Collateral Damage from G-8 Protesters

G-8 summits tend to draw a large assortment of protesters, most of whom tend to have problems with globalization and capitalism.  Amongst them are anarchists and other radicals whose intent is to stir conflict.  Knowing this, the local German police built a seven-mile fence around where the summit was held.  Nevertheless, the protests turned violent on several occasions. 

But, the following isn't about the damage caused by violent protesters.

Many German farmers are sympathetic to the goals of the anti-globalization activists protesting against the G-8 in Heiligendamm. However their sympathy abruptly disappears when their livelihood is threatened. Now farmers in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania are demanding to know who is going to pay for the damage caused to their crops when activists trampled through their fields earlier this week.

The protesters themselves have made it clear that they don't want to pay for the damage they caused. Lea Voigt, spokesperson for the Block G-8 campaign, defended protesters' actions Friday, saying that activists were forced to go through fields and forests after police blocked roads leading to the venue.

Voigt told the news agency AFP that the organization was "in contact with several farmers," and was taking their concerns seriously. Nevertheless, legitimate protesters should not be "presented with a bill" afterwards, she said.

What the heck does being a "legitimate protester" have to do with the damage caused?  The right to protest trumps property rights? 

The farmers' association of the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where the summit is being held, announced Thursday that it would demand compensation from the state. A spokesperson said that a lot of agricultural land had been "massively affected."

...

Other activists expressed their sympathy for the farmers' plight. "The trampling of the fields is regrettable, but I think there was a higher good at stake," Christoph Kleine, a spokesman and organizer of the Block G-8 campaign, told SPIEGEL ONLINE on Thursday. "What I'm more concerned about are the 30 or so cows which escaped. They aren't that easy to catch."

Evidently the farmers get no say whether they want to financially support that higher good. 

Some folks feel that just by volunteering to host a G-8 summit (or WTO meeting), a nation is committing to reimbursing property owners for the inevitable damage caused by protests.  Sad. 

Comments

[John Bowler]

Curiously I had a similar experience a while back in Josephine County. I was on 8$ mountain road driving to the BLM botanical area (the one with the Trex boardwalk) when I passed a curious sign attached to a forest service pole stuck into a muddy bank at the side of the road.

I figured stopping to read it would be grossly antisocial - my dually long bed F350 would certainly block the road - and I could see a group of officialdom higher up the road just where I wanted to stop (the parking area opposite the botanical area).

So I proceeded up the road to talk to the guys. They turned out to be Pam Bode's goons and they were *VERY* aggressive. The Forest Service had closed the road at the point of the sign I failed to read (I knew it might be closed but expected the closure to be further up, at the gate and beyond the access to the BLM area.)

The guy who talked to me wanted to give me the impression I was a criminal for not stopping in the middle of the road, climbing the muddy bank to read the notice and promptly turning round *at that place in the road* to leave. Turning that truck round at the point he expected me to turn it would have been a physical impossibility.

When I say this guy was being aggressive I mean that he really *was* trying to create conflict. I explained I wanted to go to the botanical area. He didn't know it was there! It was 10ft behind him! He said I couldn't even walk down the road to where he was and I had to keep 100ft from the road.

He said I *could* walk round the back - 100ft from the road. See the similarity? He gave me no choice to access the area but to traverse round the forest service land (which is only about 200ft wide) and onto the BLM land round the back. Since I knew I could get round this way I did so - crossing private land, but it was not posted so that was fine (there is a right-to-roam in Oregon).

It was pretty clear by the end of the conversation that this wasn't the goon's idea. He was just paid muscle. He was actually getting quite apologetic about the whole situation and suggested that I come back the later in the week, when they wouldn't be there. (Yes, he really did say this - he really did suggest that I should ignore the FS road closure so long as the FS security gaurds weren't there!)

Someone, however, had given him orders, and those orders were to create conflict. This is about the same time that Pam Bode was talking about doing this, although she was talking about other people doing it. It seems to be a standard technique around here - complain madly about some particular bit of behaviour while at the same time doing it as much as you can.

In this case Bode was out to make conflict but by whining madly about the conflict she hoped to trick people into thinking someone else was creating it! I've seen the same technique in that Evergreen publciation the South West Oregon forest activists sent round to local forest land owners and in the recent Conroy 'truth' article.

I was glad to see Bode leave the area, though saddened that she was going to such a beautiful area of the country. Still, the problem is in the system not the individual people.

Oregon itself passed "164.887 Interference with agricultural operations", and Sheriff Daniel subsequently used this to prosecute Bode's conflict within the Illinois Valley.

164.887 so succinctly places the needs of capital above the rights to protest, yet it does so only for one particular power group - the forest/mining/ranching interests and it deliberately excludes another power group - organised labor - from the law!

So far as I can find out Daniel's arrests under this law never got tested in court. There were plea bargains, the death of the leading protester and then the last case got dismissed by the DA last month.

Political protest is an essential part of the life of all western countries. The criminal law which protects life (no death threats against doctors), health (no molotov cocktails) and property (no digging up cobblestones) is as adequate during a protest as it is at any other time.

The civil law provides just as much recourse for a German farmer with trampled crops as it does for me when some idiot on an ATV trashes my meadows. That's not very much in either case because, regardless of why the damage was done, the damage really is just a bit of property and, however stupid the act, the intent was not to damage property.

[Joerg Wolf -- Atlantic Community]

Thank you for this interesting post. I have included it in a Best of Blogs round-up about the G8-Summit: Check out the Atlantic Community: The Open Think on Global Issues

You are very welcome to register and comment on the other posts. Some of the other bloggers have a very different take on all this.