Anti-capitalism, violence and the press



Proof of police provocation in the Barcelona demo
against the World Bank

Anti-capitalism, violence and the press

On Sunday June 24 about 50,000 people (according to the
organisers, or 20,000 according to the media) participated in a
demonstration through the centre of Barcelona (Spain) against the
World Bank. The World Bank summit against world poverty was
originally scheduled to take place in Barcelona on June 25th to
27th, but WB officials decided to cancel it for fear that the
protesters would prevent them from using it as a propaganda event.
Instead they decided to call a \"cyberconference\".

However, the organisers of the protests (a wide ranging coalition
of NGOs, trade unions, left wing parties, immigrant workers\' groups,
ATTAC, etc.) decided to go ahead with the demonstration. For weeks
prior to the event the media and the authorities had tried to create
the impression that violent riots were going to take place. This
propaganda campaign had two main aims, on the one hand to scare
people from participating in the different actions, but also to
justify police repression in advance.

A few days before the demonstration was due to take place through
the centre of Barcelona, the police decided to withdraw permission
for the agreed route, which would go past the building of the
Barcelona Stock Exchange, \"in order to prevent violence\". A last
minute appeal by the organisers to the High Court in Catalonia
overturned the police decision on Friday.

The demonstration took place in a peaceful and festive mood. Also
present were representatives of workers in struggle (like those of
the telecoms company Sintel and from the engineering company
Miniwatt). A small group of masked youth dress in black followed the
demo smashing some shop windows and phone boxes.

But when the demonstrators had already entered Placa Catalunya
square in the centre of town two groups of police provocateurs
pretended to fight each other thus giving the police the excuse to
charge into the crowd. In spite of the fact that the demonstrators
raised their hands and shouted \"we are not violent\", the police
proceeded to fire rubber bullets into the crowd and began beating
people with their batons. As a result 22 people were arrested and 32
were injured (including some reporters).

The use of agents provocateurs is not a new thing, but what is
unusual about this particular instance is that their action was so
sloppy that many people were able to realise what was happening and
it was even reported in some of the media. This is what happened
according to Associated Press:

\"Protesters said the police staged a fight on the edge of the
demonstration in order to draw in protesters and use the fight as a
pretext to charge the crowd. A second charge emptied the park within
minutes.

\"Reporters saw a group of men and women in masks gathered on the
fringes of the demonstration in the park. Some wore earphones, and
though carrying sticks they were able to walk freely past police,
pull on their masks and position themselves between police and
protesters.

\"One man in the group grabbed another and pulled him to the
ground, and other members of the group began kicking and slugging
each other.

\"When demonstrators saw what was going on and joined the fight,
the police charged into the park. The masked men and women involved
in the scuffle walked through the police line and boarded vans.

\"A reporter asked one of them if they were police. He at first
said yes, and then said no, before walking by police to the vans.\"
(Anti-Globalization
Protesters Charged AP Sunday 24 )

Most of the Spanish papers carried front page pictures of the
\"vandalism\" and \"violence\" but were also forced to admit the story
about the police provocation (at the end of their articles and
without giving a clear explanation). This is what El Pais had to say:


\"Most of the arrests were carried out by plainclothes police
agents. Some had their faces covered with scarves with the Catalan
independence flag and carried extendible batons, plastic handcuffs
and wooden truncheons. A spokesperson for the Barcelona police
yesterday admitted to using such methods for dissuasive purposes\" (El
País, January 25).

This was confirmed by a report in El Mundo which quoted
eyewitnesses who declared that some of those who carried out the
arrests were the same people who had been throwing stones at the
banks earlier. \"Police provoked the fight. They were part of it,\"
said Ada Colau, a spokeswoman for the Campaign Against the World
Bank, one of the protest organizations. According to the AP report:
\"Jordi Pedret, a Socialist Party member of the national Parliament,
said he had been informed that police undercover agents threw rocks
through store windows and then arrested protesters. Pedret said he
would call for a formal investigation by the Interior Ministry.\"

Censorship

From this incident we get an insight of the level of censorship
which is taking place daily in the world\'s media. The AP newswire
explains quite clearly that violence was the result of a police
provocation, however none of the media I have seen outside Spain
mention the story (with the only exception of MNSBC which have
limited themselves to republishing the AP story). It is quite clear
that on-the-spot news agency reports often reflect quite truthfully
what has happened. The main value of these on-the-spot reports lies
in the fact that there can be an immediate transmission of
information and there is little time to cut out the unwanted bits.
But as soon as the story reaches the big newspapers and TV stations
it undergoes a process of censorship in which the bits that don\'t fit
with the line they want to feed us with are cut off.

