Sophie Williams reports on all the action and analyses the police response

Normally, I wince when people start shouting ‘Whose streets? Our streets!’, mostly because the chant is generally accompanied by hordes of riot police battering us into a kettle, and it is painfully obvious who really controls the streets. However, when Disarm DSEi visited The City on 8th September, the streets and indeed the buildings belonged to the protesters as the police sat back and impotently watched proceedings.

Around 200 people gathered outside RBS in Aldgate, including two sound systems and three reinforced banners, to protest against Defence Systems Equipment International (DSEi) – the world’s largest arms fair. DSEi itself was opening at the ExCeL Centre in the Docklands, but protesters chose to highlight the investors and backers in the trade by visiting The City (see Freedom, 15th August 2009). There were various reasons for the change of focus, not least with people fed up with being kettled and chased away from the ExCeL Centre – and the ExCeL Centre, located in Newham, one of London’s poorest boroughs, meant that once pushed away from the centre, there was a dearth of targets. At least in The City, if protesters were kettled, there was a target on every corner.

Protesters needn’t have worried. Headed by the three banners and around thirty black bloc types, the protest formed up in the road without opposition. There were no TSG trying to force people back onto the pavement, no flash photography from the FIT, no cops, in fact, anywhere near the demo. The protest made it to the first target, Barclays – the largest investors in the arms trade with £7.3 billion shares – shoes were thrown at the building, and the freshly painted banners made a nice red mess on the windows. Still there were no cops.

This pattern was repeated throughout the day – even when protesters invaded the BT building (£59 million in shares) and smashed a window at AXA (£6207 million in the international arms trade) there was no sign of the police. The one cop guarding the AXA building had to make a quick tactical retreat as she was swarmed by protesters – and jeering City workers soon lost their leering grins when they saw protesters making serious assaults on the buildings in which they were hiding.

‘We should have done more’, was the biggest criticism of the day. However, whilst I agree – and the route was certainly much quicker than anyone thought given we didn’t have to fight through lines of TSG to get where we wanted – we had an impact, we caused damage and, after years of repression, it took a while for the group to gain confidence. Everyone attending the evening debrief of the action felt empowered by the event – something I’ve never heard anyone say in relation to DSEi protests – and people were enthusiastic about generating a long term campaign against some of the investors.

It was also good, as has been shown on other, mostly anti-militarist events, to see a strong black bloc at the head of the march. This is something which has been missing from our demos for too long – and something going back to our mobilisations against the Iraq war, was sadly missing and seemingly impossible to organise. It is also good to see these blocs happening on anti militarist events such as Smash EDO/ITT and DSEi because there is a common misconception that an anti-militarist stance is akin to pacifism. However, being anti-militarist is about being against the military industrial complex which maintains and tightens state control, ensuring the rich get richer and the poor are kept in their place by deprivation and violence. Many anti-militarists support armed struggle and the presence of militant blocs on anti-militarist events ensures any possible pacifist paradigm of anti-militarism is not prevalent.

Actions continued throughout the week. On Wednesday, a group of around fifteen travelled to Custom House station and held a noise demo outside one of the entrances to the ExCeL centre, overlooking the platform and the travelling arms dealers. Watched by very grumpy cops, who were obviously unhappy at the Met’s new found desire to facilitate protest – this was the nearest we’ve ever been allowed to DSEi and protesters spent several hours challenging the dealers directly.
Hotels housing the delegates were also targeted by night and early morning visitors brandishing the world’s first ever totally biodegradable cardboard weapons. Helium balloons attached to rape alarms were also released in one of the hotels.
However, it was also at the Hilton Hotel where the Met began to act in a way reminiscent of tactics of yore. After some brief confusion over location, a group of around sixty gathered outside the hotel where the richest of the delegates were attending a swanky banquet. Although we were allowed nearer to the hotel and for longer than in previous years, after a couple of scuffles with sound system, spoon-stealing security goons, the police were quick to impose a Section 14 conditions on the assembly. Given there was only one condition, to stand in the protest designated pen, it was clear there would be arrests if it were to be enforced.

For the first time that week, Fitwatch’s favourite photographer Neil Williams was wheeled out, armed only with a small camcorder equipped with a large tripod arm to attempt to evade the quickly assembled Fitwatchers. Cops surrounded the protesters in front of the hotel, and attempted to push them towards the pen – around ten sat down, and initially all those caught in the cordon were kettled, with anyone attempting to leave being thrown onto the people sitting down. After a half hour standoff where people were allowed to leave the cordon, the people refusing to move were arrested, alongside a couple of others who the cops just didn’t like. Draconian bail conditions for a non imprisonable offence included not entering the M25 area, residency, and not associating with others arrested, and show that once away from the public gaze, the cops are still willing and able to assert their control.

The lack of cameras at DSEi, both on the demos, at the convergence space, and the pre-meetings, was a real victory for Fitwatchers.

Fitwatch was started outside a DSEi meeting and, whilst publicity and liberal campaigning has helped, the fact there were no cameras at DSEi is a victory for direct action. The cops aren’t flashing cameras in our faces because it’ll look bad in The Guardian, but because they realise their presence will provoke disorder. We have come full circle, with the cameras originally deployed to deter disorder being withdrawn because they are causing public order problems. Unfortunately, this victory is accompanied with a note of caution – we haven’t achieved anonymity on our demos, we have rid ourselves of intrusive harassment. The cops still have CCTV and every covert means available to monitor our movements and actions. Not having cameras in our faces may inspire more people to take action, but people must mask up, and take the same security precautions. It is also worth noting that the minimal police presence at Tuesday’s protest was made predominately of FIT cops, including Chief Inspector Matt Twist, who claimed he knew everyone present. If we fail to take security seriously, this victory will be soured by more good people serving unnecessary prison time.

There is a common consensus amongst activists that we only have a limited amount of time before this cuddly new Met reverts to its old ways. Some are even suggesting they are playing a PR game with us – giving us enough rope to hang ourselves with, and forcing us into a lose lose situation. Either we play the good little protesters and eschew effective action for minimal policing and positive press. Or we kick off, cause economic damage, and risk the police using our behaviour to justify their repression.

I think we can use this opportunity – we can use the confidence we have gained at DSEi and other events to assert a militant street presence over the coming months, a presence which will also hopefully be able to resist any return to repression. However, we cannot do this without organisation and strategy. We need to find ways to assert our control over the situation and ensure we are not being manipulated by the State. We have an unique situation where we can assess what we hope to achieve from these mass actions, put these ideas into practice, and build a protest movement worth defending – let’s ensure it doesn’t go to waste.
For further information see dsei.org, smashedo.org.uk and /natowc.noflag.org.uk/