GERMANY / FUND DRIVE Youth protest against G-7 summit A BIG mobilization of mainly young people from throughout Germany greeted the arrival of the leaders of the world's seven richest countries for the G-7 summit that opened in Munich on July 6. RAPHAEL DUFFLEAUX F ROM Thursday, July 2, Munich was under siege. On top of the mobilization of most of the Bavarian police, the German government had brought in thousands of frontier guards from other provinces, these being the only repressive forces directly under Federal control. Much of the population was fed up with the massive police presence, which was aimed not only at protecting the G-7 meeting, but also at intimidating the thousands of demonstrators who came out in response to an appeal from the organizers of the Congress Against the Dominant World Order.
At first this congress was organized by the Munich students' association and was to last for three days, from Friday until Sunday. On the Saturday afternoon a demonstration against the summit was called by a collective of fifty organizations, including most of the country's anti-imperialist organizations, the far left groups, many Catholic and Protestant organizations, sections of the Young Socialists and local groups of the Greens.
There were about 20,000 on this march from throughout Germany, including the former East Germany. Almost all the demonstrators were young and took up the most radical anti-imperialist slogans. The biggest contingent was that of the autonomists [anar- contingent was that of the autonomists anarchists]. The far left was split into a myriad of groups, none of them with more than a few hundred supporters.
The Greens, who were represented through local groups, mobilized less than the Christian youth groups. However one of the Green's founders, Jutta Ditfurth, who has left the Greens to form a small leftwing ecological organization, was there.
The demonstration was accompanied by some 6,000 police who were waiting for their opportunity to break it up. The arrival of about 100 autonomists wearing scarves over their faces — which is forbidden by law -2: gave them the pretext to attack several times; International Viewpoint # 233 •
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REPORTING on an interview given by ex-Israeli premier Vitzhak Shamir after his recent election defeat, the International Herald Tribune told its astounded readers that "Mr. Shamir's remarks suggested that he never intended to make progress towards Palestinian self-rule" . Mr. Shamir, the /HT reports, "would have tried to drag out talks on Palestinian self-rule for 10 years while attempting to settle hundreds of thousands of Jews in the occupied territories" (HT, June 27-28, 1992). Such revelations, coming in a newspaper which - like every other mainstream newspaper in the world - has presented the Middle East "peace process" initiated by the Madrid conference last October as a significant political breakthrough, might well leave /HT readers scratching their heads in bemusement.
However, no such bewilderment would have afflicted regular readers of International Viewpoint. In our pages, Salah Jaber reported last November that: "In any case, for the Israeli government of Yitzhak Shamir this is all a bluff... Shamir's aim is to give away nothing essential while giving the impression of being ready to do so... The aim ... is to play for time... To sum up, Shamir is going to the conference to get the money he intends to use to carry through his rampant annexation of the West Bank and Gaza" (IV 216, November 11,
1991).
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• Secondly, by supporting the fund drive that we are setting up to safeguard the future of our press. Send cheques to International Viewpoint, 2 Rue Richard Lenoir, 93108 Montreuil, France. As usual, payments should be made out to PEC, but please indicate that your contribution is intended to go towards the fund drive. For postal and bank transfers please see details on page 2. * nonetheless, the march was able to reach its destination.
Meanwhile, the mantle of repression passed on from the Bavarian Interior Ministry to the president of the university, Ludwig Maximilien. The latter withdrew permission for the use of the room booked for the Congress, claiming that "order is in danger" owing to the proximity of the demonstration. The seven round tables planned had to take place in seven different places.
On Monday, July 6, over 2,000 young people tried to take part in the official ceremony of greeting for the seven heads of state and government. This brave but somewhat foolhardy initiative gave the units of frontier guards their opportunity. Dozens of people were wounded and there were 170 arrests. The police brutality was such that the next day's Munich press carried headlines such as "Munich's shame" and "the Brutal Summit".
This anti-imperialist demonstration came a few weeks after a solidarity congress with Cuba which brought together more than 1,000 activists. Along with the recent strike wave we are beginning to see the militant groups in Germany getting a new wind in their sails. *
July 20, 1992