police there were six journalists. Although they were showing their press cards, they were not allowed to leave the police circle for nearly two hours. The police surrounded about 350 participants of the caravan at the subway-station Boltensternstrasse for more than three hours. According to records by participants the police used brute force to get hold on the people. People from the Caravan were beaten up and pushed on the ground. At least two demonstrators needed medical support. Besides some policemen made related to the foreign demonstrators racist remarks like “It stinks here”. Nearby, on the Ebertplatz, 500 European demonstrators, who wanted to join the laugh-parade have also been surrounded by the police. In this case the police behaved more sensible and let them go. The reason given by the police for this massive operation is not plausible. The police pretends, the Caravan was planning to occupy crossroads in the city centre of Cologne – according to a leaflet, they say. This leaflet does definitely not exist. They planed and announced to laugh at the global leaders in a „Laugh Parade“ on the central place in Cologne. In India this is a kind of action in ghandian tradition called „satzagraha“. Even a spokesman of the police admitted that there had been no violence on the side of the Caravan, neither on this event nor during the action against the multinational Bayer the very same day. >
>From marginalisation to the centres of power: Since the 22nd of Mai, 500
women and men from Southern countries take part in an Intercontinental
Caravan for Solidarity and Resistance through Europe. This month of protest
is culminating during the summit of the most powerful nation states, the G7/8
in Cologne, what coincides with an international day of protest aimed at the
heart of the global economy. Europe is experiencing a new type of
initiative. Not academic “experts”
giving lectures about the situation in their countries, but the people
directly affected speak for themselves: hundreds of Indian small farmers
along with traditional fishers and people displaced off their land by the
construction of dams, landless people from Brazil and from Bangladesh,
mothers of the “disappeared “ from Argentina, and many more. These people
tour through Europe meeting local movements and will commonly take direct
political action at the very gates of global political and corporate power.
Impetus for this caravan is given by the recognition that the current world
economic order, based on the exploitation of people and the planet for
the profit of a few, is at the very root of today’s social and ecological
problems. The aim of the participants in the Caravan is not political lobby,
but to confront political and economic institutions and multinational
corporations with their presence. A letter from the KRRS, India’s largest
farmers movement, states : “We wish to bring to the North the point of view
from the South about the system of exploitation imposed by your governments,
by international institutions such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and
by multinational corporations. You will have a first hand report about the
way these institutions break down our lives.” The Caravan is about direct
contact and common action: “We are coming to speak with people in the
streets and to get in contact with men and women who, like us, are affected
by this world wide missorder.
The ICC visited the following countries: Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Finland, France, England, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Austria, Poland, Switzerland and the Czech Republic -----------
respect to you all, Lancaster J-18 Collective.
More info contact lancaster-j18 at joymail.com Our web site will be updated in the next 72 hours with stills and possible video of the actions - www.june18.freeuk.com
Activists from Lancaster J18 Collective occupied Freshfields a city law firm at 11.00am on June 18. Freshfields boast of representing the following industries - ‘nuclear, aviation, road transportation, chemicals, mining, asbestos, tobacco products and the drinks industry’ (their own web site!). Litigation they've been involved in includes - helping to defend the ‘Sellafield Luekaemia cases, electro magnetic power line cancer test cases against electricity supply companies, and the Waltham Abbey cancer litigation, (as well as) .. asbestosis cases’. They also helped Akzo Nobel in relation to the EU merger regulation clearance of its £1.8bn bid for Courtaulds plc. The merger created Acordis (see below):the ‘seventh worst firm in the UK for releasing cancer causing chemicals into the air’ according to The Observer June 5th, 1999.
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