2007-07-03

The Gipfelsoli Infogroup...

A second anchor of our work was Gothenburg: After confrontations during the EU summit a few weeks before the summit in Genoa, the police used fire arms against protesters. Courts imposed on average 2 year prison sentences. Exemplary was the conviction of members of a group that had used SMS to draw attention to police measures: they were sentenced to up to 4 years imprisonment. In Germany a few months later there were house searches and even charges in German courts relating to the events in Sweden.

The Infogroup published and distributed a regular newsletter with information about the court cases and the associated political conflicts. Together with others the Gipfelsoli Infogroup organised international legal support gatherings for people affected to help.

Gipfelsoli is a non-profit project.

Why Gipfelsoli?

Besides the thematic focus on Gothenburg and Genoa there were two priority motivations for our work:

• Because legal battles take years to resolve, the email list was supposed to ensure continuity and support those affected as well as those interested.

• Whilst many concerned themselves with the repression of Genoa and Gothenburg, others were mobilising for the next summit protests: Evian and Thessaloniki 2003, Gleneagles 2005, the annual NATO security conferences in Munich or the WEF in Davos. Embedding the solidarity work for previous summits in the mobilisation for future events was a futher important pillar of the work the Gipfelsoli Inforgroup were doing.

Heiligendamm: Getting started!

In 2004 it was clear that the G8 2007 in Germany would be a central focal point of our work. Thus the aim was to make previous debates, arguments and outcomes of the emerging mobilisation for Heiligendamm accessible.

Of course the original focus of the Gipfelsoli Infogroup, solidarity work, should play an important role: Anyone mobilising towards Heiligendamm should also be informed about the court cases in Italy (that have now been concluded), or later on the repression in Gleneagles or St Petersburg.

Very soon it was evident that this was too much for an email list and that it would be necessary to have a website. In December 2005 gipfelsoli.org went online. Apart from the mobilisations for the G8 protests in Russia and Germany, the access to discussion papers was the reason for haste in setting this up. At that point there was an incredible amount of debates, papers and comments circulating within the German left. None of the spectra mobilising for Heiligendamm had a website at this point.

The newly set up gipfelsoli.org not only had a text archive, but also a chronicle of repression for Heiligendamm was begun (still today both topics are of huge interest to German speaking users).

The website was first hosted by a commercial provider but was quickly moved to the left-wing and non-profit provider so36.net due to security concerns. With this move the website, which was orginally programmed in HTML, acquired a Content Management System (CMS). For a variety of reasons, amongst others the desire to be safe from hack attacks, we decided not to use a commercial CMS system. Thus we used a CMS programme which was developed by so36.net and used the programming language RUBY (RCMS). For this reason, the work that had taken place over years to develop this RCMS programme was able to find a further citcal application. RCMS is an open-source project.

At the beginning of 2006 the Gipfelsoli Infogroup was centrally involved with the setting up of a G8 office in Bethanien, Berlin. The office was intended to function as an interface for the different groups and spectra involved in the mobilisation. For this we applied for financial assistance to the Netzwerk Sebsthilfe Berlin (Self-Help Network Berlin). The office was run by the different groups who shared responsibility for the daily office shifts (even after the G8 2007 some of these groups will continue, thus an important step towards continued anti-capitalist campaign work was made). We also organised speakers on topics related to globalisation critques and put on our own workshops on topics such as repression, computer security and encryption.

During the G8 2007 mobilisation gipfelsoli.org became a central reference point. The website never stood in competition with others, like for example that of the Interventionist Left, Dissent! or the Revolutionary Coalition. Quite the opposite, as the idea of Gipfelsoli was to have an overarching platform with an archive for radical left, anarchist and autonomous preparations. We believe many used this opportunity for networking.

Aside from assistance, materials, direct actions tips and films, all relevant texts were made available. All regional maps for the area around Heiligendamm were put together as a download package, 300 mobilisation posters and flyers were assembled as a slide show and put online. A comprehensive collection of links enable people to find about 50 non-German and 200 German groups who participated in the mobilisation. A comprehensive collection of anti-repression materials is also necessary beyond the G8 mobilisation. The continuous updating of these materials and links takes up a large amount of time.

In the meantime the website has nearly 3 500 documents on it. With this we have developed a considerable archive for which we would like to continue to maintain and update.

As we know, the mainstream press also made very good use of gipfelsoli.org. This was not only possible due to our press distribution list to which 2 000 journalists are subscribed. Beginning in November 2006 we aimed to intervene in public discourse via press releases. Our focus were the efforts of the police and the army to make their ‘security architecture’ public; for the main part we commented on disinformation and corrected false reports given by the police. Often we published information that was not available elsewhere.

In addition to this, the grup put together its own materials. Together with the Dissent! Infotour working group a number of presentations were put together which were used for almost 300 mobilisation events in Germany and transnationally. Further materials included regular summaries about repression and police preparations which were also translated into English.

Of particular importance to us was the maintenance and further development of a presentation about the police preparations for Heligendamm, which included strategies to counter police measures. From the written police justification for the injunction around Heilgendamm, i.e. the general demonstration ban, we know that the intention exists to investigate this presentation. Thoughts about how to overcome the fence around Heiligendamm are being assessed as incitement to criminal activities.

We consider the connection to the transnational protest movement to be of great importance. Since mid 2006 there is a multilanguage rubric on the website that contains spectrum overarching texts in Spanish, English, French and Russian. In particular we have tried to build and maintain contacts to Italy, Sweden and Russia: All countries in which large mobilisations against summits have taken place in the last years.

The website registered around 6 000 hits during the protests in Heiligendamm (as a comparison: Indymedia Germany as a central action platform had around double this amount). With this amount of hits the technical infrastructure of so36.net reached its limits: the server crashed repeatedly and was unavailable for many hours. Twice we actually lost data in the midst of the protests, which had to be reconstructed with immense efforts.

To our delight there high number of hits has not diminished much, even after the G8 summit in Heiligendamm. One definite reason for this is the attempt to translate the massive and resolute G8 2007 movement into the context of future protests. We are collecting all evaluations of all relevant left-wing groups (and individuals). One of the main foci is the discussion about militant action forms.

We invest a lot of effort in making all information regarding police violence available. Shortly after the G8 we began collating a chronicle of all assaults, complementing this with eye witness reports. Many of the texts are linked to original sources and video material. This now comprehensive overview demonstrates an attemtp to not leave the writing of an historical record of the G8 2007 to the mainstream press. At the same time, it also has a very practical aim: We wish to support activists in future court cases (also against the police!) by helping them to find sources and witnesses. Through our networking activities we are also well-connected to legal support groups and lawyers.

At present we are putting together a similar chronicle for the successful actions that happened during the summit. Time and again we have been hearing about small and large spectacular protests that still remain unknown. We intend to document these with a map where time and place will be recorded. Clicking on this, one will be able to views texts, photos and links about the respective actions.

And now?

Together with other groups we are participating in the preparations for the G8 summit 2008 in Japan and 2009 in Italy. We already have contact to Japanese activists involved in the preparations. At the moment we are working together with the transnational press group ‘MediaG8way’ to develop a structure for press work. For these reasons we are convinced that the website will continue to be a central focus for information.

Aside from our political understanding that anticapitalist movements should not restrict themselves to summit protests, it is our aim to document the summit protests in Japan and Italy in order to intensify networking in Europe. Anyone who has followed the Gipfelsoli Infogroup will know how important the G8 summit in 2009 in Italy is for us. In many ways we thus return to our origin.

July 2007