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19.May.03 - end of april an international preparation meeting took place in geneva, with
participants from various groups in the anti-g-8-mobilisation. the meeting
should be used mainly for coordinations of the planned blockades, but also
for exchange about other ideas for actions, about the camps/villages and
about communication both in the next weeks and during g-8.
some conclusions from the meeting:
first topic was about estimations, proposals and preparations concerning the
blockade at 1st of june.
the summit officially will start at this sunday at 7 p.m.. but a lot of
transports and probably also arrivings of summit-delegates (who have partly
booked their hotels at saturday...) or journalists will start in the
morning. so we want to try to start with blockades as soon as possible,
perhaps at 6 a.m. or latest at 9 a.m. ... and this decision depends on one
hand to further informations, which partly will be available very
shortlimited, and on the other hand -and much more-
to the amount of activists, who are ready for blockades!
already in earlier meetings was decided to organize a "spacious" flexible
concept of blockades. that means, that we are not interested to reach the
red zone around evian or even to break this zone. but we want to disturb the
coming and going of the summit-participants as effective as possible at some
favoured points of blockades in a longer distance from evian.
the summit-participants, who arrive at geneva airport (and who will not be
transported as vips by helicopters) have to cross these blockades. and much
more important: about 5000 of the exspected 10.000 summit-guests will have
their accommodation in luxury-hotels in geneva or lausanne. for three days
of summit these guests have to exspect three times travelling to and from
evian, using the streets from geneva and annemasse to evian or to go to (or
to be in) lausanne and to use the ferry to evian.
concerning genf/annemasse:
several streets lead in direction to evian from geneva and annemasse. the
plan is to block all important points at 1st of june.
at the wider international meeting in the beginning of march it was decided,
and partly against the intentions of some reformist groups, to mobilise for
the mass-demonstration at the same day as for the blockades. if really 100
until 500.000 demonstrators will come, hopefully all important streets could
be blocked by the huge amount of people. but a well coordinated concept
will be necessary to get involved as much of the demonstrators as possible
and to convince many of them to stay until
the evening or even for more days.
concerning lausanne:
the red zone is constructed through the lake to the ferry-port of lausanne
in ouchy. coming from geneva via the highway or directly from the hotels of
lausanne using a metro (which is more a tram and its second part not more
underground...) the summitguests should be escorted to the ferries in ouchy
to get transferred to evian.
the concept of blockades in lausanne accordingly aims to the end of the
highway, around the ferry-port and already to the metro-stations near to the
hotels. in lausanne it was discussed to organise also concerts or
football-games as flexible concepts of blockades.
the conditions in lausanne are different to geneva, because the
background of a mass-demo is not given. because the transportation from
lausanne to evian is estimated as very important for the summit, a lot of
groups, mainly from switzerland, mobilise to lausanne.
because of a lot of open questions and the necessity to keep our concepts
flexible until the beginning of the summit it will be crucial for an
effective coordination, that as much groups as possible reach the region
already at thursday (29th of mai and a holiday in most countries!). it would
be the best to get informed and involved in the concepts of blockades in the
various camps/villages.
in annemasse two camps will be organised, in geneva one camp, a convergence-
and and indymediacenter. in lausanne a camp will be organised too.
the respective camps have its own preparation-meetings and structures and
programs, most of it will be published on their websites.
the efficiency of the blockades depends mainly to the mobilisation and to
the question, if it will suceed, that some thousand people will come already
between thursday and saturday to participate actively in the preparations of
the blockades.
some more actions will be organised in the days before the summit starts:
- at thursday (29th of mai) in lausanne a demonstration is planned around the red zone and visiting the most important hotels. at friday the bike-caravan from bern will be welcomed in lausanne.
- at friday (30th of mai) a demonstration (or "travelling manifestation") will start at 11 a.m. through the quarter of institutions. this action is directed against the headquarters of iom, wto and wipo (world intellectual property organisation) to interconnect the struggles against "migrationmanagement", neoliberalisation and "digital rights management"
- for friday afternoon is proposed to organise actions at the borderline (between geneva and annemasse) to ask for freedom of movement for all demonstrators, if borderpolice will try to hinder us.
- at saturday some more actions in front of luxury-hotels should take place, when a lot of summit-delegations have reached.
- at saturday evening the "feu au lac" are in preparation, 50 fires around the lac leman as symbol of protest and also as last meetingpoints for mobilisation and coordination for the blockades next morning.
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