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G8 evian 2003
We decided to try and cross the border into Switzerland (Geneva). We'd heard a park had been squatted near the university. We stopped in the mountains a while by wild strawberries - ate - drank- "smartened" selves up for border crossing. It was a beautiful place - wild forests, rivers - ridges to walk - could have stayed for a good few days.
Continued through the mountains and on to Geneva on the A140. Coming through the toll before Geneva we were stopped by French Gendarmerie, who did an ID check and car check. They were ok - said "Hashish"- I shook my head with a puzzled expression. One mini French conference between the three of them later, they ask "Opium?". I say "No thank you". I asked them to show us our route on the map, smiled and co-operated - told them we were going to camp in Geneva and go to demonstration on Sunday. So we set off again and as per directions followed signs for the airport Ten minutes later we hit he Swiss border - it looked open - one lane only - we were pulled over again (foreign plates) and sat for a while watching a French car in front getting searched , while two Swiss soldiers with BIG guns loitered around. We were asked to leave the car and bring our i.d. and mobile phones into the office /building.
Inside we put the stuff / pocket contents as requested on the table, watched as two border officials went through it all.
They took our phones away with our passports into the back office - to do what? Unfortunately mine did not have a security pin on it. Anyhow - we all took it quite well - had a bit of a laugh - got our stuff back and had to buy a years motorway pass for Switzerland. They didn't tell us about that before they started the checks - They did not check or search the car.
So off we drove to Geneva to find the squatted park - some lost wandering - direction asking and map reading later we found it. It looked very dead and a security car and blokes were parked in the gate. We found a PGA contact who explained to us the situation and plans for Geneva - and invited us to stay at his place for the night - which we did - more map reading and getting lost. The plan in Geneva is to block the city on Sunday morning, which the police have said they will tolerate as long as no important people " are held up!?! The organising groups though are expecting a fluffy affair - but with less people than they were hoping for due to the French focus on domestic erosion of pensions apparently.
Next day we drove along the motorway to Laussanne- no sign of much happening /police/military wise. Drove into town and found some road blocks already in place, but found a place to park ( with signs that it would be restricted on Sunday), walked down to the ferry port (into the red zone) red and white bollardy things beside the roads showed us where it would be blocked.
Sat by the fountains near the lake and had a picnic - fed fearless finches - got maps of the town at tourist info - watched the police boat do it's run past the shore. Spotted plain clothes police - fish out of water.
Watched soldiers (Swiss) eat ice-cream on their break. Sat by the lake breathing in the smell of the sea. Lovely. Watched lorry / trailer bringing in 9ft high metal fences.
We then went to find the camps - the official one was empty - pristine and bizarre.
The unofficial one was in the woods by the lake - I stayed in the car - fed the gremlins and had a siesta. The others went down to camp but were unable to talk to the people cause they were having a meeting about doing pink & silver mobilisation.
We drove back to Geneva on the A road. Saw a soldier (with big gun & kit) sat by side of road waiting for a lift. saw a suited briefcased man carrying green and orange uniforms towards a building in town. Basically Laussanne had a lot of activity. Picked up our stuff at Geneva and drove to Annemase, got stopped crossing border into France. I.D. checked again. I burst bag of peanuts all over myself - what a mess - peanuts in boots.
It was dark when we found the aerodrome, looking very dead with no sign of the camps, this was the extent of our directions. Some vehicles came towards us and the aerodrome gate. This mad Frenchman jumped out of one of them spoke to us a while ,said "follow me". So we convoyed behind them to the Camps and grounded that night in Annemasse.
We did workshops, drumming & dancing on the next two days in the camps with Amsterdam samba and a carnival procession through Annemase on the Thursday, which went well - however the organisers had a personal agenda of which they didn't inform us prior to the march.
Near the end in town we stopped for a while - the dancers, tired, had a break & a lot of the crowd began to dance & filled up in front of the band - the organisers moved us on again - & I near the front heard the woman shout Blockade le circumnavigation! The crowd cheer & dance and follow. I thought you wot? (sic) I went & told the maestro & others what I heard - we all go - what for? We were supposed to be building friendly relations with the people of the town - so when we got to the ring-road & the organiser man called a halt we did not stop but continued across it.
The organiser man was very loud and angry about this in French to us. I heard later that he had some banner of some "dead hero" to put up. Later at debriefing we have a consensus that we find out if people have hidden agendas before working with them in the future.
There was another demo in Geneva the next day on which I did not go. I stayed in the camps but had no takers for dance workshops. So instead I began designing occupational psychology for samba activists , with three others. We based it on the fears that people had brought up at the meeting the night before and on building up group dynamics through games- knowledge of medical info relevant to demo's, relaxation techniques & feeding it into tactics on movement etc.
