The final part of a three-part eyewitness report on the protests against
the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meeting in Prague, in September,
by Russian socialist BORIS KAGARLITSKY. Parts one and two were printed
in GLW issues
and .Ìý
September 26
The exits from the Congress Centre [where the IMF and World Bank are meeting] are blockaded by groups of a few dozen people. They sit directly on the pavement, singing and chanting slogans.Street theatre troupes perform in the “no man's land” between the police and demonstrators. Here there are French, Israelis and a mixed group from eastern Europe. People exchange news. A Belarussian detachment has formed here spontaneously.
Along the police barriers the French activists stretch out ribbons like
those used to mark danger zones on a building site. The police are no longer
blockading the demonstrators, they themselves are blockaded.Ìý
A number of bankers in dark suits, accompanied by shouts and whistles, pass through to the Congress Centre. One of the protest organisers, a huge young Austrian with long hair, runs up. He shouts: “Why did you let them through? Have you forgotten why we're here?” Now, men in expensive suits are no longer allowed through.
Journalists in jeans pass through without impediment, as does an ambulance. So too do several local residents whose doors are beyond the police barrier.
From beyond the barriers, another group of men in expensive suits appears. The demonstrators link arms and block their path. The police start beating demonstrators, and a melee breaks out.
The crowd screams: “Shame!”, “Down with the IMF!”. The bankers run back in fright.
A few minutes later an apparently very important gentleman emerges from the Congress Centre. A number of police immediately rush to clear a way for him with their clubs. They have almost broken through when, from around the corner there appears a new group of demonstrators. They are singing something as they march and have raised pink balloons.
Despite the group's thoroughly peaceful appearance, the police hide behind their shields and begin retreating. The banker flees. Singing all the while, the demonstrators carry on marching.
At 4.30pm a column of around 1000 people march around the hill, following the same route as a French group shortly before. Once again there are shouts, the beating of drums and singing. At the end of the column, a group of very youthful Britons in ski masks is assembled around their banner: a smiling green skull on a black background.
We are already next to the bridge. Overturned barriers lie where the police had earlier drawn up their lines. The police are retreating up the path toward the Congress Centre. These police, without helmets, shields or armour, are not anxious for a fight.
Pursuing the police, the demonstrators charge up the hill. Everything recalls the storming of a medieval castle.
The police on the hill draw up their ranks and throw themselves into the attack, but from down below comes a hail of stones. These are from the Britons.
The police turn and run. With shouts of “Hurrah!” and “Down with the IMF!”, several dozen people rush onward and upward. They have now reached the gallery on the ground floor of the Congress Centre. Others, forming ranks, begin moving up the path that is now clear of the enemy.
Over the building, as a sign of victory, soars a pink balloon. A placard stating “Stop the IMF!” is attached to the balcony of the Congress Centre.
Reinforcements — Italians, Britons and Dutch — come from the direction of the bridge. They build a barricade of overturned rubbish containers and police barriers to block the police vehicles.
Beneath the walls of the Congress Centre, young women in pink gas-masks are dancing. The upper balconies are full of people watching the protesters' assault, some in horror and others in curiosity. I realise that the battle has been won.
The Congress Centre is not taken by storm today, but this was not part of the demonstrators' plans. Riot police rush to the scene, clear the balcony and the entrances to the building and then release tear gas.
The gas disperses quickly, without causing much harm to the attackers, but a certain amount of it drifts up into the Congress Centre, causing discomfort to the delegates and officials. The demonstrators retreat in organised fashion to nearby streets, and continue the siege.
By 5pm the spirit of the defenders has been broken once and for all. The blockade has succeeded. For two and a half hours not a single car or bus has been able to leave the besieged building.
The police have had to evacuate particularly important people by helicopter. The rest, after somehow or another breaking out of the building, reach their hotels by public transport. World Bank director James Wolfensohn, too, is forced to travel by metro, evidently for the first time in his life.
Tactically, the battle went brilliantly. The US instructors of the Czech police were expecting a repeat of Seattle, where the demonstrators first blockaded the hotels, then tried to march along the main street in a single large crowd. But the organisers of the Prague protest decided to do everything differently and, although the police undoubtedly knew of the plans, they could not understand them.
In Seattle, the demonstrators had tried to stop the delegates from getting into the conference hall. In Prague, they did not let the delegates out, and this proved even more effective.
Secondly, the Prague demonstrators, in the best traditions of the military arts, dispersed their forces. While the brunt of the special police attacks was diverted onto the “blue” column of protesters, and while the “yellow” column blocked the bridge and disrupted traffic, the “pinks” were able to make it through to the building by breaking up into small detachments. Once there, they regrouped, and the circle was closed.
Each column had its own national and political peculiarities. Those who were mainly looking for a fight finished up in the “blue” column. In the “yellow” column were the most disciplined and organised elements; including most left political group members.
The Italian activists looked extremely threatening, but when they clashed with police, they broke off the engagement relatively quickly. On the bridge, however, they made the necessary impression on the enemy. The “pinks” seemed the most inoffensive, even absurd, but behind this were cunning and persistence. It was no accident that the dominant forces here were the Czechs and British. It was they who decided what the day's outcome would be.
It is 6pm and several thousand people surround the Opera House, blocking the entrances. There are no police anywhere and groups of demonstrators roam about the centre of the city unhindered. On many streets, traffic is closed off.
