Aktiviteterna mot nästa års G8 möte i Heiligendamm i norra Tyskland är i full gång. En av de "militanta grupperna", "Peuple de Seattle", har gjort ett attentat emot ministerpresidenten i Rostock förra veckan. SPD politikern görs avsvarig för att tvinga flyktingar i deportationsfängelser och för våldsamma avvisningar. Han har även aktivt medverkat till att anordna G8 i Heiligendamm, och gruppen säger att "den som agerar så här, skall inte heller finna ro hemma". "Peuple de Seattle" attackerade ministerns hus med stenar och färgfyllda glasflaskor då han låg och sov. Gruppen är organiserade i nätverket "Militanta kampanjen mot G8 i Heiligendamm" och säger att flera attentat kan komma att genomföras mot alla de som arbetar för att genomföra G8 mötet nästa år.

Den andra och tredje oktober planeras stora socialprotester, mot bland annat nyliberala åtgärder som HartzIV, ifrån olika fackföreningar och nätverket "Aktionsbündnis Sozialproteste". I detta nätverk har ett upprop skrivits av arbetslösas grupper, där man uppmanar till att skapa en bred rörelse av "arbetslösa i rörelse". Detta upprop uppmanar alla som drabbas av HartzIV att protestera mot statsministern Angela Merkel vid nästa års G8 toppmöte.

I början av augusti hölls ett "anti-G8" camp i norra Tyskland, kallat "CampInski". Campet samlade människor ifrån hela Europa och främst Tyskland. Där anordnades aktioner, diskussioner och kommande års protester för juni 2007 planerades. Även detta globala upprop skrevs:

And here the Call....
.... and now for something more and completely different.

A global call written at anti-G8 "Camp Inski", Northern Germany, August 2006

Many calls like this have been made before - for people to voice their protests against an unjust, unfair, unequal international system. The G8 summit represents just one part of this. Many have called for mobilisations and hoped networks would grow on their own. Although unsure whether or not we have the right recipe, we will try to avoid making the same mistake. We, the International Working Group on resistance against the next G8, are just a group of people sitting in a field, wanting to change the world. We call for people all over the world to join us in expanding the basis for a strong and effective resistance here and now against the G8 summit in Heiligendamm in 2007 - and in the future - against the entire bloody capitalist circus.

Looking beyond this mobilisation, we will make this the next building block of a strong, continuous global resistance, drawing strength from our diversities. We call for the creation of lasting networks sharing and expanding discussions and ideas across borders, which in the future will make it unnecessary for us to even consider them.

To make resistance against the G8 as effective as possible we wish to facilitate the participation of people across the world - in thepreparations, sharing their experience and in the actions themselves - both abroad and in Germany.

Practically this means several things: We will publish a two-way newsletter - firstly to provide relevant news and information about the preparations and discussions in Germany and abroad. In addition to this, there will be an English language website and mailing list as a forum for communication between the working group and activists, creating a strong international network in advance. To achieve these goals we call for you to contribute with information, experiences, issues, forms of action, views and ideas for practical resistance. Also we call for help with translation and distribution of information - the creation of a pool of translators to help make information accessible to everybody and volunteers to help by printing and distributing the newsletter to their local communities.

We invite everyone interested to get involved in the working group itself. Especially we invite you to participate in the international meeting in the first or second weekend of February, 2007. The location for the meeting has not yet been selected but it will be outside of Germany. The meeting will provide a space for everyone to get up to speed so we can all participate on an equal footing. To enable people to be present both at the upcoming international planning meeting and at the protests in Germany we will provide real, up to date, practical information about aquiring visas and travelling, and if possible to help financing visas.

This and many other projects of the working group will require funding, therefore we also call for all who are able to help raise the funds needed.

We will help make the process as well as the actions open as widely as possible,by coordinating and providing clear and relevant information as well as easily accessible ways of communicating.

We want change - not just for our children, but for ourselves.

We call for you to join us in making this mobilisation yet another stepping stone, another nail in the coffin of international capitalism.

contact for the international working group: g8-int@riseup.net
international mobilisation
mailinglist: g8-int@lists.riseup.net

www.gipfelsoli.org
http://dissentnetzwerk.org

[g8-int [at] riseup.net]

Stora blockader planeras för att kunna störa eller stoppa toppmötet. Nedan följer ett upprop ifrån ett flertal tyska grupper:

The call is signed by Antifaschistische Linke Berlin, Avanti – Projekt undogmatische Linke, Gruene Jugend (Budesvorstand), and X-tausendmal quer; along with individual activists from Attac, Solid, and Werkstatt fuer Gewaltfreie Aktion.

For mass blockades of the 2007 G8 Summit in Heiligendamm

Block the G8!

Almost every spectrum of the political left – from NGOs, church groups and trade unions, to Attac and the groups and networks of the radical left – have called for protests against the G8 Summit in Heiligendamm (near Rostock in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany), planned for June 2007. Already, a year ahead of the Summit, it is clear that it will be the biggest leftwing mobilisation in Germany in years, in terms of its breadth, number of participants, and the intensity of actions – on top of this, the mobilisation will be international.

