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“December, being the last month of the year, cannot help but make us think of what is to come.”
―
“Now is the time of fresh starts…For that you need December. You need to have lived through the mindless biological imperatives of your life…December has the clarity, the simplicity you need for the best fresh start of your life.”
―
(November 2019 here…January 2020 here)
References to IRAN have been transferred here
References to Hong Kong will not appear here, but in “HONG KONG latest!”.
References to CHILE will appear here, references to Iran here, references to IRAQ here and LEBANON here
“Reading the morning newspaper is the realist’s morning prayer. One orients one’s attitude toward the world either by God or by what the world is. The former gives as much security as the latter, in that one knows how one stands. ”
– Hegel
31/12/19:
France: 14 towns and cities particpate in traditional New Years Eve car burning (videos and links)
Belgium, Liege: riots in 2 areas; cars burnt, shop windows smashed, clashes with cops…10 cops hurt…Brussels: clashes and vehicle-burning
28/12/19:
France, Paris: clashes, a bit of burning barricades as yellow vests join anti-pension reform demo
27/12/19:
UK, London: 13 screws rushed to hospital following riot in young “offenders” prison
25/12/19:
24/12/19:
France, Var (Grasse): following deliberate cop car crash into vehicle, a youth gravely injured in a coma as a result, a dozen CCTV cameras are sawn through and cut down, and about 100 clash with cops
23/12/19:
Greece: Attacks on Capitalist Targets on the Rise as Greek Police Increase Violence
Report on the last month.
France, Paris: Christmas cancelled as strikers clash with cops at Gare de Lyon…video of clashes inside the station, cops firing teargas etc.
Germany, Berlin: Greek embassy occupied in solidarity with those resisting repression of squats in Greece
Argentina, Mendoza: 19 cops injured during clashes as thousands march against new law permitting poisonous copper, silver & gold mining
“…the amendment to Law 7.722 authorizes the use of mercury, sulfuric acid, cyanide and toxins in the development of mega mines, which will cause water pollution in the province”
19/12/19:
India: railway stations and highways blocked as 9 are killed so far; Bollywood stars join protests… Mangalore: cops kill at least 2 as protests continue despite being declared illegal; state stops mobile phone connections in some areas…Article showing links between Hindu nationalist party and US nationalism
India has had 67% of the world’s internet shutdowns in the last year.
Colombia, Bogota: heavy clashes with the state in movement against privatisations, pension and work reforms (videos and links)
Greece, Samos: refugees riot in anger at overcrowding and other camp miseries
The camp is now more than 11 times overcapacity, with 7,497 people registered as living in and around the facility designed to house 648. For an anlysis in 2017 of aspects of the refugee situation in Greece, see this.
18/12/19:
Greece, Athens: Merry Crisis!
“While the greek government has been terrorizing the neighborhood of Exarcheia since the summer with squat evictions, attacks on people inside coffee shops and bars and brutal beatings and arrests for no reason – especially following the protests on 17 November and 6 December, where an atypical martial was imposed in the area -, few days ago made an attempt to cover up the riot police crimes against the people in the area, by decorating Exarcheia Square with Christmas lights and a Christmas Tree… ” – here. See also this, this and this.
Colombia, Bogota: riots force closure of university for a month
India, Delhi: police booth smashed, motorbikes torched, cops pelted, etc.
17/12/19:
China, Guizhou: 14 miners killed as result of push to intensify capital accumulation
“Fourteen coal miners were killed in an explosion in the southern Guizhou province on December 17. A day later, five others died when a mine flooded in neighbouring Sichuan. Following the Guizhou deaths, the National Coal Mine Safety Supervision Bureau warned companies nationwide to pay stricter attention to safety. It said in the four weeks preceding the Guizhou blast, four coal mine accidents had left 43 dead. It was worse than that, according to the Hong Kong-based China Labour Bulletin. The group, an advocate for workers’ rights, uses news reports to compile a map of industrial accidents that cause fatalities or injuries. Its figures say 55 coal miners died in a dozen accidents in the same period…China Labour Bulletin’s accident map, which it has been compiling since 2015, points to 90 coal mining accidents so far in 2019 that killed 219 people. That compares with 79 accidents and 160 fatalities recorded by the group in the prior year”
Ukraine, Kiev: 2 cops hospitalised during clashes over state’s intensification of land seizures (videos and links)
France, Seine-St-Denis: cops get very heavy trying to break strike picket at bus depot More here. Video here
16/12/19:
France, Lille: high school students chuck molotovs at cops during blockade of school, as several schools in city are also blockaded… blockades and “operation snailspace”s in lots of different parts of country as lorry drivers demand higher wages and better conditions
A TV report said that over 300 “operation snailspace”s (ie driving very slowly) took place on motorways throughout the country, sometimes causing 20 kilometre tail-backs. Union-controlled actions, usually blocking industrial zones of towns and cities.
