Actualité - German activists get ready for G8

Some 450 activists from a variety of countries gathered in Rostock, northern Germany, on the November 11-12 weekend for the second Action Conference to plan protests against the G8 summit in 2007. A week of protests is planned against the June 6-8 G8 summit, which will be held at the Kempinski Grand Hotel in Heiligendamm.

Almost every spectrum of the political left — from NGOs, church groups and trade unions, to left parties, the ATTAC network and radical left groups — have called for the protests. It seems clear that it will be the biggest left-wing mobilisation in Germany in years, in terms of its breath, number of participants, and the intensity of actions.

A mass demonstration in Rostock, the largest town near the summit venue on the Saturday before the meeting begins will be the starting point of the action week. A migration action day and a three-day-long counter-summit will follow. A blockade of the G8 venue during the summit will seek to involve as many people as possible.

Activists from Scotland, Greece, France, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria and Poland enriched the discussions with their experiences of organising or attening similar counter-summit demonstrations and pledged to do their best to bring as many people from their countries as possible. An activist from Japan, where the G8 will meet in 2008, attended the conference and expressed her support.

Activists will discuss the progress in planning the building mobilisations at another Action Conference in March 2007.

(The call to action for the G8 blockades can be read at www.g8-2007.de)

(Green Left Weekly - Tania Roth)