Blog
Reclaim Power at the climate talks in Copenhagen
Since 7am we have been engaged in the peoples´ struggle to reclaim power from the lobbyists and do-nothing government delegates inside the formal climate talks at the Bella Center in Copenhagen. First Terran, took the train to meet the demonstrators, joined with her La Via Campesina companeros and walked with hundreds of others to the front gates at the Bella Centre. Terran will provide details of this below. I joined the crowd of media and NGO people who were trying to get inside the formal meetings through normal channels but only for those with passes. Police were everywhere. I ran into Ellie Perkins, environmental studies professor from York University in Toronto. She had spent over 13 hours standing in line in the cold over a two day period merely to get a pass and then to find out that it was no good since the majority of NGO pass holders are barred as of today, leaving only government and media representatives with passes.
When the loudspeaker announced that because of the protest no NGO pass holders would be allowed in, a loud cry went up. I then walked to the end of the police-enclosed area under the train overpass and tried to reach the demonstrators who were by that time holding the Peoples Assembly to affirm a workable climate change program. The demonstrators´assembly then heard a number of speakers who Terran video recorded. The representative of the Canadian Postal Workers´Union damned global market slavery and called for united global mobilizations. She called this an historic moment. I was some hundred meters away and got into an informal chat with a young policeman who told me that I should not try to join the demonstrators because the police were intending to block them from dispersing by surrounding them on all sides. Then, said the young policeman, the protestors who were on video as having bit the gloved fingers of police during the push and shove moment when the protestors tried to move forward, protecting themselves from the police with blow up mattresses, at these protestors would be identified and selectively arrested. I immediately phoned a contact inside the demonstration and told him of the police plan. He informed others and the demonstrators immediately mobilized to disperse. He told me that they would not allow a single member to be arrested.
I then made my way back to the apartment where we are staying. There our friend from Spain who had NGO pass status told us that he had gone and entered the Bella Centre at around 10 am and had participated in the inside the building march around by delegates who were trying to be part of the peoples assembly. He joined the 200 plus who broke off from that 1000-strong inside march to actually leave the premises and join the peoples assembly. He got outside, moved towards his goal, only to realize that he could not survive like that without his coat which he had left inside the Bella Centre. But he was not allowed to re-enter, and had returned to the near by apartment where he was able to relate this information to us. Then Terran arrived back with the news she has to relate - see below.
The atmosphere was full of snow flurries and excitement with vegan activists handing out wrapped sandwiches, with reggae music from loudspeakers all powered by an energetic man pedaling his bicycle, There was a wonderful blurring of lines amongst all the various actors whether from government, civil society, the media or elsewhere. The air was full of possibilities. We learned of a party to be held tonight for Canadians and their friends. Great. We heard that the demonstrators had returned to the city center and especially to the radical independent community of Christiania.
The March and Peoples’ Assembly: As we marched toward the Bella Centre, we chanted mantras celebrating peoples’ power and unity in the struggle against the COP15. We were reminded by the organizers on a loud speaker that we were legally and morally within our right to be demonstrating in the streets, asking us not to be afraid of the police and to take care of each other. The crowd walked tightly together in lines, with numbers of brave young people linked arm in arm surrounding the outside of our march so that the police could not get in. We arrived at the Bella centre only be greeted by, as was expected, police in riot gear, tear gas and a number of arrests. More soon.
I thought it comical that snow would fall during the climate talks while old man Rothschild’s trying to convince world leaders on the inside and David Rothschild’s operating things on the outside so they can set up a bank that the whole world can pay a global tax into and help their family get a complete lock on the world.Here in the states Rockefeller pays the anti oil groups to protest drilling so the price will stay up.They play both ends and increase their power and wealth.
#1. Posted by roland in illinois on February 1st 2010 at 12:49am