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World leaders 'could boycott failing Copenhagen talks'
#8
Police target CJA spokes people

Icon_article Udgivet / published: Wednesday 16 December 2009 18:38 af / by Manos

Tagget som / tagged as: cja cop15 repression
Område / neighbourhood:

Following yesterday's arrest of CJA spokesperson Tadzio Muller after the Climate Justice Action press conference, about four more spokespeople were violently snatched out of the crowd today. At 18:00 a CJA press conference will address the arrests of the media spokespeople that aim to limit their freedom of speech.

[Video of undercover snatch squad making arrest | petition for release of "climate prisoners"]

Reclaim_power_16_12_09-15-medium

As was reported yesterday, a CJA activist and spokes person, Tadzio Muller was violently snatched by plain clothes police minutes after he left a Climate Justice Action press conference [pic] at the Bella Centre, where COP15 is held. The conference presented the rationale behind today's Reclaim Power! action, which aimed to take over the climate conference for one day and turn it into a people's assembly. Some mainstream media have since branded Tadzio as the "leader" of CJA, which is blatantly rubbish, while others relay a more balanced view and echo fears that the police are trying to silence dissent by targeting spokes people.

These fears seem to have materialised: at todays action, Reclaim Power!, up to four additional CJA spokes people seem to have been arrested in a targetted manner by plain clothes police using pepperspray and plenty of muscle. Another arrest in the morning is unconfirmed. At 9:19 am the 6 plain clothes officers arrested one of the CJA spokes people at the Tornby station as the Green Block was assembling. Later in the day at 11:43pm, the police attacked the Blue block, took over the van, and arrested a further 2 CJA spokes people, it seems in a targeted fashion (YouTube video).

Following these arrests CJA called a special press conference at 6:00pm to denounce the deliberate targeting of spokes people. This targeting has stopped people from being able to express the opinions of CJA to the public and journalists, without having any operational impact on the actual actions. This is a narrow attack on the freedom of speech of activists, after many days of attack on their freedom to protest.

Today many activists were again arrested in a preventive maner, before doing anything, while others trying to make it to the Bella Centre were charged with batons and pepper sprayed to prevent them from holding a people's assembly there. In a perverse twist, the police even threated to arrest the assaulted delegates and accredited COP15 participants who tried to join the assenbly from inside the negotiations.
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Tough Love in Hopenhagen

Icon_article Udgivet / published: Wednesday 16 December 2009 08:09 af / by Imcfeatures

Tagget som / tagged as: cop15 rpa rtp
Område / neighbourhood: amager bella_center copenhagen
Udgivet af gruppe: GroupCop15 Reporting

Indymedia action timeline | live radio stream | icop15 agreggator.

Today's Reclaim Power action held a people's assembly outside the COP15 Bella Centre calling for Climate Justice. Police tried to disrupt marches from outside reaching the COP15, with baton charges, pepper spray and preventive arrests (call for action, press release, video). Despite the COP15 pretence of democracy and inclusion of the global south, the police threatened delegates with arrest, and assaulted with batons when they tried to march out to the joint assembly.

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Blue bloc

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The blue bloc (courtesy of Modkraft)

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People in Bella Centre moving towards main gate

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Blue bloc approaching Bella Center

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Delegates sit-in protest at the Bella Centre

Early in the morning, multiple marches tried to make their way to the Bella Centre where the COP15 is held. The group meeting at Orestad station (Green) was surrounded by police and some were arrested [pic], but others managed to move towards COP15. A second bloc (Blue), of more than 1000 people, made their way to the Bella Center whilst resisiting attempts from the police to break it [Video 1 | 2 | 3 | 4] [Pics 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5] The bike bloc was blocked by police and redirected away. At the same time a group of protestors managed to get into the area of the COP15-Summit with a raft [pics]

Police have been repeatedly attacking the crowds with baton charges and pepper spray, as well as arresting protesters throughout the morning, and arresting medics [pics]. Corporate media report 200 to 250 arrests [viedo] Following yesterday's arrest of Tadzio Muller after the Climate Justice Action press conference, at more spokespeople were violently snatched out of the crowd today. At 18:00 a CJA press conference will address the arrests of 4 media spokespeople that aim to limit their freedom of speech.

