police gang gets out of control: S26 carnival against capitalism, wellington

	he Wellington September 26 Carnival Against Capitalism was organised by Wellington anarchist group the Committee for the Establishment of Civilisation (CEC) for the global day of action against capitalism and in solidarity with the protests against the World Bank and IMF in Prague (both held on Sept. 26). Like elsiewhere around the world, a heavy handed police response disrupted the protest. The carnival began in high spirits outside a McDonald's branch in Manners Mall to a lunchtime crowd of about 200. Food not Bombs gave away about 90 free veggie burgers and free cups of tea as a constructive anti-capitalist protest to highlight how many people are impoverished and unable to afford enough food because of capitalism. The turnout was excellent considering the weather had been wild, windy, wet and cold until just before the protest. A number of people travelled from as far north as Auckland and south as Christchurch for the event. People listened to speeches about the devastation caused by the IMF and World Bank, and solidarity statements of support to and from a protester in Prague from the leftist tino-rangatiratanga or Maori self-determination group Aotearoa Educators were read out. Music was played, red and black balloons were tied to trees, and hundreds of anti-capitalist, Food Not Bombs, anti-IMF and World Bank leaflets were distributed to passers by. The mood of the protest at this stage was positive and there was quite a buzz around the place. BANKING ON OUR MISERY Then after about an hour and a half the colourful carnival (full of red and black flags) proceeded around the corner to Cuba Mall to protest against WestpacTrust bank. As there are no IMF or World Bank offices in town, it was thought we ought to target banks in general to symbolise our resistance to capitalism as a whole. Westpac was specifically targeted because of its role in financing and profiting from uranium mining in Australia, and as a protest against banks in general and the role they play as essential capitalist financial institutions. Banks borrow capital to capitalists and thus enable them to "invest" in, and profit from, our misery. FROM OUT OF THE BLUE... About 30 people managed to enter the bank to distribute leaflets explaining Westpac's role in uranium mining to customers. About 75 to 100 protesters remained outside the bank. The mood of the extremely brief "occupation" was friendly and non-violent. Police asked people to leave or be arrested for trespass and protesters complied with the order and began shuffling their way out. It was difficult to leave the bank quickly as there was quite a crowd near the door. Then from out of the blue a policeman suddenly picked upon a protester, grabbing her around her neck, and attempting to arrest her for trespass, forcing her out on to the mall outside the bank. This was an unprovoked action which triggered off a series of ugly and tense scenes between protesters and police. This led to a major scuffle between protesters and police outside the bank. A sort of weird surreal scrum developed for about 5-10 minutes between many protesters and a few police, surging up and down the pavement, with police pushing and shoving protesters around indiscriminately. Police withdrew from the scuffle and threatened to use their batons. COP VIOLENCE: SEE WALLOPERS IN ACTION! One protester was arrested and led away down Cuba St. to a police van (which had earlier been stickered with fluorescent "Capitalism? No thanks, We will burn your fucking banks" stickers whilst unattended). The protest followed, chanting "police stop your violence". Some attempted to surround the police van, but were pushed back by police. By this stage, police had become irate and out of hand. As a result, many more protesters were arrested (many in a violent manner), often seemingly for no good reason. Some were dragged into the van. The protest became loud and angry. Many more protesters were threatened with arrest just for standing in the vicinity of the police. Some were shocked at the over the top police response to a friendly, peaceful demo that had not done anything in the slightest bit illegal (compared to overseas this may seem mild but in Aotearoa it is quite unusual...). Then the carnival went back up to the Westpac bank, and held a demonstration outside of about 100+ people. A speech was delivered outlining Westpac's involvement in uranium mining. 150 free cookies with "capitalism is crumbling" and "anarchy is how the cookie crumbles" stickers on them were distributed. Unfortunately, the police had earlier knocked over the cookie basket and crushed many of them. One protester was arrested for "wilful damage" for sticking an anti-Westpac sticker on the glass doors of the bank! POLICE PARTY POOPERS Then the carnival proceeded up Cuba Mall and listened to speeches denouncing the police violence. Organisers held a conference and decided to call off the planned third stage of the carnival (a mystery demo which was to target another capitalist transnational nasty) as they thought this would lead to more pointless arrests (police at this stage were picking off and arresting one or two protesters who were involved in the earlier Westpac scuffle). In all nine protesters were arrested and four were injured at the hands of the police. There was widespread media coverage of the protest on TV and newspapers. Later in the day two branches of Westpac Trust were stink-bombed in retaliation to the unprovoked police violence. AUCKLAND S11/ S26 The Auckland S11 solidarity demonstration attracted (according to different reports) 50 to 100 souls. The demo went down Queen St. accompanied by a giant papier-mache corporate monster. The highlight of the demo was an hour long occupation of the Australian consulate (as a protest against the Australian government's involvement with the WEF), which was possible because there were no police present. The protest was organised by the "S11 coalition - Auckland", an "anti-globalisation coalition" composed of authoritarian state socialists (Trotskyist variety, two sub-species), a few anarchists and many anti-corporate protesters.
	AUCKLAND S26 SOLIDARITY PROTEST The Auckland S26 solidarity demo was organised by the same S11 coalition, the coalition suitably renaming itself for the event "the S26 coalition." The protest was composed of 50+ people. The demo began in the University of Auckland Quad, listening to speakers who went to Melbourne to protest against the WEF. From there the demo went and visited the office of TradeNZ (who manage New Zealand's involvement with the World Bank) and various banks in Auckland city. Despite a heavy police presence, there were no arrests. CHRISTCHURCH S11 The S11 Solidarity Demo in Christchurch went ahead on a bitterly cold and windy Monday afternoon at the amphitheatre in Cashel Mall, more commonly known to some as the grassy knoll. It had been organised by a coalition of anarchists, socialists and other lefty types over the last few months, which involved lots of trips to the pub and several public screenings of a video about the November 30, 1999 Showdown In Seattle protests. The first screening at the WEA was a resounding success, with a large audience in attendance. There were a few cheers as a protestor was seen kicking a can of tear gas back at a squad of riot cops. Everything kicked off at about 4:30PM on the day, and we had a gathering of about 40 people around the old knoll, including the SWO, some Greens, a few local anarchists and their friends and Food Not Bombs, who ensured that nobody went hungry. It was a small affair, probably due to the bone chilling cold which ensured that most people were likely to be more interested in getting somewhere warm than anything else, but all the same it was noticeable, with local media present and enthusiastic to ask us questions. We had been planning some street theatre, which didn’t end up going quite to plan, but nonetheless provided some good footage for the TV cameras. Fake 20 dollar bills were handed out that were emblazoned with Mr Burns from The Simpsons and had some facts and figures about capitalism on the reverse side. They met with a good response and this reporter was asked about them by some guys I ran into on the street about a week later. Several people stopped to ask us what the protest was in aid of and the megaphone was passed around. Several of the protesters offered explanations for the evils of the WEF and one schoolkid took the opportunity to loudly denounce the criminal status of cannabis. Later on in the evening Don Archer from the SWO appeared on CTV news to talk about the protest. The enlightened host took the opportunity to accuse us of belittling the issue with our fake money, but other than that it went well. The Press gave us a surprisingly positive report for a paper owned by Rupert Murdoch that has been known to distort the truth when it involves activists (just ask anybody from the old Beneficiary Action Collective). What’s going on there? All in all it was a good demo, even if it could have been bigger. Hopefully we put a bit of a dent in consensus reality and a few people are more switched on to the evils of neo liberalism (or should we call it corporate colonialism?) than they were before. Lorax