Media G8way: “Victory: The G8 has been blocked in!”
Now, with the help of the wind, one of the main goals of the anti-G8 activists will be reached. The G8 leaders have been confined inside their own fence. German newspaper Die Zeit has reported that no ships can land at Heiligendamm. With ten thousand protestors currently blocking the two gates into the resort, the heads of state and their baggage are effectively locked in.
“This is a true success,” explains Lotta Kemper from the G8 resistance-based Campinski Press group. “We have denied the legitimacy of the G8 for us and the rest of the world. We said we would use decentralized blockades to surround and blockade them, impede their infrastructure and enclose them within their own fence. This strategy has been successful for the past two days.”
All day Wednesday and today, protestors blocked entrances to Heiligendamm, Germany where G8 leaders were meeting. Despite having to move through fields, forests, and police lines, over 10,000 thousands of protesters succeeded in blocking both the east and west gates, forcing G8 organizers to call “Plan B,” moving delegates to the conference by boat and helicopter.
Yesterday afternoon more than 5,000 protesters settled down at the police controlled eastern “Gate 2,” successfully blocking all traffic through the gate. Hundreds spent the night at the blockade, and as of 18:30 today more than 1,000 remain on location. “The atmosphere is very festive,” said one activist, returning from the blockade. “People from the neighborhood have been visiting and there are children and families sitting down with the blockaders.”
Gate 2, which is the eastern entrance to Heiligendamm, is located at the perimeter of the 12 kilometer long razor wire security fence and inside of the “red zone,” an area declared illegal for protest by the German government.
At the western “Gate 1” at least a thousand protestors also gathered yesterday afternoon setting out from the protest camps in Wichmansdorf and Rostock. They remained, peacefully, until finally being dispersed by water cannons and riot police sometime in the evening. Today around 9:00 approximately 500 people left the camp in Reddilich to retake Gate 1. They succeeded for most of the day, but as of 18:40 have been reporting violence from police, and excessive use of water cannons.
Other smaller groups of demonstrators also moved autonomously through the region today and yesterday blockading roads with a variety of methods. Altogether, tens of thousands of protesters participated in the blockades, arriving from over 30 countries.