Never did we get a chance to do any of it. I heard little bits of information and rumours around the camps that day, and prepared myself to move off. Once people returned from Geneva and we had our action meeting we went with general camp consensus that to make a difference other than in the symbolic sense we should go to Lausanne.
We did next day - I drove) first of all into Geneva to pick up samba tat from some friends arriving with it on the aeroplane.
We meant to meet them at the station - they were not there. We eventually found out they were waiting at Le 'space d'association in the town.
When we arrived in Laussanne there was a huge meeting / workshop running, which I fell into - we did a role play of a blockade with some people being pigs - others build barriers, drumming dancing - me at front got grabbed by a "pig", and de-arrested. lotsa fun.
That night we had a meeting until very late, I lay down in the circle of people on the beach and listened as maps were consulted and everyone became clear on their role. We all slept near each other on the beach. We woke at 5 in the morning. Some of the samba banged drums around the camp & at 7 am we set off into town.
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| Pink & Silver Banner @ start of Lausanne blockade |
As usual we were trailing behind - typical samba faff- but we took up our place at the start of the march where we assembled on the main road into town. We had 11 spotters in all that day- some off scouting way ahead & two in each position around the band. People were in positive spirits (although tired) and we reached town and passed the first police line (on our right) with no confrontational behaviour from them. One man stuck pink hearts on their riot shields. I smiled as I danced - most of them smiled back. Another bowed and walked around his umbrella to a female security guard outside a hotel. We continued on into the town up the hill from the port and outside the yellow zone. Never got to see the red zone that day. At the next crossroads 2 police vans (they looked like military armoured vehicles) appeared, out jumped robocops & lines began forming above us above as well as below. Part of the block - the "barricaders" put some barricades (lilandi in pots) up between us and the police - some people danced around them - but we stayed with the band as our unity in the samba affinity group had been stressed in our meetings.
We stopped at this point and had a steering council meeting, which fed into our samba huddle. We decided to continue on across the top of the restricted zone towards the East of the town where we suspected delegates would be shipped in.
As we went on the "barricaders" got more efficient at their role - and had collected huge metal bins on wheels in which they moved their barricades. We knew that the black block were operating behind us in the west of the town, we were in contact with them. By the next crossroads we heard that they were moving up into the town towards us so another stop, another meeting - consensus to go on down the hill.
There was police movement ahead of us - we knew something was up - until this point they had just stopped us going sideways into the yellow zone roads/openings. A few did not want to go down the hill. I think we all understood we would have to come back up it again. On the way down we passed a park/wooded area to our left, someone said "if we need to we re-group we go in there". The road curved slightly & as we got round the bend we saw a big police line at the bottom with a watercannon behind them.
As we got closer - the barricaders moved in front of us and at about 20 metres from the line, very quickly put up a huge barricade of massive metal bins on wheels past which the police would not be able to see. We could not get through to go and dance to diffuse the confrontation although we tried. Kate was really pissed off about this.
So our role as dancers was circumvented by the barricaders. The police spoke into their loud speaker - I did not hear or understand the words. Then they sprayed the watercannon. This was quite pleasant as it was a hot day & it made a beautiful rainbow - however people began to mill in a little confusion. Then they fired c.s. gas canisters amongst us, they exploded with a loud bang, we masked up and retreated up the hill .
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| CS Gas Canister |
I could not see more than 3 ft away from me, the gas was like white smoke - they used a lot!. The vinegar had dried up on my mask - so I did inhale it & it was not pleasant, however my eyes were fine inside my goggles and it did not hurt my skin. I did not panic, but walked & breathed normally, back up the hill.
Once inside the park & clean air I coughed and spat & snotted for 10 minutes & my nose throat and lungs were clear again & had stopped hurting. We realised that our group had split & half the people had gone back up the road instead of into the park. We heard bangs behind us and decided the police must be moving up the hill so we walked further up the path & tried to discuss our next move. At this point someone came back down from up ahead & said we could rejoin the rest but would have to move fast. So we set off up the hill which was steep, narrow & winding & managed to join the rest of the block which was moving uphill away from the yellow zone. Someone began to drum and the samba regrouped & we set off again towards the west of the town, this time zigzagging our way through the streets.
In a short while we came to a large square where 5 roads met, and here we met some of the black block who had been pushed up the town by gas & police lines. We stayed here again for a while - samba huddle & pink block meeting.
The shopkeeper of one shop gave us water. People were buying things in the pasterie & there were public toilets to use, while 3 black bock were cheerfully smashing the glass of advertising hoardings around the central point.
The meetings fed into each other & also liased with black block - I withheld my opinions at this point I felt we were having too many meetings, it disrupted the flow & it was safer to keep moving! The consensus was to support the black block and try and break them through to the rest of their contingent. So we set off down the street Southwest again toward the yellow zone but also back towards the camps. We did not get far before we were gassed again! We doubled back & tried the street to the west & this was not blocked, but we heard from the rear that the police were behind us and advancing, so we moved faster.
