Revolution #161, April 12, 2009
London: Thousands Clash with Police in G-20 Protests
In early April, the G-20 met in London. This was a meeting of the heads of state of the 20 largest economies in the world imperialist system. In the streets outside, battles raged for three days between police and thousands of people who had come to protest these capitalist vultures who exploit people all around the world.
Demonstrators ranged from committed anarchists to small businesspeople, craftsmen, housewives and students. Diverse protests and encampments focused on many crucial questions—poverty and hunger, global warming, the oppression of the Palestinian people, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But what came up again and again was a powerful sense that the capitalist system is not working, and a deep anger—what one young woman described as “a fire in our bellies” at the leaders and enforcers of that system. Anti-capitalist, anti-government and anti-money banners and graffiti permeated the wide range of activities.
Police prepared a vast repressive machinery days ahead of time. Duncan Campbell of The Guardian newspaper spoke to the fear behind this: “The nightmare scenario, as far as the police are concerned, is a repeat of the poll tax riots of 1990 when control of the centre of London was lost.” To maintain the power of the state, police deployed thousands of cops armed with clubs, tear gas and at least five armored vehicles. They forced protestors into a system of barricaded protest zones, a tactic known as “kettling.” Thousands, including children and passersby, were penned in for up to eight hours, not allowed to leave even for water or to use the bathroom, and ID’ed and photographed when they did leave.
Once protest began police were shockingly brutal, with many people carried away bleeding or unconscious, and one man dead under circumstances that are still not clear. Police claimed that they were only going after a “violent minority.”
This did not stop the protests which went on almost continuously and in many parts of the city; a number of times police charges were driven back, and at one point protestors laid siege to the Bank of England and broke into and ransacked the Royal Bank of Scotland . But the repression did fuel wider anger. As Campbell commented: “Does this mean that anyone wanting to go on a demonstration in the future needs to be prepared to be detained for eight hours, photographed and identified? And how long, if such techniques continue, or are further refined, before the confrontations become bloodier? The thing about kettles is that they do have a tendency to come to the boil.”
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