France, Essonne: cops stoned and molotoved in ambush “The vehicle was blocked in an alley by vehicles parked on the taxiway. Police managed to maneuver and move forward, but the time lost allowed a group of young people to organize. There were ten to block the road, on foot, …They began to throw a rain of stones on the vehicle whose front window was broken by two impacts. …To escape, the police backed up, but were blocked by a parked car that they hit during their U-turn. A Molotov cocktail exploded right next to the patrol. …No attackers were arrested. Four policemen were very slightly affected by shards of glass. “This defiance of the state will continue until human resources are sufficient”.
France: yellow vest clashes in 17 towns I wasn’t in Montpellier this Saturday, but a friend told me that on the route of the march an enormous amount of ATMs, parking meters and especially CCTV cameras were wrecked. A breakaway group of about 50 ‘yellow vests’ headed for the main shopping precinct of the city and before they got there the whole building was closed, to would-be shoppers and demonstrators alike.
France, Paris: nearly a thousand, mainly adolescents influenced by Swedish 15-Year-old, march against climate change“Warm hearts, not the planet”…Led by a large number of police officers, the young demonstrators left the Place de l’Opéra, carrying placards “the future begins here”, “Save the Earth, eat a lobbyist”, “Water is coming” and chanting slogans “we are warmer than the climate” or “join us, do not look at us”.…Last week for the first mobilization, there were about 200 high school students and students blocking traffic in front of the Ministry of Ecological Transition.” Unfortunately there were also some politicians involved, like the mayor of Paris and an MEP.
Algeria: despite suppression of social networks, demonstrations and riots follow half-dead president’s decision to stand in elections for a 5th time “On Thursday evening, the day before the demonstrations, social networks were largely neutralized in Algeria to deprive citizens of their ability to mobilize on the Internet.…”power is capable of everything”, explains a diplomat, “even the election of a dead person”...The only official reaction – Algerian national TV has broadcast a documentary on the reproduction of frogs” As with almost all social movements, these included those against smashing things, politicos belonging to ‘opposition’ parties hoping to gain power, Islamists, and doubtless loads of other types of people.
Venezuela, border with Brazil: 3 soldiers taken prisoner by angry crowds as army kill 2 people following attempt by locals to let through aid convoys blocked by Maduro…though this says that they defected…and, as if the Venezuelan poor haven’t suffered enough, Richard Branson gets in on the act See A Desperate Venezuela Today, which, despite elements of self-management ideology, is pretty good.
South Africa, KwaZulu Natal: academic programme cancelled as students clash with cops over accommodation, debt etc.
US: 260 rallies across 48 states – demonstrators march against Fake Trump Emergency “…against Trump’s fake crisis and racist deportation force and to stand with immigrant, Muslim, and Black and brown communities to stop Trump’s dangerous and illegal power grab.” See also this.
Haiti, Aquin: 78 prisoners escape during demonstration in front of police station “Port-au-Prince also saw clashes between police and hundreds of protesters in working-class neighbourhoods….Thousands of people took to the streets. After police forces dispersed them, some set fire to cars and looted stores to express their mounting frustrations over growing social inequalities worsened by systemic corruption. A youth was also shot dead at a crossroads near the presidential palace.” Videos here and here.
Belgium, Brussels: statue to one of the world’s biggest mass murderers disappears and gets replaced by statue to another, lesser, mass murderer, which then gets vandalised King Leopold ll was responsible for the massacre of up to 80% of the indigenous population of the Congo at the beginning of the 20th century, proportionally probably as many as those who were murdered in the holocaust. Mandela was responsible for covering up sexual abuse in ANC camps in the 1980s (see also this) and his ANC contributed to the massacre of up to 20,000 in the war between the white apartheid state and the ANC racketeers. No wonder him and de Klerk (a high-up minister in the vicious apartheid government until the social struggle forced the system to reform its image and give the appearance of the abolition of apartheid) got the Nobel Peace Prize. See also “Mandela can go to hell!”.
several cars were burned there.” The United Nations mission mentioned above were responsible for the death of at least 4 people “in a traffic accident” (see this video), as part of their “application of justice” in the country.
Haiti, Port-au-Prince: President’s home stoned as clashes continue…demonstrations and burning barricades in 9 parts of town“Burning barricades, stones thrown, demonstrations … the police on the spot could do nothing in the face of the anger of the demonstrators who demand better living conditions and the departure of the President of the Republic. Because of this situation, the municipality of Carrefour which hosts the largest fuel terminal in the country has already not been able to supply other parts of the country for three days.” Despite the fact that the main catalyst for this uprising were the government’s austerity measures, the official opposition reduces the whole situation to largely political demands: the resignation of the president and prime minister, an enquiry into the PetroCaribe corruption scandal in which 3.8 billion dollars seems to have ‘disappeared’ and the holding of an independent national conference to develop a social project in the interest of all layers of society (as if the latter was possible).
In Montpellier, this leaflet was distributed and it was generally well-received, though, ironically, those from the so-called anti-authoritarian milieu were the most critical. Those least addled by oppositional ideology seemed to like it, though it’s hard to know whether this was politeness or that they hadn’t had time or space to read it all or whether they genuinely found it interesting and pertinent.
There were some remarkable acrobatic-tactics – like 2 people climbing up to the 2nd floor on the outside of 2 buildings, without ropes or any other equipment, to put up some banners. One was simply “Social ecological emergency – Stop capitalism”. The other was “Police – don’t obey orders – obey your ideas!”, to which lots of people clapped. An almost unbelievable naivety (a friend pointed out that a large percentage of cops vote for Le Pen, so that if they obeyed their “ideas” things would be even worse). I shouted out “But these shitheads have no ideas, otherwise they wouldn’t be cops” but without any response.
The demo was largely peaceful until the cops in front of the prefecture responded to fireworks (not being thrown at them, but merely lit on the large traffic island in front of the large building) with teargas and teargas-laced water projected through large hosepipes. As evening descended the cops fired more and more teargas until much of the centre of town was filled with it, the main square becoming a thick fog of the stuff. At one point, plain clothed cops from the BAC got teargassed by other cops who mistook them for black blockers. A few bins started to be torched, stones were thrown and at one time a strange firework that took a 5 meter length 2 meters high form right in front of the line of cops about 3 meters behind it. I only had one second to appreciate this curious display before the cops started firing massive amounts of teargas. Running off, my eyes burning for a short while from the gas, I followed about 200 people, amongst whom were some wheeling a very large wheelie-bin with its contents on fire, which they took down a long flight of stairs down to the tramway where they left it to burn. The clashes continued into the night but I was knackered, after having walked round town for about 6 hours.
…but sadly so-called education, even if ‘free’, is ‘education’ in order to adapt people to an unfree life and unfree world – which is not to say that privatised expensive education is not intended to intensify class apartheid, to intensify precarity for those at the sharp end.
Private security guards hide themselves behind shields as students throw stones during a protest at Johannesburg’s University of the Witwatersrand (WITS). Students tried to shut down the university, demanding that homeless students should be provided with adequate accommodation and students who have historical debts be allowed to register at the university. The day before, at least 1 student was seriously injured after security guards fired stun grenades. In Durban, 2 days before, a security guard killed a student.
South Africa, KwaZulu Natal: security vehicle torched, cops stoned, during student protests about accommodation etc.
Venezuela: information & analysis of the situation there, though ending with a meaningless municipal anarchist ideology … A Desperate Venezuela Today, however, is better, despite elements of self-management ideology.