Dicing With Dsei
September 14th-17th saw the biggest arms fair ever to take place in the UK and one of the most successful anti-arms trade demos to date. The Defence Systems Equipment International (DSEi) fair with delegates from Turkey, China, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and many other luminaries of the torturing world were invited to come and peruse lethal weapons, surveillance equipment etc. Even representatives of the Indonesian state were invited to attend.
We weren't invited but we came anyway...
DAY 1: Protests kicked off the day before DSEi, with activists taking to the Thames in boats in an attempt to blockade the ships travelling to the Docklands.
DAY 2: Hundreds of people take part in a CAAT procession to the site, before using sit-down blockades to prevent delegates gaining access. After protesters realised that the road could be blocked at any point (i.e. not just next to the main gate where police were hemming the crowd in), this tactic proved pretty successful. One person locked on to a coach carrying arms traders onto the site, and other small groups managed to break away from police lines to disrupt the traffic at the remaining gates. With as few as 4 people in a group,gates were blocked for about 20 mins while police struggled to cope with the main body of protesters.
Another group of around 50 people broke away and blocked the bridge over the M3 which separates the two halves of the site. There were a few arrests made, but most of these people made a conscious decision to be nicked as a political statement: one woman even complained that she had been removed from the road 5 times but the police still wouldn't arrest her!
DAY 3: CAAT held a demo at London Docklands, attended by over 400 people. In Chertsey, meanwhile, a number of activists decided to stay and explore the possibilities for more action there.Around 40 activists hit the arms fair in a variety of disruptive ways. Three cars were used to block the roads at strategic points, with protesters planning to lock on underneath them to block access to site. Although 2 were quickly removed, the third managed to block traffic for about an hour, causing huge delays. Another group of activists locked on to a train carrying delegates onto the MoD site, holding it up for half an hour and causing timetable problems. Other teams attached themselves to the bottom of coaches ferrying visitors from the car park onto site, which proved a successful tactic. Yet more helpfully redirected sign-posts, invaded the site, and allegedly damaged cars in the car park. There were around 14 arrests, but all but one person were released with a caution. That evening a fax sent out to all those attending DSEi, stated due to "serious disruption" to roads, access to site was to be restricted to rail only.
DAY 4: The banquet at Grosvenor Hotel that DSEi delegates were attending was also targeted.As there were only 4 police, a "die- in" took place right on the steps of the hotel, before invading the hotel itself. After being kicked out and going in again through different entrances more police arrived and those inside left to join the demo outside.Two activists climbed onto the gates outside the hotel to hang a huge banner up, and tied the gates shut at the top, preventing delegates' cars entering. One of the banner droppers ran along the roof, climbed into the hotel through a window and had to be taken to hospital after being brutalised by hotel security and a policeman; 2 broken ribs, 3 facial stitches and a head injury.
DAY 5: Due to the success of the previous road blockades, we only had the trains left to disrupt. Our numbers had dwindled from the original 40 and those of us left were completely knackered from a combination of late nights, early mornings, meetings and actions. But we still managed to do a pretty good job of delaying trains full of arms buyers. 4 or 5 different groups locked on to trains at different stations and different times on the line between London and the MoD site. The trains were delayed for an average of 20 minutes, and several arrests were made, but most people got away without any trouble.
All in all, we think that we really made our presence felt at DSEi: delegates were heavily delayed, security was breached and the whole thing must have looked pretty unprofessional by the end. We had the satisfaction of watching arms dealers trudging along the side of motorways in the rain because we'd closed their car parks, saw them flustered and hassled by having to come face to face with people who sincerely disagree with what they do and have no qualms about telling them so, and even managed to get into their private beano on Park Lane to try and give them indigestion. The next date for your diary is AFCEA, a private arms fair running from 27th-29th October at the Renaissance Hotel, near Heathrow. Thrown out of Belgium after 15 years when the Belgian Senate voted that it was "politically and ethically undesirable", this high-tech weapons fair is hoping to make the UK its home: let's show them that we don't want them here either! An Action Camp will be running for the duration of this fair, and we need people, energy and ideas to make it happen. For more details, contact CAAT on 0171 281 0297, planning meeting in London on Oct 11th.