--- Forwarded Message from "Dr. Ekkehard Jaenicke" <eps@gmx.at> ---
>Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2000 21:49:46 +0200
>Organization: Ecumenical Press Service / Geneva / Vienna / Berlin-Hannover /
>To: Andrew.Bacelis@directory.reed.edu
>Subject: [Fwd: Expo 2000 opened with police violence]
June 6, 2000
Expo 2000 opened with police violence against left campaigners
HANOVER, Germany (ej) - Germany's first world fair, Expo 2000, opened
June 1st to Latin American music from Brazil and chanting from
anti-capitalist campaigners. The Expo grounds, almost as big as an
average town, filled quickly with visitors, most of whom had not paid
US-$57, nearly double the standard price of US-$33, for the experience.
Owing to subdued public interest in the event, Expo organizers have
admitted giving free entry to over 38,000 local schoolchildren and 6,000
Expo building workers as well as an unknown amount of local and
international VIPs trying to boost attendance on the first day to more
than 100,000.
Just as German President Johannes Rau cut the ribbon for the public
opening of the five-month burlesque in the northern city of Hanover, as
well as during the opening speech by German Prime Minister Schroeder, a
larger amount of left-wing demonstrators began chanting "Expo No" beyond
perimeter fences.
Expo 2000, which is expected by local sources of the left Party of
Democratic Socialism (PDS) to lose around US-$290 million or more, has
been dogged by controversy ever since it was conceived to showcase the
"new" Germany born out of unification a decade ago. Host city Hanover
has a long record of rebel action and even violence by unsatisfied young
people, based on a strong left subculture in the capital of Lower
Saxony.
Police herded protesters away but there were no arrests on Expo ground.
Not all German and foreign dignitaries ignored the chanting, even local
union and church leaders belong to the faction of Expo opponents.
Outside, Expo opponents flung burning tires on to the main
Hanover-Hamburg railway line, halting trains for half an hour. Blockades
on streets, leading to the Expo grounds, lasted over one hour.
The protesters see the fair as a "neoliberal" glorification of
capitalism with its pavilions and exhibits from over 170 nations and
international organizations and share their critics with the protesters
at Washington and Seattle a few months ago.
"This a waste of public money to spend it on VIPs and big business and
on a Disney Land of <Shareholder value>, it should better be spent on
people of the <One World>", said a social worker (25) among mostly
student demonstrators, who gave her first name as Kitty. She sympathized
with "Fair Trade Action" and solidarity with the south as well as German
public sector workers who will vote next week whether to strike for
higher and equal pay in Germany as a whole. East Germans still earn only
around 80 % of the West German salaries, 10 years after the
reunification of Germany.
Police forces from all over Germany are concentrated at Hanover. They
had searched a camp of peaceful anti-Expo activists, known by its
inhabitants as part of the FAUST complex, an alternative center of
culture and events on the day before Expo opening but made no arrests
and declined to comment on a newspaper report that they had seized
Molotov cocktails. The protesters affirmed this to be untruth: "This
action had been organized to discredit peoples action in the public".
At the early evening of June 1st police herded more than 450 protesters
after a peaceful manifestation away. All of them were arrested and taken
into small mass cages at Hanover central police headquarters for over 12
hours. Most of them had been forced afterwards to leave Hanover and will
be object of a trial by court.
On Saturday, June 1st, young Expo opponents called to celebrate a
"Reclaim the Streets-Party" on the streets of Hanover City. But even
dancing on the streets was forbidden and brutally interrupted by police
violence.
Expo chief Birgit Breuel said in her opening speech: "The Expo has been
made by people for people, our guests. It's not virtual. It's there to
touch." But subdued public interest in the extravaganza touches only
workers and clerks on Expo ground, a lot of them lost their jobs only 5
days after Expo start. Only 15 % of the visitors awaited by the Expo
organizers had really shown interest to enter the grounds.
(US-$1-2.088 Mark)
Ekkehard Jaenicke, Hannover / Berlin
(All about the anti-Expo protests in German language:
www.expo-calypse.de)
-----
Written for your publication, please spread the facts in your region,
too!
My address:
Ekkehard Jaenicke,
Uhlandstr. 78,
10717 Berlin
Germany
eps@gmx.at
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