At the Opera House an impromptu meeting is under way. Speakers are addressing the crowd over a megaphone, in several languages. Sometimes there is translation, sometimes not.
“The Prague Spring of 1968 was the beginning of the end for Soviet totalitarianism. Prague in 2000 is the beginning of the end for the dictatorship of the international financial oligarchy!” The crowd chants a new slogan: “Prague, Seattle, continue the battle!”.
It is announced that the operatic performance scheduled for the summit delegates has been cancelled. The crowd applauds and one of the speakers suggests organising “our own alternative opera”. The Britons and Americans break into “We shall Overcome!”.
On the Opera House balcony, the Austrian Erich Probsting appears: “Today Prague has belonged to us. We have won a victory over global capitalism. We have united people from eastern and western Europe, people from north and south. We are forcing them to respect our rights. We want to decide our fate for ourselves! Tomorrow we shall go out onto the streets again, to show that the struggle is continuing!”
It is 10.30pm and we are sitting in a pizza shop in Wencelas Square discussing the day's events. A few dozen metres away, a group of Germans and Poles are sacking a McDonald's outlet. These restaurants are favourite targets of all the protest actions; McDonald's does not recognise trade unions as a matter of principle and finances right-wingers in US elections.
Anticipating trouble, the managers of the restaurant have put safety glass in the windows, but this merely excites the young radicals further. They use police barriers as rams.
When we enter the square there is no longer a McDonald's. The windows are broken and the sign has been smashed. Over the square hangs the sharp smell of tear gas. People are having their photographs taken against a backdrop of shattered glass.
Police and demonstrators mingle chaotically on the square. No-one understands anything, or controls anything.
A bus appears, full of summit participants. Its safety-glass windows have been cracked by stones and the windscreen is smeared with something white. The passengers look terrified. The crowd hisses and whoops. Police appear in body armour, with dogs. The dogs are extremely savage — so savage that they start attacking one another. They are taken away.
By the end of the day, the police are starting to behave far more viciously, not only against people using violence, but also against peaceful demonstrators.
The blockade on the Congress Centre has been broken and many of the protesters have been beaten and arrested. The number detained is more than 400; of these, about 300 are Czechs. More than 60 people have been injured on both sides.
Before the demonstration began, participants were given a map with the telephone number of a lawyer to call in case of arrest, as well as the telephone numbers of the fire and ambulance services. The detainees have not been given the right to contact a lawyer.
The Czechs are having a particularly bad time. The foreigners, as a rule, are being deported from the country within a few hours; the rest are being taken to Plzen, where they are beaten, denied food and drink, and are prevented from sleeping.
At 10.30pm, in the Initiative Against Economic Globalisation's (INPEG) press centre, information is being collected. The centre's telephone line was cut off several days ago, but mobile phones are still working.
While we are making our inquiries about the day's events, an uproar resounds from the entrance. With a crash, a metal grille closes in front of the door. The neo-Nazis are attacking the centre. I realise to my horror that the building does not have an emergency exit. The attack, however, is beaten off after three or four minutes.
At 11pm on the Charles Bridge, several dozen weary young people have gathered beneath the statues and are eating ice cream. Several of them have torn clothes and bruised faces. All are indescribably happy.
September 27
The events of the previous day have provoked differences within the movement. Many US intellectuals are shocked by what has happened. Chelsea, the US press secretary for INPEG, is almost crying. “We aren't violent people, we're peaceful, all this is terrible.”The German press secretary, Stefan, takes a quite different attitude: the violence was inevitable. The police tactics aimed to rule out any possibility of a successful non-violent action.
Those who wanted violence most of all were the press, he says. “If there hadn't been barricades and broken windows, they wouldn't have shown anything at all. The police intended to disperse us from the very first. In West Berlin, clashes like this are commonplace. So what's all the discussion about?”
The demonstrations are continuing in various places, and from time to time they are broken up. The main demand is for the release of the detainees, but the number in custody is constantly growing. In Peace Square, most of those who have assembled are Czechs and Germans. Riot police are dragging a young Czech activist along the ground. The crowd screams, “Fascists!”.
It is 6pm and young people are walking about with placards declaring: “I am an activist too — arrest me!”.
Demonstrators go onto the Charles Bridge. On the other side of the bridge, police in body armour are drawing up. “There's a McDonald's there and they're scared we're going to storm it”, explains an Australian journalist working for an environmental organisation.
People question one another about the details of what happened on the previous day. Maksim, a Ukrainian television journalist, tries to obtain an interview from a young Portuguese woman; she and a few friends bought tickets to Prague just three days ago, setting off, as she puts it, “to war”.
She laments that there are almost no Portuguese present: “We're so unorganised!”. Maksim suggests that she repeat this on camera, but she refuses and makes off, declaring, “I hate the television!”.
It's 10.30pm and I'm drinking beer in a bar with Maksim, one of his colleagues and a number of activists from Germany. The Ukrainians have just completed a direct broadcast in which Maksim was asked to comment on a rumour that the IMF meeting would be cut short. We phone colleagues from the BBC, who confirm it.
Yes, the summit will end a day ahead of schedule, and there will be no concluding press conference. The reasons are not announced. The closing ceremony has been cancelled; the press release says something vague to the effect that all the speeches by the participants have been unexpectedly short. There are also some general comments about the uprising in Prague.
We order another round of beer. At the neighbouring tables, British and Dutch protesters shout with joy and embrace one another. “What the hell”, says one of the German women. “It turned out to be so easy!”