Activists across the globe are heading to Savannah, Georgia to protest the annual meeting of the G8 June 8-10. The meeting of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful nations — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, England and the US — is actually being held on an island 80 miles from Savannah. Savannah will be as close as regular citizens can get to the rulers of these 8 “democracies.” After disruptive protests in Genoa in 2001 in which Carlo Guliani was killed and in Kananaskis, Canada in 2002 in which Ewoks seized forested areas, world leaders are increasingly tired of having to deal with pesky protests. Having the summit on an island was the best spot US organizers could find to isolate it from public view.
The meeting will give world leaders a chance to coordinate their agenda — the war on terrorism, centralization of corporate control over all life on earth, and the attack on self-determination and freedom. Are we going to just lie back and take it? FUCK NO!
According to protests organizers “Local activists have been working to build a broad, black and labor-led front at the neighborhood level to welcome out-of-town activists to Savannah.” They are calling for an “international festival for peace and civil liberties.”
The Savannah area provides numerous opportunities for linking the global struggle for economic justice and self-determination with local conditions. The majority of citizens are African-American but according to local activists, city politics are nonetheless tightly controlled by an all-white oligarchy.
For more information, contact the Free Speech Savannah coalition: 866.237.7563, 22 West Bryan St. (172) Savannah, GA 31401, www.freesavannah.com.