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G-8 meets safely behind militarized zone,
as protests flourish

Compiled by Shawn Gaynor

June 4 (AGR)—Leaders of the seven richest industrial nations, and Russia, meet this week in the resort town of Evian, France, behind a 30-mile security perimeter designed to exclude protest, and provide safety for the embattled group. While there were no major protests reported within the perimeter, protests did rage throughout the region outside the perimeter, both in France and across the border in Geneva, Switzerland.

Protesters across the area chanted, “you are 8, we are 6 billion,” as they marched through Annemasse, France, and Geneva, Switzerland, calling into question the legitimacy of the leaders economic and military power to dictate policy worldwide. Protesters also charged that the leaders had done too little to eliminate poverty in the third world, and stop the spread of AIDS in Africa.

On Fri., May 31, before the beginning of protests against the G-8, a group of about 350 protesters disrupted a meeting of France’s Socialist Party in Annemasse, France, tossing rocks through the windows of a conference center and accusing the party of not being radical enough, and sympathizing with neo-liberal policies.

The protesters scuffled with police, who fired tear gas, dispersing the crowd.

The incident highlighted disagreements among the protest movement, between reformist and revolutionary elements.

Meanwhile, across the Swiss border in Geneva, the protests began in earnest, as 4,000 rallied at the World Trade Organization (WTO) headquarters, tearing down the organization’s sign, and painting slogans such as, “Smash the WTO” on walls. From there a march began, with Samba bands playing to the crowd, as people broke windows at the International Trade Center building, which houses more WTO offices, the World Intellectual Property Organization building, and other corporate targets. Police fired tear gas, but were unable to disperse the crowd, which ended its march at the central rail station.

The march followed a banner that read “No Borders,” and was organized to draw attention to the plight of refugees and asylum seekers, though many of the protesters also took the opportunity to vocalize opposition to the occupation of Iraq by G-8 member nations Britain and the US.

“We are here to defend asylum-seekers. Why can money pass though borders, but not asylum seekers?” said one British activist who declined to be named.

The arrest of three French citizens was reported.

Thoughout the weekend in Geneva, a city proud of its tradition of neutrality in European affairs, German police were called in to quell the protests, and ran roughshod over both protesters and Geneva residents alike. 700 German riot police fired rubber bullets, tear gas, and concussion grenades, in response to both peaceful, pacifist protests, and more militant property destruction.

According to an IMC Dispatch report from Geneva, the German police made no distinction between protesters and residents. One man returning home from work said, “I turned my head to the right and saw two German police running towards us with batons. Then they began to hit us. I received two blows on the back. The batons were black and telescopic, and made of metal. I managed to cry out ‘ I’m from Geneva, I’m going home, I’m not a protester.’ Then they chased after the protesters, without saying a word.”

Late Saturday, dozens of protesters set fire to shops and smashed windows in downtown Geneva, where tens of thousands were to gather for a protest march on Sunday.

Geneva police spokesman Jacques Volery said at least 10 shops were targeted during the melee involving some 300 individuals, but he was unable to give details of the extent of the damage.

Meanwhile, 500 Swiss G-8 protesters lit 52 bonfires simultaneously Saturday night along the 104-mile crescent-shaped shoreline of Lake Geneva in a peaceful demonstration meant to contrast with summit protests that have turned violent in the past.

For more than nine hours on Sunday, police used rubber bullets, tear gas, and water cannons against several thousand militants who rampaged through Geneva’s elegant streets.

Swiss police raided a youth cultural center, which acted as a base for the protesters, while German police made repeated baton charges.

The protesters looted petrol stations, pharmacies, and other shops, leaving central Geneva in chaos and its self-described status as a “city of peace” in tatters.

Only a handful of shops were left intact — mainly those which had anti-G-8 or anti-war banners in their windows. Even the bulletproof windows of big banks were smashed.

The violence erupted at the end of two authorized marches by anti-globalization protesters against the G-8 meeting. Police said that around 50,000 people took part in the demonstrations — one from Geneva and the other from Annemasse, just over the border in France.

The protesters blocked traffic by erecting barricades on bridges in Geneva and roads in both countries.

The protests where timed to coincide with the arrival of most of the G-8 leaders.

In Lausanne, France, the base for developing country leaders, veteran anti-globalization protester Martin Shaw, 39, from London, was rushed to the hospital with multiple bone fractures when a police officer cut a rope that held him suspended from a bridge. Shaw fell over 60 feet from a motorway bridge near Lausanne on Lake Geneva.

“We will file a complaint for attempted murder and failure to assist a person in danger,” one of the activists, identified only as Marion, told journalists here.

A judge is investigating the incident.

