Bush in London: "Burning Planet" demonstration [pictures+reports] by Dudley [ posted by red kitten ] Wednesday November 19, 2003 at 12:05 PM |
redkitten@indymedia.be |
[LONDON] On Tuesday evening the Burning Planet demonstration went from Lincoln's Inn to the Esso/Exxon HQ at Aldwych. Esso/Exxon were the biggest donators to the Bush election campaign and have reaped the rewards of their investment in all kinds of ways apart from just the oil wars.
Another report and pics from the Burning Planet anti Bush demo on Tuesday evening.
The demo just after Trafalgar Square
Exxon/Esso an obvious target
Another one of many banners
The US is increasingly compared to Nazi Gemany these days
Enough said
Climate change was the main focus of this demo
After leaving Exxon we headed off for the US embassy in the West End. It's called
an embassy but from the size of it's pretty obvious that more than just embassy
work goes on there. The building is massive, far, far larger than any other
embassy I've ever seen. The police had multiple lines of railings set up around
the building creating a kind of no mans land between us and the building.
The demonstration was cheered and supported by a number of passers by, even
in the rich areas. People cheered even from several ultra expensive West End
properties. One of these was just a grenades throw away from the US embassy.
Bush has enemies even in high places it seems. On a TV show tonight it was claimed
that 51% supported Bush while 49% opposed. Well that's a pretty bizarre statistic
and it certainly didn't feel that way on the streets. I'm sure some people do
support Bush but I've yet to meet anyone with a good word to say about him.
The demo could have gone via Buckingham Palace, we got to Trafalgar Square,
but the route had been agreed with the Police and I'm sure they wouldn't want
us getting within earshot of the world's most wanted man.
The Green party handed out a leaflet advertising an anti-Bush T-Shirt competition.
This will be at 6.30pm outside Buckingham Palace tomorrow so get down there
if you fancy your chances or just want some amusment. A woman on the demo already
had a pretty good one I thought. All it said was 'Bush is a Cunt'.
This demo seemed about 3 times larger than Saturday's Sheffield demonstration
making it around 3000 in number. It was very musical and colourful with all
kinds of props and banners. The Samba was great as ever but other music was
provided by the Rinky Dink pedal powered sound system and another trike with
a sound system on the back.
The policing was fairly heavy considering what was happening - a simple demo
- with a number of Forward Intelligence Team (FIT) members particularly around
the Samba Band. These guys, recognisable by their blue and dayglo tops have
habit of picking someone and following them for hours - this is probably a bit
like living in communist Russia and being followed by the KGB I imagine. They
have claimed in the past that they're following people who they think are ringleaders
but if that's true then they're not very good at what they're doing. It seems
more likely the intent is to try to intimidate and scare people rather than
get any real information.
However they didn't seem to be photographing everyone as obsessively as they
sometimes do - though one cop photographer was standing by outside McDonalds
on the Strand. I didn't hear of any searches so I guess Al Quaida must have
been somewhere else tonight.
The demo ended with speeches outside the Embassy. I left before these started
as did around half the crowd it seemed.