Climate Justice Action 1

From an activist point of view one of the highlights in these past two weeks was the Climate Justice Action on wednesday december 16th. Planned for months and publicized and discussed for almost as long the main purpose of this demonstation was to break through the fence and police barricades surrounding the COP15 area at Bella Center. Once inside the aim was to meet with a group of like-minded delegates from all over the world and establish a Peoples Assembly. This Assembly would the discuss and change the agenda for COP15 – taking decisions in their own hands; the hands of the people.

The action was organised as two separate actions. The first, a legal demonstration called the blue bloc, set of at 8am in the morning from Tårnby Station, a couple of kilometers from Bella Center. The other, the green bloc met an hour later at Ørestad MetroStation close to Bella Center. This second bloc was not leggally annonced as a demonstration and was supposed to split into smaller groups and seek possible ways of entering the Bella Center area. This bloc was immideatly surrounded and fenced in by the police and after some running around the police arrestates around 200 activists. Pacified.

The blue bloc though, gathers more protesters and is estimated to around 2000 people as it moves slowly towards Bella Center. The polices is following the demo very close and has a whole train of cars fencing off one side of the demo. There is constanly protests over police intrusions into the demonstration from the organisers who are speaking from a truck in the mids of the demo. The demostration is large, noisy and completely international. There is a wild anarchistic joy in the air as the parade passes through the rainy gray suburbs.

When demo arrives at Bella Center the futility of the plan to break through the heavy fences surrounding the COP15 is obvious. Its a heavy double fence with huge concrete bases and the presence of the police is massive. After an hour of pushing – the crowd of activists using their sheer number and the collective weight of bodies, trying to push their way through the police barricades - the police decides to cancel the demo and to clear the cross-road where the battle is taking place. They bring in dogs and a whole brigade of armored vehicles. Now a dramatic battle takes place and there is violence from both sides and a lot of arrests. Standing on the fringes of the battle I see a constant flow of hurt demonstrators – hurt by pepper-spray or hit by the police - that are brought out to the small groups of medical-supporters who have been following the demo all day. The polices manages to force the demo a few hundred meters down Vejlands Alle, the road in front of Bella Center, and keep it there, now fenced in on both sides by police barricading the street with their vehicles.

Here on the street the temporary Peoples Assembly is established on a huge carpet in red and blue. It is reported that a similar assembly is established inside the Bella Center Area by the supporters inside. Now a series of short speaches start and there is a lively positive atmosphere. After a while the demonstration starts moving back to Copenhagen City where it dissolves as darkness falls.