UK Indymedia | Picket of Raddison Mayfair Hotel

The Raddison Mayfair Hotel was today being used for a UK Defence Conference. Protesters weren't happy about this.

Around 20-30 protesters turned up in the streets of Mayfair to protest against the arms dealers attending this conference. There were around 100 cops there watching people hand out fliers, doing a small amount of pushing. Many people were collecting fit team numbers, there's big competition on for the Fit Bingo game.

Rich

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picket callout

14.09.2007 23:15

On the eve of DSEi - the world's biggest arms fair, Jane's 'Defence' are hosting a conference on corporate wars in 2020 and beyond which in their own words is "the definitive event assessing priorities for defence ministries and business opportunities for those who supply defence equipment", but it might just as well be "more wars for less oil". It's being held at the Radisson Edwardian Mayfair Hotel, Stratton Street, London W1J 8LT

http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dll?G2M?X=528877&Y=180440&A=Y&Z=1

Those present will include:

* Lt General General James Mattis (Commander, United States Marine Forces
Central Command).

According to his Wikipedia entry (

http://tinyurl.com/3xjrg5), Mattis 'played
a key role in the April 2004 battle of Fallujah, Operation Vigilant Resolve,
by negotiating with the insurgent command inside of the city, as well as
playing an important part in the November 2004 battle of Fallujah, Operation
Phantom Fury. On February 1, 2005 ... speaking at a forum in San Diego, [he]
apparently said "You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around
for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that
ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot
them. Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot.
It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right upfront with you, I like
brawling."'

* Lt General David Richards (Commander, Allied Rapid Reaction Corps) who, as
the head of NATO forces there, presided over the bombing of southern
Afghanistan during the second half of 2006. (Based on its own fieldwork in
Helmand and Kandahar, the respected international policy think tank The
Senlis Council has estimated that as many as 2-3,000 Afghan civilians may
have been killed by US/NATO air strikes in southern Afghanistan last year.)

Also present will be Rear Admiral Chris Parry, the UK's Director General
Development, Concepts and Doctrine, DCDC.

Earlier this year the DCDC drew up a 90-page report on such potential
threats as "The middle classes ... becom[ing] a revolutionary class, taking
the role envisaged for the proletariat by Marx" and "using access to
knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their
own class interest" (

http://tinyurl.com/2lvygv). The same report warned that
'Britain and Europe face being overrun by mass migration from the Third
World within 30 years' (

http://tinyurl.com/3493f4). "Globalisation makes
assimilation seem redundant and old-fashioned,' he told the Mail on Sunday.
"The process acts as a sort of reverse colonisation, where groups of people
are self-contained, going back and forth between their countries, exploiting
sophisticated networks and using instant communication on phones and the
Internet."

See

http://tinyurl.com/2aklls for conference details and programme. See
www.radissonedwardian.co.uk/mayfair.html for more about the Hotel.

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