Meanwhile at the COP15 Friends of the Earth, Avaaz and Via Campesina were refused entry despite aquiring a second accreditaton. Delegates staged a sit-in protest [pic, video], whilst 200 others from NGOs, indigenous people and the Global South marched out [Pics 1 | 2 | Videos 1 | 2] but police with batons and pepper spray prevented them from reaching the People's Assembly. An hour later, a protest broke into the COP15 plenary with the slogan "Climate Justice Now!", and the Indian delegation burned its badges [vid].

The People's Assembly took place at midday outside the Bella Centre [Pics 1], without those from inside the Bella Centre - they were prevented from getting out. After speeches, the assembly decided to move towards the centre [vid] of town, while the police have been snatching people, and blocking progress intermittently.

Timelines Indymedia DK (castellano) | Modkraft.dk (dk | en) | Motkraft.net (se, en) | Global Project (it) | Politiken.dk (dk | en) | Lahaine (castellano)
Previous days' COP15 reporting: 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th December 2009

Today is the first day of the ministerial phase of the COP15 summit, that so far has made little progress. The Reclaim Power! Action, aims to take over the summit for this one day to turn it into a people assembly (call for action, latest press release). Similar assemblies have already been taking place outside the UN summit for a week, as part of the Klimaforum09 people's climate summit with an estimated 25.000 people having taken part in discussions.
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Copenhagen, Denmark. Leaders of the world are currently huddled around in the Bella Center, but I’m back at the hotel. Not because I don’t want to be in the Bella Center with them, but because I couldn’t get in today. Protesters have been assaulting the Conference since early morning and the surrounding area has turned into a virtual warzone. All of the carefully planned city-wide shuttles have stopped service and, as of about noon, no one has been allowed to enter or leave the Bella Center. The outskirts of the center have transformed from a pleasant transportation depot, to a maze of fencing and rioting demonstrators. Armed guards are employing water cannons, dogs and even tear gas. The last report I heard (from CNN) stated that 250 had been arrested. I did attempt to make it to the Center midday today, but was abandoned by my bus midway and left stranded on the now snowy and quite frigid streets of Copenhagen. With no empty taxis in sight, I ended up walking more than an hour to get back home.

Meanwhile, inside the Bella Center, things seem equally chaotic. Now referred to as one of the biggest summits in world history, governments seem to unable to come to anything close to consensus. NGOs (non-governmental organizations) are being roughly expelled from the main plenary, the Kyoto Protocol seems to be in perpetual limbo and Connie Hedegaard, the former Conference Chair, has resigned. [Video of her resignation talk] The official line is that this was a matter of protocol, allowing for the Prime Minister of Denmark to precede over the COP with world leaders present. However, with comments from her such as “in the end, you cannot make the deal in that plenary”, the true motive of her resignation remains in question.
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I wish I knew what exactly is going on. This past day has been mayhem. As I write this all is not well.

Let me just have a moment of honesty with you all. I am tired, really tired. 12 long hard days have taken their toll on me and many others in this process. People are frustrated, confused and despairing at the direction these talks are taking.

To paraphrase George Woods, the Climate Action Network Australia coordinator here (who may I add is doing an amazing job):

“There have been all sorts of wildness here today, in the negotiations and in the NGO community. People with passes were refused entry because of the growing number of spontaneous and unpredictable protests springing up. There is a lot of frustration — protestors and other NGOs have been treated badly by police, security and the UN, everyone has been confused about who is allowed to do what, and the UNFCCC process has hit a dark moment, with a great deal of uncertainty about whether an effective and binding agreement can be secured.”

Oh dear.

So far in my blogs I have avoided going into detail around the different negotiating streams and texts… for the simple reason that it is confusing!

But, if you will spare me just a small moment of your time I will some of explain some of it here so you can grasp what is happening.