A group of peaceful demonstrators, consisting of a variety of non-governmental organizations, children, elderly, and disabled people were attacked by German riot police Sunday, as they returned from an anti-G8 demonstration in Geneva.

Guy Smallman, a photographer accompanying the demonstrators, was seriously injured, and a number of others received minor injuries from concussion grenades fired at close range.

The demonstrators were marching on a main road out of Geneva, returning from a large peaceful demonstration against the G-8 summit, when German police, part of a 1,000-strong contingent ‘loaned’ to Switzerland for the duration of the G-8 summit, arrived on the scene, screaming aggressively into their megaphones and blocking off all the streets, trapping the returning demonstrators and passers-by in one place.

As people tried to get out of the firing-line, police fired a volley of 20-30 concussion grenades in their direction.

Smallman, a photographer from Brixton and volunteer with Indymedia UK, was hit in the back of the leg by a grenade fired at close range, which tore off the back of his left leg beneath the knee.

Corporate press, including reporters for Reuters and Agence France Presse who were at the scene, were unable to explain why police had attacked the demonstrators.

Smallman, from Brixton, had two hours of surgery on his leg following Sunday’s incident.

Smallman said he was running away when he was hit in the leg by a grenade that exploded on impact.

“I felt this unbelievable pain in my leg, looked down and there was a fist-sized hole in my calf. It had hit me as it exploded,” he said.

“Some people helped me up the road and tied some cloth around my leg and an ambulance took me to hospital.”

“I’m not going to be walking for a while,” he said.

“It was really ironic because I have photographed riots in Prague and Geneva before and was bored of it, so decided to do some peaceful ones and ended up getting seriously injured.

“You have got to laugh, really.”

According to Smallman, the protest he was involved in had been largely peaceful.

He said: “They [German police] started pushing people around and then withdrawing and some people who were part of the official organizing group turned up and demanded to see the head of the riot police to ask what was going on. Some idiot threw a few stones at the police and they went completely ape.

“There were grenades going off all over the place.”

Medical personnel at Geneva’s main hospital confirmed that a large number of people had been seriously injured by concussion grenades over the past days.

Protests also erupted in the Swiss city of Lausanne, where demonstrators wearing black facemasks attacked the hotel area, where some summit delegates were staying, with stones.

Violence raged on the streets of the Swiss city for a third night Monday as world leaders left the nearby town of Evian in France.

Heavily armed Swiss police used tear gas, rubber pellets, and water cannons to disperse the demonstrators, who staged a sit-in after refusing to be searched by police as they entered the city.

The latest trouble began when 1,500 demonstrators gathered on a bridge over Lake Geneva as police with shields and water cannon stood at both ends.

Police offered to allow protesters to leave if they submitted to searches and identity checks but organizers refused.

Running street battles followed the standoff during which dozens of arrests were made. There were no immediate reports of injuries on either side.

Earlier, some 150 protesters staged a peaceful demonstration outside the World Trade Organization headquarters.

Inside the Evian Summit, leaders failed to patch up the row on the US-British war on Iraq, which split the grouping precisely down the middle earlier this year: Canada, Germany, France, and Russia opposed a military campaign against Saddam without a prior UN Security Council mandate.

The Summit of leading industrial countries limped to an anticlimactic close in the absence of US President Bush, often criticized by some of his counterparts for unilateralism, who left the summit early for the Middle East.

Overall, around 400 protesters were detained in the Swiss city of Lausanne and at least 30 in Geneva.

‘War has not ended’ – US military
Soldiers fire on wedding celebration

Compiled by Eamon Martin

June 4 (AGR)— On the evening of Monday, May 26, US soldiers opened fire on a festive wedding parade in Samarra, Iraq, killing three teenagers and wounding seven others after the celebrants fired weapons in the air.

The shooting was only one of a series of deadly incidents this past week that have sharply increased tensions between US troops and Iraqi civilians.

In Samarra, the convoy of nearly a dozen cars sped through the streets celebrating the marriage of Harith Ahmed. The crowd of young men was boisterous and the mood was exuberant. And as is custom at Iraqi weddings in a country where nearly everyone possesses a gun, witnesses said, a teenager fired one or perhaps three celebratory shots from an antiquated rifle.

At the sound of the gunshots, witnesses said, US soldiers fired at a crowded blue pickup truck at the tail end of the convoy. By the time the shooting ended five minutes later, a 17-year-old Iraqi had fallen in the street dead. A 16-year-old, mortally wounded, hung from the back of the truck as it sped away, his hands dragging along the pavement. Two others, ages 13 and 14, lay dead in the truck. Seven were wounded.