India: riots intensify…Uttar Pradesh: police station torched
Senegal, St.Louis: clashes as students block major motorway for 2 hours, demanding immediate payment of long-delayed grants (videos and links)
15/12/19:
India, Uttar Pradesh: university closed for 3 weeks following heavy clashes over discriminatory citizenship law…internet blocked…Delhi: 2 cop cars and 4 buses burnt during similar protests…7 cities involved (videos and links)
14/12/19:
France, Oise: stones and heavy-duty fireworks chucked at cops in ambush
13/12/19:
UK, London: minor clashes after yet another gang of instigators of mass murder gets elected (receiving 43.6% of the votes of those who could be bothered to choose which humiliation they’d prefer) Video here Anarchist report here
“Lambs go to the slaughterhouse. They say nothing and expect nothing. But at least they don’t vote for the butcher who will kill them or the bourgeois who will eat them. Worse than animals, more crowded than sheep, the voter chooses his butcher and chooses his bourgeois. S/he made revolutions to conquer the right to do so.” – Octave Mirabeau
Australia: forward to the Middle Ages, as heathens are politely recommended to go to hell!
Malta: asylum seekers riot in detention centre
12/12/19:
UK, Bristol: 4 screws’ cars sabotaged and immobilised outside youth gaol
France, Nantes: protesters against pension reform block ring road, invade and close down shopping centre…clashes at high schools in 5 towns and cities
Sample quote from Vaux-en-Velin and Décines (both suburbs of Lyon): “The situation was very tense this Thursday in front of the Robert-Doisneau high school in Vaulx-en-Velin. While the school was blocked as part of the mobilization of teachers and students against the pension reform, clashes occurred with the police. A car was burned by young people, a van was also overturned. In addition, law enforcement and firefighters were stoned. No arrests were reportedly made by the security forces, who preferred to disperse the crowds with tear gas. In addition, at the same time in the town of Décines, violence also took place around the Charlie-Chaplin high school. Again, the police were hit by projectiles. Five arrests were made… two police officers were slightly injured during these law enforcement operations”
11/12/19:
Brazil: Al Jazeera report on intensification of Bolsonaro’s powers
Ivory Coast, Dimbokro: cops kill 14-year-old in clashes sparked off by 2 days of demos by high school students demanding early end of term so as to have an extended Christmas holiday
10/12/19:
France: blockades and clashes at high schools in 9 cities and towns…Ales (Gard): account of some of the contradictions of the movement
An account of a disgusting bit of support for the cops by the CGT union and some yellow vests. Rough translation:
NO VICTORY WITHOUT SOLIDARITY IN THE STRUGGLE
12/11/19:
An anonymous response to events which followed the demonstration on Tuesday 10 December in Alès, found on the internet.
It was with bitterness and anger that we ended the day of mobilization yesterday. Discouraged and outraged by what happened at the end of the event.
At the end of the demonstration, an action to block the economy had been planned. The need to block the economy to add weight to the balance of forces had been discussed several times in inter-professional General Assemblies.
And the action planned for yesterday was decided in the assembly of the GJs [yellow vests] and offered to teachers by the GJs that morning, who had accepted the idea.
At the end of the event, around a hundred people left in
procession to reach the place to be blocked that had been decided in the morning. Others there went by car. Arriving at the roundabout of avenue Carnot, the procession on foot was forced by the CRS to go back to the station. And there a trap was formed. Part of the demonstrators, GJs, teachers, workers found themselves surrounded by the CRS and at the mercy of their humiliations and their insults.
All this took place about ten meters from the CGT barbecue with railway workers in which trade unionists, GJs etc. participated. One of the kettled comrades having managed to get out of the kettel, went to tell everyone who was at the barbecue, thinking logically he’d obtain solidarity from comrades in struggle.
There were very few reactions. Worse still: some people who wanted to come and show their solidarity were prevented by a union official who ordered them to stay at the barbecue. Various people, including so-called GJs, went to explain to the CRS that they had nothing to do with the kettled protesters. A so-called GJ was also seen preventing people from coming along to express solidarity together. Unspeakable.
Result: a grotesque, scandalous and distressing picture which Macron must have revelled in!
On the one side of the fence, demonstrators were kettled, humiliated and insulted by twice as many robocops as them.
On the other side, an aperitif and grilled meat, with loud music. A few people who from time to time came to observe the police operation, laughing 🤮. Some people tried to come to support the demonstrators who were trapped but were prevented from doing so by a union official and some GJs who did not hesitate to dissociate themselves from them, screaming at the ketttled demonstrators.
And people went to explain to power’s guard dogs that “They are not with them!”, “That they have nothing to do with it!”.
6 arrests including two with violence and two taken into custody, observed with the complicity of people we thought were on our side in the struggle.
A sad sight.
Troubling.
All the kettled demonstrators, GJs, teachers, various workers, all had the same thought: fortunately this is not 1940… shivers down our spine.
Last night all of us suffered a great bitterness, very upset.
What to conclude from this?
Where has class solidarity gone, necessary for any victory against power and capitalism?
We will not win like that.
Without some rapid attack of conscience/consciousness by some, we will all go to the wall.
We reaffirm our respect for all those in struggle and for all forms of struggle: from the little grandpa at the roundabouts to the young man who throws a stone, via the worker blocking his factory and the anonymous people who sabotage a speed camera.
