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Reclaim Power March and the People´s Assembly
16 December 2009 Reclaim Power March and the People’s Assembly: It was 12pm when we finally arrived at the front gates of the Bella Centre, still linking arms and declaring´climate justice now´and ´this is what democracy looks like´ in our loudest voices. As we advanced, the police advanced. We were directed by the organizers on the loud speakers to push forward toward the barricades. Our intention was to get passed the police, break down the barricades and meet with the delegates inside who were going to walk-out of the COP15 meeting. The police would not let us go any further. I saw demonstrators being struck by the police with batons, others were pepper sprayed. Emergency support workers from the crowd tended to the ones who were lucky enough to avoid arrests.
Inside the Bella Centre, 200 delegates who were for many reasons disgusted with the COP15 process were chanting ´reclaim power´ as they moved en mass toward the gates to meet us. We saw this big colorful group of people coming toward us and it felt like ‘yes, we did it!’ until swarms of police prevented them from going any further.
Eventually the organizers who were directing the crowd toward the Bella Centre were arrested and taken away. Tear gas was fired and we fled to a safer space down the street to the right of where the the police were now positioning their vehicles to push us away from the gates. Unable to get passed the police to meet the delegates, we all assembled around a red and blue round tarp a short distance from the police to begin the Peoples Assembly.
More people came to the circle as speakers from social movements from Ecuador, Mexico, Brazil, Canada, Russia and Denmark addressed the crowd on the megafone. A woman from Ecuador declared that movements in the south are building energy sovereignty by ‘leaving the oil in the soil’ to stop climate change. Another woman for Jubilee South declared that the South is a creditor and industrialized governments and corporations should ‘pay up, pay up, pay up your climate debts’. Alberto Gomez from La Via Campesina reminded the crowd that peasants of the world are cooling the planet and food sovereignty is the solution to the corporate crimes that create climate change, rural poverty, joblessness, hunger and sickness. The man from the Canadian Union of Postal Workers declared an end to capitalism as a way to stop climate change. Demonstrators showed their support by cheering and clapping.
A local activist then informed us that the group of organizers who planned the ‘horizontal process’ for the Peoples Assembly were arrested. These organizers, from Climate Justice Action, the organization mainly responsible for this demonstration, planned to facilitate groups of about 20 to 30 people in a discussion about solutions to climate change and actions that our communities and governments could take. He called on us to organize ourselves and continue the process so that we could all have our voices heard. We gathered in circles of about 20 to 30 people and we were asked to come up with a short statement that sums up our demands and visions. English was used as the main language during this assembly and anyone who could provide translation was asked to help those who needed it.
We quickly assembled ourselves and began to assign a facilitator and co-facilitator. The circle I was a part of was made up of mostly young people from Europe and some people from Latin America. The discussion centred around food; that we need to reclaim control over land, seeds, and other resources and have localized food systems to reduce fossil fuel use. Some suggested boycotts and strikes as a strategy to weaken the corporations who control our seeds and land and are profiting from climate change. Others suggested that we help others in our communities to understand the problems and solutions. The circle also agreed with my statement that we need to take direction from women in the South and also people in our own community who are most exploited and marginalized so that we do not risk replicating capitalist social relations in the movement. Our final statement was ‘consume less, produce more of our own, healthy food locally, and realize unity’.
We were informed by our friend Peter, a Danish activist, that the minister for Climate and Energy, Connie Hedegaard, resigned as head of COP15. I do not have any more details on why she resigned at this time. The crowd cheered.
After the circles disbanded we immediately began to march away from the police toward the Klimaforum. I am not sure whether the statements of the other circles are being published. More on that soon.