The shooting has served as one more rallying cry in an already restive region, where US soldiers face daily attacks and residents are increasingly bold in their predictions of more strife and bloodshed as long as the Americans occupy their country.

“This whole tragedy is because of the Americans,” said Maan Lufta, a doctor. “They are invaders of our city. For what? Can you tell me why they came? Do you think they really came to liberate us? Who believes that? Nobody believes that.”

Three days later in Samarra, US troops firing a tank-mounted machine gun killed two civilians and injured two others when they tried to drive through a military checkpoint.

Oil war aftermath: ‘attitude problems’

At an Asian security summit in Singapore this past weekend, US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz confided to delegates that oil was the main reason for military action against Iraq, validating the most controversial criticism made by Iraqis and those opposed to the US-led war.

Wolfowitz, who had already described weapons of mass destruction as a “bureaucratic” excuse for war — had now gone further by claiming the real motive was that Iraq is “swimming” in oil.

Wolfowitz’s frank assessment of the importance of oil could not come at a worse time for the US and UK governments, which are both facing fierce criticism at home and abroad over allegations that they exaggerated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein in order to justify the war.

Across Iraq, angry crowds take to the streets almost daily to demand that foreign troops leave. On Mon., June 2, Iraq’s tribal leaders told the Americans they would face war if they did not leave soon, as over 4,000 sacked Iraqi soldiers swarmed angrily around the US headquarters in Baghdad, vowing violence unless they received compensation. Many said they wanted US and British forces to leave Iraq.

“All of us will become suicide bombers,” said former officer Khairi Jassim. “I will turn my six daughters into bombs to kill the Americans.”

Further south, in the city of Basra, several thousand Iraqis protested against British commander Brigadier Adrian Bradshaw being installed as the de facto leader of the city. They denounced the new setup as anti-democratic.

“We can manage ourselves, by ourselves,” read one of the banners carried by demonstrators.

Meanwhile, the British diplomat charged with bringing democracy to Iraq said Iraqis are not ready for democracy.

John Sawers, Tony Blair’s special envoy, said that the country’s political culture was too weak, and radicals too powerful, to proceed with elections for an interim government.

According to Sawers, occupation officials failed to realize how much Iraqi “attitude problems” after decades of oppression would hinder reconstruction.

The next day, thousands of Iraqi Muslims marched through Baghdad, also telling US and British forces to leave or face violence. Protesters, both Shiite and Sunni, demanded an end to body searches of Iraqi women at security checkpoints, and called for the establishment of a government run by Iraqis.

“It is unacceptable in Islam that a man searches the body of a woman. The American troops are doing that to our women,” cleric Ali Baghdadi said.

That following morning, in a high-profile show of force, the US military poured more than 1,500 combat troops into two central Iraqi cities known for their anti-American sentiment, more than tripling the number of soldiers in the area. The New York Times reported that US officials are now pushing for most of its troops to extend their stay “to quell unrest and extend American control.”

At dawn, two battalion-sized task forces including 88 M1A1 Abrams tanks and 44 Bradley Fighting Vehicles took up positions around the city of Fallujah, while another task force took over two military airfields in Habaniyah.

Commanders said the troops will saturate the area with checkpoints and conduct cordon and search operations for anti-American forces.

“We will make it very hard on communities that house some of these attackers,” commander Col. David Teeples said.

Anger in Fallujah grew in late April, after US forces fired on an anti-occupation protest, killing 15 Iraqis and leaving at least 78 wounded. During a protest in response to the incident two days later, the Americans shot and killed three more people.

In Fallujah, people have repeatedly ambushed American troops with fatal volleys of rocket-propelled grenades and rifle fire.

“The Americans are talking about democracy, but they are violating our civil rights at the same time,” said Sheikh Taleq al-Haznawi, a cleric from one of Fallujah’s mosques.

“These attacks on the Americans are a natural reaction. We are not going to throw flowers at them,” he said. “We know they only came here to take our oil and guarantee the security of Israel.”

Fallujah resident Ammar Khalaf Ahmed was blunt: “We will fight the Americans until the last drop of blood leaves our bodies — even the children and the elderly. If not today, maybe tomorrow.”

In recent days, attacks on US troops have escalated. A dozen US soldiers were killed in the past week. Four soldiers were wounded in five incidents over 36 hours last Thursday and Friday alone.

“The war has not ended. These operations happened in a combat zone and it is war,” said Lieutenant General David McKiernan, the commander of coalition ground troops in Iraq.

McKiernan drew a distinction between large-scale combat against defined enemy formations that marked the initial invasion, and the type of combatants that US troops are now confronting.

“As opposed to fighting a conventional army that’s wearing uniforms, you’re in an environment where there are those who still oppose the coalition that are now in civilian clothing and will attack through a variety of terrorist techniques,” McKiernan explained.