We also reaffirm our solidarity with all the comrades who face repression.
We believe that the union of all workers, the unemployed, the precarious, of all origins is the necessary condition for any victory, if we do not want to be satisfied with victories for just single categories.
Especially if we fight for the honor of the workers and for a better world! [line from the most famous yellow vest song sung on almost all yellow vest demos]
But yesterday, this union, we did not live it.
Hopefully the struggle will see better days.
I should also add that round about this time some high school students, during an assembly in Montpellier, affirmed their opposition to a proposition to bring back some limited version of military service (which was abolished here over 20 years ago). Wikipedia says this: “In 2019, President Emmanuel Macron reintroduced national service on a voluntary basis, for a period of 4 weeks. It will become compulsory in the future. Conscripts will spend two weeks in training and two weeks performing community service. The system has been described as “more scout camp than military service”.” Low-level CGT bureaucrats told them to withdraw this demand! Fortunately they refused. We know full well that “scout camps” before WWl were useful methods of inculcating hierarchical respect and the love of uniforms so very useful for those organising the slaughter to come.
…Lyon:clashes as bins burnt in front of 2 high schools…Brest: heavy cop intervention at University condemned by uni’s president
This happened after hooded youths being chased by the cops rushed into the uni library following some bin-burning and attacks on shop windows during a demo, and the cops ran in and jumped on them. It breaks an 800-year-old law that, apart from in situations of absolute urgency, the police can only intervene on a university site at the request of the president.
India (north-east): General strike against divide-and-rule racist citizenship deprivation law
9/12/19:
India, Assam: heavy clashes over fascistic state deprivation of Muslim refugees’ citizenship rights…Tripura: state suspends internet Video here
7/12/19:
Germany, Wuppertal: report on cop killing 25-year-old and other German cop shootings
France: yellow vest clashes in Montpellier, Paris & Nantes (videos, links)
6/12/19:
France, Montpellier: 3 schools blockaded in protest against increased university selection, the reform of the baccalaureat and in solidarity with pension movement…cops get heavy (videos)…tramway blocked by burning bins…Grenoble: 500 high school students blockade 7 schools for the same reason…Lyon: cops hospitalise 15-year-old using flashball, during similar clashes
Colombia, Medellin: clashes as state confiscates flypitchers’ goods
Peru, Lima: cops teargas school students as they clash during protests against increase in school bus fares
Greece: 11th anniversary of cop murder of 15 year old Alexis Grigorpoulos
See also Greece unrest: Merry Christmas! – TPTG (December 2008), Greek Fire (Collective Reinventions) (December 2008),Workers in Greece occupy union offices (December 2008), WE DESTROY THE PRESENT BECAUSE WE COME FROM THE FUTURE (December 2008), Like a winter with a thousand Decembers – TPTG/Blaumachen (on the events of December 2008 and other things).
5/12/19:
Benin, Klouékanmè: barricades across major road & clashes after black market petrol trafficker breaks leg in cop chase
Greece, Athens: the best form of defence is attack
Colombia: clashes in 3 cities
4/12/19:
Paris: cops get heavy during blockade of high school in support of strikes against pension reforms, as well as opposition to intensified university selection
3/12/19:
France,Villeneuve-d’Ascq: school personnel “deplore” cops for their heavy intervention in blockade by high school students
Belgium, Brussels: students lock themselves inside school in protest against poor conditions
“The students, who are “rioting” inside the building, demand the resignation of the school principal because of ongoing problems with computers, heating and hygiene…“After receiving their exam schedules, the students started to hide in a common area [inside the building], where they are breaking things down”
2/12/19:
China, Guangdong: temporary victory for protesters against crematorium construction
“Last week’s clashes in Huazhou’s Wenlou township, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Hong Kong, saw around 1,000 armed riot police take over the town after residents made barricades on the streets to block the passage of armored vehicles. Social media posts showed a line of overturned police cars, while eyewitnesses said younger people had hit back at incoming police lines with projectiles. Dozens of people were beaten and detained before police regained control of the area, according to local media reports and eyewitness accounts. Media reports said some demonstrators were chanting slogans similar to those heard across Hong Kong, including “Revolution now!” See also entry for 29/11/19
Cambodia, Tbong Khmum: villagers block Chinese company from expropriating their land
“More than 100 villagers in eastern Cambodia’s Tbong Khmum province on Monday blocked Chinese earthmovers digging a canal and destroying crops on disputed land, temporarily halting the work, local sources said. Hamenivent Investment, a Chinese company that claims ownership of the land, had already cleared over 20 hectares of cassava and cashew farmland worked by residents of Dambe district’s Trapaing Pring commune, a resident of the commune’s Bos Snor village told RFA’s Khmer Service. “This has interfered with villagers’ farming, and that’s why they have come to stop this company from clearing their crops,” the resident named Maut Mon said, adding that Hamenivent has also encroached on flooded forest land used by the commune as a shelter for spawning fish. …“The area is a flooded forest. It is a shelter for fish to lay eggs, and many wild animals used to live there, but there are many fewer there now,””
Bolivia: informative but clumsily translated text by anarchist on situation there
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