Take for instance the Guardian newspaper in Britain. On Sunday
night (24 June) it carried the AP story on its website in its \"latest
news\" section. However by Monday morning any reference to police
provocation had been removed and instead the web site and the printed
edition carried a brief note the \"usual story\" about violence:

\"Spanish march turns violent

\"A march against globalisation erupted into violence in Barcelona
yesterday. Fifteen demonstrators were injured and at least 10 more
detained after scuffles with heavily armed riot police.

\"Several marchers burned phone boxes and threw bottles and stones
at the police. Jane Walker, Madrid\" (The Guardian, June 25).


Notice how the police provocation has completely disappeared and
also how the number of arrested and injured has diminished
considerably between the actual events being reported and their
writing up on Jane Walker\'s computer in Madrid!

Violence

We can also see a clear pattern emerging during the build up to
these demonstrations against the international financial
institutions. There is a massive publicity campaign before the
demonstrations take place about the prospects of violence, chaos,
etc. Before the London May Day rally this year we saw an amazing
campaign of misinformation. Groups of violent anarchists were
supposed to be descending on London intent on causing chaos and
mayhem. They were supposed to have been given training in guerrilla
tactics in secluded and abandoned button factories, etc. Finally, on
the day of the rally, the only violence by \"groups of masked people
dressed in black\" came from... the police themselves which detained
thousands of peaceful demonstrators for more than seven hours without
giving them any reason.
(The
Truth about May Day, London)

Similar reports are being published in preparation for the Genoa
summit of the G8 in July. These are just some examples from a recent
BBC news report:

\"Italian authorities have ordered 200 body bags as
they step up preparations for a violent confrontation at next month\'s
G8 summit in Genoa, say Italian media reports.

\"A room at the city\'s hospital will also be set aside as a
temporary mortuary, said Italian news agency ANSA.

\"The reports come amid growing concern that the G8 summit will
witness even worse confrontation than last weekend\'s European meeting
in Gothenburg. Tens of thousands of protesters - from anarchists to
Basque separatists - are expected to head for Genoa.

\"Italian authorities are preparing a huge force of 20,000 police
and soldiers, backed by the threat of tear gas, water cannon and a
formidable array of military hardware.\"
(BBC
News Online, Thursday, 21 June, 2001)

The same BBC report lists the plans of the Italian authorities as
follows: \"20,000 officers (against 2,000 in Sweden), Practice \'war
games\' being held, Tear gas and water cannon lined up, 15
helicopters, four planes, seven naval boats, Rooftop squads, hidden
cameras, satellite surveillance, Presidents Bush, Chirac based on
aircraft carriers\"

Finally, in a bizarre twist, the same article links the \"expected
violence\" to supposed assassination attempts on some world leaders,
including one on George Bush by Osama Bin Laden (his name always
comes handy when one needs to scare the public) and another on
President Putin by Chechen rebels!

This is all very useful to justify the virtual state of siege
which will be declared in Genoa where railway stations and motorway
junctions will be closed, and flights diverted. In the city itself,
the streets around the summit venue have been declared as a \"red
zone\", and will be blocked off by dozens of armoured vehicles.

It is increasingly clear that the leaders of the Western powers
are seriously concerned about this movement and will use any means
necessary (repression, misinformation, etc.) to discredit it and try
to put an end to it. This makes it even more important for the
movement to link up with the organised working class, the only class
capable of challenging capitalism in a serious manner, because of its
numbers and the place it occupies in the process of capitalist
production.

Jordi Martorell

June 25th, 2001

See also:


World
Bank cancels Barcelona meeting... but the protests still go
ahead


Six
questions and answers on Globalisation

An appeal for the anti-G8 demo in
Genoa


[In Defence of Marxism]