For those who have followed mainstream media coverage of the protests against the scandalous G20 (who are deciding to give the IMF, those with the Structural Adjustment Plans to steal from the poor, an enormous amount of money: The G-20 agreed to give the fund and other development bodies new resources of $1.1 trillion, exceeding most expectations, with the IMF’s coffers potentially boosted by $750 billion) might have missed a few things, but thankfully we have Indymedia and others.
GET THE EYE WITNESS REPORTS FROM THE SCENE OF THE TRAGIC AND TERRIBLE POLICE ACTION:
With regard to the death reported yesterday, which happened three hours before it was officially reported by BBC and Sky News (obviously orchestrated and timed), a “natural death” was suggested – as natural as someone kettled in for many hours without food, water and access to a toilet and surrounded by aggressive riot cops can be. The disgusting or unwittingly satirical reporting by BBC News at 10pm last night also included statements that police tried to save the man, but had to retreat because they were being targeted by bottles and other “missiles” thrown by the evil protestors. Of course the reality is different. Here is a typical scene when things are calm and normal:
So what happened then, you might ask, if we can’t trust the corporate media due to their vested interests and blind following of the state and police script?? Well, here are interviews with some of the eyewitnesses, courtesy of London Indymedia:
Various participants in the City of London demonstrations on April 1st have come forward as witnesses to the collapse of a man later identified by authorities as Ian Tomlinson. Four different university students witnessed the collapse of Mr. Tomlinson. “He stumbled towards us from the direction of police and protestors and collapsed,” said Peter Apps. “I saw a demonstrator who was a first aider attend to the person who had collapsed. The man was late 40s, had tattoos on his hands, and was wearing a Millwall shirt.”
While the first aider was helping the man, another demonstrator with a megaphone was calling the police over so that they could help.
Natalie Langford, a student at Queen Mary, said “there was a police charge. A lot of people ran in our direction. The woman giving first aid stood in the path of the crowd.” The running people, seeing a guy on the ground, went around them.
Another demonstrator had already called 999 and was getting medical advice from the ambulance dispatcher. “Four police with two police medics came. They told her [the first aider] to ‘move along’.”, said Peter Apps. “Then they pushed her forcibly away from him. They refused to listen to her [the first aider] when she tried to explain his condition.”
The first aider, who did not wish to be named, said “The police surrounded the collapsed man. I was standing with the person who’d called 999. The ambulance dispatcher wanted to talk to the police, the phone was being held out to them, but the police refused.”
Another witness, Elias Stoakes, added “we didn’t see them [the police] perform CPR.”
Other people who had tried to stay with the collapsed man were also pushed away.
All of the witnesses deny the allegation that many missiles were thrown.
According to Peter Apps, “one bottle was thrown, but it didn’t come close to the police. Nothing was thrown afterwards as other demonstrators told the person to stop. The person who threw the bottle probably didn’t realize that someone was behind the ring of police.” All the witnesses said that the demonstrators were concerned for the well-being of the collapsed man once they realized that there was an injured person.
Natalie Langford said “when the ambulance arrived the protestors got straight out of the way.”
These witnesses are happy to give media statements.
They can be contacted through this press liasion email: g20witnesses@gmail.com
Email Contact email: g20witnesses@gmail.com
Another incident, which has generated much mainstream bullshit, is the window that was smashed in the bank (that was then entered and had “its computers trashed”). Well, that “bank” was apparently shutdown, the building up for rent, and as the only building in the area it which was not boarded up, according to a comment to a poor article in The Guardian:
Nolan, 02 Apr 09, 4:26pm (about 7 hours ago)
What many people do not realise is that when the windows of the RBS were broken, they found that there were police intelligence photographers the other side of the glass (e.g. see picture [below])
The police can’t just move in and out of empty buildings at will (the building was unoccupied and up for rent), they were obviously there in advance. The windows had mirrored glass and were the only ones in the area not boarded up, so presumably the place was being used as a surveillance point and the intention was to take pictures of the protestors from behind the 2-way mirror. Can’t imagine the police expected the protestors to come through the glass.
Suddenly a group of protestors, for a longer period of time penned in, kettled down, and moved about by the police find themselves in front of corporate windows with a mirror reflection and in the possession of something sufficient to smash these windows. Now how does that work? Under the intense scrutiny for hours – surveilled for months, even teenagers in Plymouth had their fireworks confiscated – and pushed about, yet suddenly in front of a corporate building that is not boarded up?!? If we take a look at what was inside the building we might get a better idea of the screenplay for yesterday’s events:
We can only speculate, but it probably went something like this:
“We hide in there, move them close, make sure they have something heavy they can throw through the window, we inform the Evening Standard et al., and then we have those pictures that can justify all the propaganda and budget money spent on our totalitarian measures against concerned citizens, sorry evil anarchists – failing that, we have a couple of agent provocateurs standing by with something that can smash those windows”.
Mission accomplished, – have we not seen these patterns a million times by now? At every Summit, especially since the G8 in Genoa, where all bets were off?
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