We came to a place where there was a park to our left. When we were nearly past it they fired c.s. gas in front of us from the rear. I thought "they want us to go into the park" so I kept walking masked up towards the gas. There was a group of 3 townspeople with a baby in the park & the baby was screaming & crying as the gas reached them, probably from the fear of the loud bangs made by the canisters.
Everyone at this point was jumping over the fence into the park rather than go through the gas - so I had to go that way also (DO NOT SPLIT FROM AFFINITY GROUP). As I was about to jump down from the top of the fence, a presumably panicking black block guy or maybe an undercover pig, ran into me at force & pushed me off so I spun over and wound up in the hedge. Cheers - (Big Fucking Bruise Later) - A friend helped me out & I pulled my mask back on which had tangled in the hedge - I did not breath while it was off my face. We moved down into the park together - found 2 more samba people then heard another of us banging their drum & followed the sound to that point. Samba re-grouped again. People wanted to have the meetings again but others (including me) wanted to keep moving & in the end we very quickly decided to keep moving. I retrospect I believe the police were deliberately herding all blocks together & then out of town.
When we set off from the park we had a huge amount of people with us (at this point they were once more following the samba, which is generally what happens in large collective action) - this was pretty much all of the pink bloc and black bloc put together. We moved West & soon found ourselves on the road heading out of town towards the camps - all seemed quite behind -& a woman said "we are good cows now & they are stop gassing us". Some of the black bloc broke up a shell garage as we passed it & from behind the police set off gas again.
When we got to the large roundabout on the edge of town, we headed to the motorway to see if we could blockade that. A police carrier drove round fast & out jumped 6 police officers who from 10 metres away began to throw gas canisters at us - I was right at the front with some people carrying a banner.
'Bang' to the left 'bang' to the right as the canisters fell around us. I put my head under the banner as they were, to mask up & moved with them away from the missiles & the uniforms lobbing them - once masked got clear of the banner & determinedly ran up to the other road, with 'bang' at my heels. A spotter was there checking for us, I went past and joined the rest of the bloc's once more on the roads to the camps.
We continued on and people straggled out along the way. At this point I was thinking of resting in the shade, eating and recovering from the mornings events - I was headed for the illegal camp's beach. When we got below the legal camp Andrew said "let's put the drums in the red-bus" which was parked there - I thought alright I'll go with them (still in crowd mentality mode).
So we went up to the bus & I settled in the shade to rest. The remainder of the group straggled in bits and bats & did what they did. The atmosphere was relaxed.
Then we heard "The police are coming", people went to talk & decide what to do. I was tired & stayed resting. There was a call to come together at the centre of the camp & unify when the police came. So we went with that & stayed together. There were people - maybe who tried to get away - or just further out in the other parts of the camp - being arrested by robo-cops. I saw one guy pushed on his knees by two pigs in a corner made by two buildings & they handcuffed him with a cable-tie.
The police moved in and encircled the circle of people we had made. Everyone waited. An older shorter pig without the full on robo-cop get up came forwards with a loudspeaker & asked "Who are your leaders?" We shouted back "we have no leaders" this was repeated a couple of times until they caught on and began to negotiate with the group as a whole. We had a loudspeaker too which was passed around when people wanted to speak or a translation was needed. So this is how it worked; the head pig would make a demand & this was translated into 3 languages by our group for everyone to understand - people would make proposals, which were also translated and we would shout our concerns, loud speaker being passed around.
We were first asked to come out one by one and show our papers - which was greeted with "no" & shouts of "solidarite sans papiers". They then asked that we come in pairs, this was discussed for a time and once again turned down. They then began trying to give us time limits for our decisions by threatening us with steaming in. We began chanting "internationale solidarite, no fences no borders " all sorts.
The head pig went away again and in a while came back and spoke to the robo-cops who began, three or four to one, to forcibly arrest people from the circle, one by one to chants of "the whole world is watching, the whole world is watching", "nazi, nazi" and just roars of derision, while people with cameras stooped and walked around to get a good angle. People locked on and held hands. The pigs slowed down after the first few, they had to process them and that took time as they didn't have the facilities. They were Swiss riot cops just doing their jobs I wondered if their mothers were proud of them. It was very hot under the midday sun with no shelter I covered my head. Luckily there were toilets in the place we had congregated and inside the pig perimeter. People near them filled water bottles and passed them into the circle, threw water over the crowd which they must have enjoyed but were told to stop 'cause it was a bit much.
