J18 Special - City Of London Ha! Ha! Ha!

"It was not a 'campaign' or a 'message'. It was an attempt to physically prevent the destructive machine processes of capital from going on. It was an act of self defence in a life or death struggle with those who kill to cling on to power and privilege."

It was lunchtime, and 7 enormous carnival heads representing 7 different revolutionary movements across the globe arrived at Liverpool St Station where over 8,000 people had gathered in resistance to capitalism. Some were already dancing to the Samba band. Carnival masks in four different colours; red, green, black and gold, were distributed throughout the crowd; the masks offered an explanation of carnival and instructions to follow written on the back, as well as a unity of identity.

At a signal, the crowd divided according to it's colour into four groups, led by colour-coded streamers via different routes; some tube, some land: toward Upper Thames St. A fifth group, not colour coded ended up at an unintentional destination, London Wall. Here, separated from the bulk of the crowd, around 2000 people bore much of the police frustration. One person was hospitalised after being run over by a police van.

The majority of people reached Upper Thames St which was reclaimed, banners reading 'Global Ecology not Global Economy', and 'Kill Capitalism' were hung, and the sound systems started. Walls and roads were grafitied with various messages and surveillance cameras were painted over, broken or had bags put over them. A fire hydrant was broken sending water 40 foot high and flooding out investment buildings, which, it was reported, caused temporary disruption but no permanent damage. Police became more agitated when:

'A number of us who were masked up ran at one of the entrances to the LIFFE building which also houses Cargill, a much hated biotech company, some dragging away barriers while others tried to storm the building. The few security posted there stopped the charge, and then the barriers become our tools, weapons not to keep us out but to get us in, and the glass doors shattered when we used the barriers to batter them down.'

Inside the building, computers, mirrors and windows were smashed, files thrown out into the street along with pot plants and furniture. Escalators were dismantled. Conflicting reports state that nobody reached beyond the ground floor although others claim that after fistfights with traders at the top of the escalators the first floor was also damaged. Some reports say trading was stopped and workers evacuated.

At a similar time a group entered McDonalds in Canon St and began to smash windows and damage the interior, before dumping the tills in the middle of the street. The Fleet St branch had it's windows broken. The Stock Exchange was targeted, but people were apparently stopped from breaking open the doors by other protestors, who, allegedly, put paint on their fellows so they could be identified by the police later. Some also tried to de-mask members of the crowd throughout the afternoon.

Later in the day a Mercedes Benz showroom had it's windows put through and some of the cars inside were smashed with scaffolding poles. Throughout the day a number of luxury cars were redesigned, at least one set on fire, others had their windows smashed. Some reports said that protestors also targeted ordinary cars and:

'These are some of the things that I saw: people destroying a little cafe that had been serving us food all day; people giving abuse to anyone in a suit/didn't look right, people saying things like we're just here to have a party, man'... little restaurants, newsagents and shops being destroyed... I was scared and not just of the police.'

As police lines pushed people back, the people retained ground with missiles including white paint bombs which splattered a number of riot police. The windows of the Dutch Rabo Bank building were smashed , and one newspaper said that Normand Bank was damaged by fire. As the crowd was divided up by police lines, and the sound system led out, an elite wine bar was invaded, alcohol stolen, windows broken, and the interior destroyed. Four of the tube stations on route had been closed, so an easy exit was not possible - some people headed for Waterloo station where the planned mass train jump to Cologne didn't happen, some home, and some toward Trafalgar Square where people partied until late into the night.

There were 15 arrests and nearly 50 injured on the day itself. Since then there have been other arrests for criminal damage as police have been viewing CCTV and identifying individuals, many of the crowd having not worn masks.

'June 18th was a great day out, but for me it is not about the day but the process, just one day of many where we refuse and resist the onslaught of global capitalism. One paper warned that capitalism's enemies will be back, but we had never gone away. We are part of our history of resistance, but now we are making links. Our revolution really is global.'