According to the plan so far, and the way it was discussed at the Action Conference in Rostock in March 2006, the mobilisation won’t be limited to the obligatory big demonstration, counter-conference and cultural event. The perspective held by many is that powerful days of resistance to the G8 and the current world order should also be an opportunity for the possibility of, and forces for, change to be made visible. The migration-political day of action and the camp play a role in this – along with an action perspective yet to be realised: Blockade the G8!

The critique of the G8 always returns to its lack of legitimacy. Alone the construction of the G8 as the group of eight most powerful and economically strong states on Earth illustrates their lack of a democratic basis. Discussions are held and decisions made with global implications, without the vast majority of those affected being represented in any way. But the G8 does not just lack a democratic legitimacy, but also one of political content.

The world dominated by the G8 is a world of war, poverty and misery, a worldwide attack on social and democratic rights, ongoing environmental destruction, and a political practice of removing rights and carrying out torture in connection with the “war on terror”. All of this not despite but because of the politics of the G8 states – and the G8’s alibi of debt forgiveness and “Help for Africa” cannot distract from this. The issue here is not that the G8 should make other decisions. Rather, we want to call the G8 and its politics itself into question. We reject the legitimacy of the G8 as a whole. This clear “No!” is also reflected in the form of our protest.

From the perspective of a globalisation from below and a world of solidarity, democracy, peace and respect for natural resources, a political concept and the mobilisation of a large number of demonstrators is necessary, but by no means enough. Along with good arguments, a symbolic and practical break with the G8’s claim to power is necessary in order to make clear that we want to do more than just register protest. A practical delegitimation needs to take place which expresses itself in the form of our actions: in which we do not recognise the power of the G8, in which we actively refuse, in which we obstruct. Ultimately, we need to appropriate the collective determination of our future.

Our objective is blockades in which thousands of people from different political and cultural spectrums, and with experience of different action forms, can take part; in which actions do not only respect and tolerate one another, but where a way is found to genuinely act together. For this, we don’t need “heroes”, but rather the strength which comes from the solidarity and collectivity of many. Our action plans, therefore, are not oriented towards the needs of the apparently most committed or radical. Rather, as calculable situation as possible should be created in which decision making structures are transparent, the boundaries of everyone are respected and a political and practical responsibility for seeing through the blockades are taken on. We are convinced that these are the conditions in which thousands of people from different backgrounds would genuinely be able to actively participate.

Even if the blockades do have a symbolic meaning as a symbol of resistance and social disobedience, we are not aiming for a purely symbolic action. Our objective is a genuine blockade of the 2007 G8 Summit and to cut it off from its infrastructure. We will occupy points through which the enormous number of service providers, translators, ordinary delegation members and so on… need to pass – and we will not leave these points voluntarily. We are not, however, looking for confrontation with the police. Our objective, rather, is to realise lasting and mass blockades, and to create a situation which is calculably and transparently created by as many blockaders as possible.

We understand ourselves as fundamentally in solidarity with action concepts from other leftwing summit opponents and it is not our intention to limit the diverse ways in which the movement expresses itself. At the same time, we take for granted that everyone who takes part in the actions will respect the consensus reached at particular blockade points.

The big opportunity presented by the anti-G8 mobilisation – which motivates everyone involved – is to realise commonality and facilitate communication over the borders which currently divide spectrums and concepts, and on this basis open the movement for many new activists. Through this, a long term strengthening and empowerment of the leftwing political movement could grow from the days of protest and resistance in June 2007. It is on this basis that we are convinced of the necessity to leave divided conceptions of action and blockade forms behind and to look for new forms of commonality in action.

We come from different traditions of protest and resistance: from the youth environmental and anti-nuclear movements, from Attac and the radical left, from non-violent action groups and the autonomous antifascist movement. We bring with us, into this cooperation, diverse and years-long experience of blockade actions: experience from the CASTOR (nuclear waste) transport in the Wendland (in northern Germany), experience of successful blockades of Nazi demonstrations in Berlin, Kiel and Leipzig, experience from the Resist campaign against the Iraq war, and of course experience of summit blockades, for example in Evian in 2003.

Aware of our differences, we have decided to take responsibility for the mass blockades of the 2007 G8. Many questions remain to be answered within an exciting processes of getting to know one another and finding ourselves. For all of us, the conviction about, and optimism for, successful mass blockades of the 2007 G8 summit, along with a lasting, positive action experience for activists can only come from moving beyond the borders of our respective spectrums and acting together. This Call Out primarily has the objective of presenting our thoughts about mass blockades up until now. We hope that blockade groups which can imagine taking part in such actions will be established in as many locations as possible over the coming weeks and months. With a common “Blockade on Tour” trip, beginning in the Autumn, we hope to be able to support the process of group building. We hope that many of these blockade groups, and others, will come to the International G8 Action Conference in Rostock from 10th-12th November 2006 to call the blockade network into being.

4th August 2006

Antifaschistische Linke Berlin [Antifascist Left Berlin], Avanti – Projekt undogmatische Linke [Avanti - Project for an undogmatic left], Gruene Jugend (Budesvorstand) [Green Party Youth (Federal Steering Committee)], X-tausendmal quer [a network for mass blockades of nuclear waste (i.e. CASTOR) transports].

Along with individual activists from: Attac (Germany), Solid [Socialist Youth], and Werkstatt fuer Gewaltfreie Aktion [Workshop for Non-violent Action].

We are contactable by email via:
blockade@g8-2007.de