On Sun., June 1, gunmen firing rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles attacked an American military convoy.

“This is just the beginning!” shouted a woman who identified herself as Shahrezad, a bank manager. “You are our enemy. You entered Iraq searching for weapons, but where are the weapons?” she asked, referring to chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

The assault followed an early morning mortar attack on the encampment of the Second Battalion of the First Armored Division that slightly wounded one soldier.

The next day, an American soldier died when a checkpoint came under small arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire near Balad, 55 miles from Baghdad.

Local farmer Mahmoud al-Ubaidi said hostility toward the Americans was mounting in the town.

“The Iraqi people have just started war on them. The uprising of the Iraqi people has started now,” he said. “They are treating us in a humiliating way, searching our cars and women. We will teach them a lesson if they continue.”

Also that day, two US soldiers were wounded and two Iraqis killed when a group of Iraqis threw a grenade at an American vehicle in front of the Sunni Muslim Abu Hanifa mosque in the Azamiya district of Baghdad.

Barely a week before, a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at a convoy on Tues., May 27 in the little village of Hit, 90 miles northwest of Baghdad.

During house-to-house searches that followed, residents say soldiers kicked down doors. Word spread like a prairie fire across the city, enraging residents with word of American soldiers bursting in on the Muslim women of the town, catching them in various states of immodest cover.

“They forced women and children to leave their houses!” shouted Esmael Rabee, a construction worker. “They violated the dignity and honor of our women. We won’t accept this violation!”

“We are Muslims, and we don’t allow people to trespass on our property and go into our houses and search our women,” said another angry resident, Abu Ahmed.

The following day, US soldiers returned to a police station in Hit to talk with authorities about security. A crowd gathered and pelted the station with stones. Then someone threw a hand grenade over the wall of the police compound. The crowd soon grew then rioted for hours, burning the municipal building, the police station, and police cars in protest at what was viewed as the “collaboration” of the police. US troops were forced to retreat.

“The people will do more of this if the Americans come in here again,” Rabee added, shaking his fist as those around him shouted approval. “They showed no respect for our way of life.”

US arrests Palestinian envoy

While the villagers of Hit raged at American troops, that same day, US soldiers raided the Palestinian Authority’s mission in Baghdad and detained Palestinian charge d’affaires Najah Rahman and seven other men. The troops ransacked the building, saying the men had illegal weapons, but it was not clear what had prompted them to disarm a Palestinian diplomat in a city awash with arms.

US troops put barbed wire around the building and locked the main gate.

“They even took all of our water bottles and food cans,” mission official Mohamed Abdul Wahab said. “They behaved like common thieves.”

“Every embassy has guns. We used them to ward off looters,” Wahab said. “To attack a foreign embassy is a criminal act and a breach of diplomatic immunity.”

Wahab said the soldiers used shotguns to blast open office doors, though he said all were unlocked or had keys in them. Many of the doors in the building bore the marks of combat boots and several had their locks shot off. An embassy safe appeared to have been opened after the door hinges had been broken off, and file cabinets were standing open with all of their contents removed.

An official photo of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was smashed on the floor.

Wahab said the soldiers took away two embassy flags.

Sources: Agence France-Presse, Associated Press, BBC, CNN, Guardian (UK), Knight Ridder, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Reuters, Times (UK), Washington Post

Corrections and clarifications
On June 5, 2003, British newspaper The Guardian recanted two provocative claims that had been republished in issue #229 of Asheville Global Report. The first was reprinted within the compilation, “’War has not ended’ – US military”. According to The Guardian, the newspaper misconstrued remarks made by the US Deputy Defense Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, making it appear that he had said that oil was the main reason for going to war in Iraq. “He did not say that,” apologized The Guardian. “He said, according to the Department of Defense website, ‘The ... difference between North Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic options with Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil. In the case of North Korea, the country is teetering on the edge of economic collapse and that I believe is a major point of leverage whereas the military picture with North Korea is very different from that with Iraq.’ The sense was clearly that the US had no economic options by means of which to achieve its objectives, not that the economic value of the oil motivated the war.”

The second item appeared in the compilation, “US, UK ‘lied’ about Iraqi WMD, still none found”. The Guardian issued a correction to the story, stating that UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and his US counterpart Colin Powell had met at the Waldorf Hotel in New York shortly before Powell addressed the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003. The newspaper said Straw “had now made it clear that no such meeting took place.”

AGR strives for precise journalistic accuracy, utilizing a broad sample of widely trusted and typically reliable, international news resources for our coverage. We deeply and sincerely apologize for any confusion that our unwitting reproductions of these inaccuracies may have caused.

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