There are 2 different treaties being negotiated here. Yes, that’s right two.

The first is the Kyoto Protocol (KP). At the moment this treaty is set to finish in 2012 and they are trying to extend it further. But…because this treaty does not involve the US (and also doesn’t place binding emission reductions on the major growing economies such as India and China) they are also negotiating a second treaty. This second treaty, which would involve the US, is called LCA or Long-term Cooperative Action.

Now, you will have heard in the media a lot about countries trying to kill the KP. If KP did end and the LCA agreement did pass this would be called a ‘one-track’ treaty. However, developing countries generally do not want the KP to end because it is arguably stronger than a potential LCA treaty and provides more protection for developing countries. So, this then leaves us with what is call a ‘two-track’ treaty with both LCA and KP.

For the past two years countries have been negotiating the texts that would comprise these treaties. This has been broken into several smaller groups to work on specific sections of each of the treaties, such as adaptation, mitigation, finance, forests etc. These texts have been notoriously long and complicated with numerous different options within the text.

During the past ten days the different groups tried to bring all this text together. They have tried to find consensus. They have tried to find common ground. They failed.

Yesterday the chairs of the two working groups were supposed to pass on the proposed treaty text to the Ministers and Heads of State to finalise over the next 2 days.

Amidst much confusion these meetings were scheduled for 5pm then postponed till 6pm then 7pm then 8pm and so on and so on as negotiators grappled (behind closed doors of course) with what their final proposals would be.

The final KP plenary started at 11pm and finished after midnight.

The final LCA plenary started at 5am and finished at 730am.

The Australian negotiating team looked really tired this morning.

Meager offerings

In short, the text in both the treaties seems almost as contested as it was 2 years ago. It seems just as complicated…and there are still far too many different options within it. Today, I have not met a member of any country delegation that was happy with either of the texts. There has been dissent and there has been public argument.

It is these texts that have now been passed onto Ministers and Heads of States. It is still possible that they will be able to bring it all together…. But to be honest it is unlikely. There are MAJOR disagreements both between countries and within negotiating country groups.

This I hope, provides some idea of what has been happening here. I encourage you all to check out the other blogs on AAN to hear different stories and perspectives on all the days action (and inaction!). Also, you should take action on A Climate for Change to tell Australia’s leaders to increase the ambition of their targets.

I have many thoughts and reflections on this process, however, I will reserve these for a later date as this blog is already too long and I need sleep…. Which is of course, contingent upon me leaving here.

Tracking for you in Copenhagen, T-minus 48 hours.
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Copenhagen delegates joining protesters
Wed Dec 16 2009 8:35 am
by Bob Morris.
Indymedia.dk photo. Article

Indymedia.dk photo. Article

An array of civil society, delegates and negotiating parties representing a global alliance of both north and south civil society groups, people’s Movements, indigenous representatives and even some governments have begun a dramatic protest today disrupting the inside of the Bella Center.

Scores/Hundreds of representatives gathered in the central hall and loudly marched out of the Bella Center in protest.

The police apparently are tear-gassing and clubbing anything that moves while inside, negotiations are deadlocked.

The walkout by delegates was to protest many members of NGOs (who are legitimate delegates) not being allowed in because of supposed space limitations. Gosh, you mean the event organizers just couldn’t figure out in advance now many people were coming or couldn’t just grab extra chairs and make more room? How incompetent of them.

Well, of course the real reason is the NGOs would be pressing for an actual agreement, something with teeth.

“The surgical removal of non-governmental organizations underscores the lack of democracy inherent in these negotiations,” said Michael Dorsey, a member of the Climate Justice Now! Network, which is helping organize the protest. “The United Nations process has systematically failed the world’s marginalized countries and consistently excludes those that would dare support and fight on behalf of those countries.”
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Delegates, peaceful protesters, even medics were arrested....


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"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. - Mayer Rothschild
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass
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World leaders 'could boycott failing Copenhagen talks' - by Peter Lemkin - 17-12-2009, 10:26 AM

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