first the good news,
Bill Gates was prevented from propagandizing a few hundred innocent schoolchildren on Tuesday the 12th. The Rupert Murdoch owned papers stated that the kids were complaining that they didn't get to meet the worlds wealthiest man. awww....

OK: Monday's blockades of the WEF conference in Melbourne went fairly well.

Approx 1/3 of the delegates were prevented from entering the Crown Casino despite their ranks of riot cops and horses. Then on Tue morning, the tactics changed as I'm sure you all heard. The coppers came out swinging batons and charging the crowd with horses. The relatively unsophisticated tactic of linking arms in front of a small opening in the barricades and a heap of armed officers was vulnerable in the middle obviously, and once broken, colums of cops ran out the gap with horses too and created an avenue for the busses.

The same thing happened on the way out that evening as well. All told about thirteen protesters (heroes) were hospitalized that day. The next morning saw a shift in tactics, where there was a main manual barricade as well as an intersection being taken just one block out in a strategic direction.

This caused gridlock for four block surrounding the point, and local business traffic was effectively utilized to prevent any access to the main entrance.

The system of marshalls was, by a number of reports, obscured by political infighting between ISO members and others who had been working hard for months and eventually got sick of the crap and decided to not be part of the Marshal crew. Their original job was to relay observations to one another and then disseminate the information via loudspeaker. That policy broke down and Marshals were then in the process of making policy decisions FOR the crowd.

Marshalls were overheard on the radio to have asked if certain key pieces of information (cop buildup and mobilization) should be disseminated and they were instructed to not, and some made their own decision to not as well, citing insufficiently "safe" numbers to pose resistance to the cops. The upshot is that on day three, all delegate busses were allowed into an area with only fifteen demonstrators because word never got around to the front that cops were amassing on the backside in preperation for the delegates arrival.

Anyway, the violence (by cops on peaceful demonstrators) didn't end with the batons. As cars and busses were making their way out drivers were accellerating toward pedestrian protesters, and in one case ran over a young woman who was caught halfway under an exiting police car, screaming, upper torso on the hood and her left leg under the car. Cops accellerated and her leg was run over by the front tire, her body pulled down to the ground, and dragged under the vehicle by the force from the rear tire against her leg.

The cops accellerated off into the city, leaving her with an apparently fractured femur, lying on the ground. S11 medical team were on the scene at the time, but had limited resources for severe crushing injuries, and the city ambulance took twenty minutes to arrive from the other side of the Crown Casino.

Other injuries included the usual lacerations and broken bones (wrist, arm) as well as a suspected collapsed lung secondary to broken ribs. There were more than a couple of new, white, plaster casts at the rally on wed. morning.

Overall, the crowd was jubilant on all three days. Dancing in the streets to music at the main stage area and from vans with sound systems. On Tue. trade unionist from around the city joined in the celebration and lent their very vocal support to workers of the world. A human chain was formed with people to spare around the entire Crown Casino complex which extended for two city blocks along the Yarra river. Four square blocks of land surrounded by dancing people. This was preceded by a victory march through downtown Melbourne that stopped traffic and flooded the streets with chanting and fun for the citizens of the city.

Official condemnation was a little scarce, but journalists and politicians demanded an inquiry into the cop brutality, which was reportedly the worst that had been seen from the Victoria police. Australia has a strong heritage of opposing repression of workers, and the citizenry was outraged that the cops were injuring peaceful protesters in order to support the WEF. The casino itself reported lost revenues of AU$10 million. There was no comment regarding the AU$10 million that the citizens of Melbourne had to spend on things besides the slot machines or if local businesses benefitted from the influx of cash.

Throuought, typical slander was used to mark the protests as being violent, and indicating that the protesters had something to do with it. One police official went so far as to state that preventing the delegates from meeting was, in itself, a violent act. This did little to persuade the person on the street. Every single media image showed cops charging into, or otherwise directly attacking the crowd. It is hoped that the images speak to the truth of the situation. On Thurs morning, everything was pretty much back to business as usual, but the city walls near the casino were peppered with creative grafitti in all directions.

Black Block pulled a couple of interesting stunts, one of which was to rush the barricades, and sit down right at the edge, while the shocked cops were scrambling with batons in hand, looking to crack heads. Laughter on both sides, and it was over.

Approximately 25,000 people showed up, and turnout was really great on all three days. A grat deal of solidarity was expressed for the following action in Prague - S26 is looking to be a tremendous event that the WTO and WEF will never forget. Get active, get educated, educate others, and be prepared to offer solutions to the problems that you're highlighting.

A LONG plane flight ahead...that's all for now.

Posse Comitatus
and the National Guard
REMOVE THE WOOL FROM YOUR EYES