One person passed out because of the heat and stress, and eventually were taken out and helped by our medics. People were smoking spliffs and swapping jokes, singing songs and chanting in between arrests, losing masks and sunglasses on the ground. I gave a few people rescue remedy when they asked for it. I was worried. Arrest, is my fear, being institutionalised and in the power of men but the solidarity and unity of the group was beautiful and powerful and strengthening. I did not have my papers with me, they were in my car, as a foreign national in Switzerland it is required that you carry your papers all the time, this was my understanding at the time. If I were to be arrested someone would have to go and fetch them before I would be released. My affinity group new this and I stayed with them near the back of the circle (arrests were happening from the front back).
After a couple of hours the police lines began to loosen at the rear of the perimeter and some people took a walk back and away into the camp. I think this was a deliberate strategy on the part of the police as they knew they hadn't the facilities and numbers to deal with all of us.
Two friends came back with news that they had been to the far end of the track and thought there was a way out. I decided to leave, I changed my clothes in a marquee removing the pink and silver and walked down the track with a friend watching some pigs filming us from higher up the side of the hill. We stopped and talked to some people in a tented area for a while, then walked on and split up. I followed a track through a garden and up into the woods, three people I did not know, one with a bike, followed me. Silently we walked up winding tracks through the trees listening.
At the top of hill coming out of the woods to some housing blocks I signalled them to not follow me but go another way. I then walked into the streets of Rouen, feeling relieved but paranoid.
I met an angel of a woman at a bus stop, she asked me if I knew the way to the station while I was walking by. So I sat down to talk. She had also been in the police enclosure and had to avoid arrest as there were warrants out for her in three countries due to her political activity. On her journey up through the woods she had met a policeman, who insisted she stay and talk to him for about fifteen minuets , she also had no papers with her, but in the end he had let her go. I caught a bus with her a little way, then took a long walk back to my car and papers at the side of lake Geneva.
From here, finding that my phone was working, although usually blocked during manifestations. I text one of my affinity group in the enclosure to let them know I made it back and also one of the legal team in London asking them to let people know they were supported. Later that day received two very peculiar messages apparently from this person, however they went on like they were in Switzerland rather than London , spoke of meeting up later in France and asked me what my plans were, this completely blew my mind, not only was my phone going down at most "manifestations" it was now receiving dodgy messages from who knows whom. After this I got in the habit of dismantling it every time there was a sensitive conversation, poor phone in bits on beaches, fields and in vehicles, it's never been the same since.
People came back that evening in dribs and drabs, some with their belongings returned to them in plastic carrier bags. They told their stories of their arrests and the events at the official camp after I had left. A fair few from Amsterdam who were nearer the front had been arrested and were held for about eight hours in all. Apparently some people were released without even having their ID checked, suggestive of intimidation tactics being at the forefront of the police operation.
Most of London had stayed and while waiting to be arrested had heard reports that the legal march, happening that afternoon in Laussanne, 2000 strong were heading for the camp in solidarity with the people detained there. However the authorities had run out of time, as Swiss law states that people may not be held for longer than five hours without access to shelter, food, water and medical attention, none of which they could provide, so at some point the head pig with the loudspeaker came out and told everyone they could go.
We rested that evening and again slept close as we'd heard they wanted to evict the squatted camp the next day by noon. I decided to leave the next day and drove to Geneva with three other band members. On the way out to Annemmasse we got a call to go to the ONU to demonstrate against water privatisation. We stopped opposite a petrol station changed into pink and silver, and organised our equipment, then drove back through Geneva to the manifestation. We decided that at the first signs of police intimidation we would leave together, as we were all worn out from the previous day's confrontation in laussanne.
We arrived half way through and as we walked towards the sound of samba we saw riot robocops armouring up outside an official looking building's entrance. We joined the others and danced and drummed with Turin and Amsterdam as people threw mud at the gates. Some people called for us to lead a blockade of the road. There was no consensus for this to happen as many of the band were still tired or shaken from laussanne. The time allocated for the manifestation by the authorities was up. Up the hill a line of robocops was forming (Swiss blue rather than German black, apparently a little nicer). At the sight of this I decided it was time to go for me (no need for them to escalate their intimidation tactics on me that day) and left with my mini car affinity group. We skirted the area on our way back and saw about eight vans full of robocops heading into it.
We drove back to the camps at Annemase and once more were pulled over on the border for an ID check. They found my herbs and spices very interesting so I gave them a bit of a herb talk in English which was probably pretty meaningless to a French border official, but people being daft deserve daftness in return.
Back at the camps it was the last night of the demonstrations, we could only wait for our friends to return from the streets of Geneva and listen to any reports that came in. Communications were blocked again, phones offline and apparently two riots had broken out. I find it is easier to be on the front line with my friends and loves than to wait not knowing if they are safe.
We heard that the hospital in Geneva was put on emergency standby and the police were using rubber bullets. There was nothing else I could do to help them so I got drunk that night with a French friend and watched the huge bonfires. I felt I maybe understood what the people around me were saying more than before that night, although they spoke another language, because I understood the stories they were telling which were about us here in this place and time and our stories came from the heart.
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