Thoughts about the Rostock clash between the German police and the so-called Black Block (militants)

Reported by a non-violent activist observer

In Rostock city 80 000 protesters moved from two directions to the final place at the river, where the huge stage for the international speakers and musicians was set up. Getting to this final place the protest was wonderful and totally peaceful, but suddenly a clash between the police and parts of the black block took place. I was told altogether the black block must have been between 5000 to 7000 people, but only a few took part in this confrontation. A helicopter flew on top of us making it impossible for listening to the speeches. Stones were flying, some non-violent activists got in between (partly building a human chain as a barrier between them) trying to stop the escalation. Some were wounded by stones. The police hit people and used huge amounts of water cannons with gas against the protesters. This was irresponsible knowing that this gas is very harmful especially for children, which were around as well.

My immediate thought about it: this whole confrontation was planned by the police in advance. Friends of mine were seeing a police van standing somehow in the way of the protest route that the protesters had to walk around them and seeing policemen being ready waiting in the side street for somebody to attack this car. But to this point nothing happened. In the recent weeks our government was criticized very hard for spending such an amount of money for building this enormous fence and coming up with such a huge amount of police in this region. Ahead of the G8 Summit more than 40 houses and community centers mostly in the cities of Berlin and Hamburg were searched... I think violent escalation was actually needed for the media to give a justification for all of this.

I don't know what actually started the clash, it might have been by a "stupid" militant, or by agent provocateurs dressed in black (like in Genoa) or by the police, but I definitely believe it was not necessary that the police should attack the demonstration in such a way that it finally ended the demonstration as a whole. People were immediately leaving the scene, and since it took place just next to the square with the stage, the protest was over. Possibly they also planned making it impossible for the protesters and the media to listen to the important speakers on the stage. It was interesting to see afterwards that the organizers of the protests were criticized in the media for this violent outbreak. I was stunned: a society which doesn't teach young people non-violent principles and wants them to join the army to go to war in Afghanistan, Kongo... , how can this society or government expect its own people to protest in a non-violent way?! It is the peace movement which offers non-violent training, not the government. Some of these young protesters just have no clue that their militant anger gets used to oppress them even more.

The different groups who organized the protest all criticized this violence from both sides. ATTAC was very close to withdrawing from the other coming actions like the big sitting blockades on civil disobedience. But all groups are so clear that they don't want this to happen again the next few days that they will organize harder to take care that this cannot happen again. It looks like this big upcoming blockade will be the biggest in German history. The CASTOR protest of 1997 had once about 9000 people involved; but more are already getting ready around HEILIGENDAMM for Wednesday the 6 of June.

Maybe this will be a new D-Day to observe in the future!

Please come too, if you can!!!
Marion Küpker, Hamburg