Quake G8 2009 – We are your crisis!

While the worldwide financial crisis and the struggles against it are reinforcing, police and military are preparing for increasing protests and resistance. The institutions of the „leading economic nations“ are forced to reorganize, so this year´s summit of the selfappointed „world leadership“ (Italy´s foreign minister Franco Frattini naming the G8) stands entirely under the sign of this reorganisation.
On the agenda there are climate, resources, food and migration – as security political risks for the industrial countries. Normally no subject for G8 summits, Berlusconi wants to drive forward the „regulation of the internet“.

The inofficial motto of the G8 issued by Frattini is called: „We produce security“.
NATO, G8 and EU are supposed to collaborate more in the „struggle against terrorism“ to secure the „chains of resources“. In the „Tampere Programme“ (1999) and the „Hague Programme“ (2004) of EU ministers of the Interior and of Justice decisions were made to tighten up the migration politics and new departments were established such as Europol and Frontex. A following restrictive „Stockholm Programme“ shall be adopted in autumn 2009 under Swedish presidency. Also envisaged are several missions of the „ European Gendarmerie Squad“ in order to suppress insurrections in „crisis zones“.
In the „civil-military cooperation“ „Anti-Terror“ laws are functioning as a shim for the militarization of social conflicts by NATO, G8 and EU . Those are long since put into position as well against anticapitalistic resistance to bring for example protests against summits under control.

Compared to earlier mobilizations against the G8 summit the resistance is considerable already now.
At the end of March the conference of the G8 Employment Secretaries and Social Services Ministers was meeting in Rome. In the course of the international action day 50000 were demonstrating against the financial crisis and referred to the G8 for the first time since 2001. Basic trade unionists, syndicalists and students were successfully opposing to demonstration conditions.

In Treviso a public general meeting was held against the meeting of the G8 ministers of agriculture. There were demonstrations against environment destruction, industrial agriculture, nanotechnology and genetic engineering. In Rome agricultural workers were striking for eight hours. Activists of YaBasta had fenced in Benetton´s sales outlet with barbed wire. In Roncade a laboratory for experiments with genetically modified organisms was „sanctioned from below“, stones were thrown onto greenhouses and surveillance cameras and „No GMO“ was sprayed on walls: „This is our welcome greeting to the delegations of all those considering themselves ruling the world on the back of billions of people“, it says in a declaration.

In Syracusa/ Sicily 3000 people were demonstrating against the meeting of the G8 environment ministers and related to this against international military and commercial large-scale projects. Out of the mobilization developed a permanent network to support social struggles in the area.

In Torino 8000 people were participating at a nationwide demonstration against a meeting of university directors of the G8 states. Helmeted protesters carried big shields, built barricades and tried to break through police chains. Fire extinguishers were put into position against the police; a symbolic action following the gesture which costed Carlo Giuliani´s life in 2001. The protests in Torino led to the cancellation of the meeting of the G8 ministers of Science scheduled in Monza.

Ten years after Seattle the group „Diggers 2.0“ is calling for „solidarity out of the
rubble of Neoliberalism“. „What we need is crisis management from below, a counterauthority of social movements with shovels in their hands getting ready to build up a post-capitalistic world“.

At the meeting of the G8 ministers of the Interior 5000 people demonstrated against their racist migration politics – this meeting originally scheduled on Lampedusa had been postponed quickly after riots in refugee camps. One week before 15000 people had been already on the streets in Milano to show their protest against the Italian security decrees.

Further protests against the G8 are announced. Before and during the summit it is appealed for general meetings, actions and demonstrations among others on Sardinia, in Lecce, Rome and Vicenza as well as in the earthquake area around L´Aquila.

For informations about new developments in Italy as well as about the trials against 25 activists due to the G8 2001 in Genua, look at:
http://g809.blogsport.de and www.gipfelsoli.org.

In order to support the Italian mobilization we are organizing for the 4th of July a demonstration in Berlin which has as its motto: “Quake G8 2009 – We are your crisis!”

We are calling for pushing ahead in cross-border mobilizations in 2009 the development of a transnational struggle against the „architectures of security“ no matter if they shall be constructed by NATO, G8 or the EU.

Smash security architectures!
Shake G8 – Quake G8!
La storia siamo noi!

4th of July 2009
14.00 pm
Oranienplatz, Berlin

Join the international mailinglist:

* https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/g8-int

* http://g809.blogsport.de
* http://www.gipfelsoli.org

This call is supported by:
Résistance des deux Rives/ Widerstand der zwei Ufer | Gipfelsoli | six hills berlin | Soligruppe Breakout Berlin | Gefangenen-Soligruppe Dresden

Friends of dissent!