Still Violence Outside……. When All Failed Inside

Still Violence Outside……. When All Failed Inside
(Madan Menon Thottasseri)
______________________________________________________________

There were violence on Wednesday December 16, 2009 also ouside the Bella center. Protestors marched from the Railway Station just a mile away to made their way to the summit venue where representatives from nearly 200 countries are meeting to try to reach an accord on climate Change.Police officers used pepper spray and wielded batons and finally arrested 250 people for violence.

Police dispersed the chanting, drum-beating protesters and few delegates came out ot interact with tem. They were not permitted for the same.

In the meantime, the Danish chairwoman of the conference, Connie Hedegaard, said that she is stepping down and that the Danish Prime Minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, would take her place as heads of state from around the world are arriving in Copenhagen. Hedegaard, a conservative, Denmark’s Minister of climate and energy and her stepping down is be seen as an attempt to shift the global environmental issues from the periphery into the political mainstream.

On Wednesday’s demonstrations, protesters began massing north of the center shortly before noon and pressed into a tight line of riot police blocking access to the hall. Some of the officers wielded truncheons against the chanting, shoving protesters in a close-order scrum. After forcibly removing protesters from a truck parked in an intersection outside the Bella Center, police in blue vans kept moving the protesters backwards, nearly pushing some into a watery marsh.

When Police advanced ,a scuffle broke out with protesters who formed human chains and chanted their commitment to nonviolence so as to people in all parts of the world who will be hardest hit by climate change. A number of protesters encouraged individual groups to keep pushing against the police.

Police deployed water cannon at the southeast corner of the center to push back the marchers if necessary. Climate Justice Action, a Danish umbrella group that has served as the organizing agent for a number of planned and spontaneous demonstrations during the conference, has a permit to march along a specified route south of the venue.

According to one organizer, Anne Petermann, the overarching message of Wednesday’s action is that the U.N process for curbing climate change is a failure, and that there are “thousands of other solutions to climate change that aren’t being considered,” she said.

Another member of the protest group, Richard Bernard, said he expected arrests and possible clashes with policeand said “Danish police have been violating human rights all week.”

Authorities were restricting access to the rail station serving the Bella Center, forcing many conference attendees to walk a mile or more in cold drizzle and biting winds.

Groups of delegates and members of nongovernmental organizations continued to stream on foot past subway stations that had been closed to prevent demonstrators from converging. They passed groups of detained protesters seated in neat rows, their hands tied with plastic police strips. Behind a department store, about a dozen detained protesters under police guard chanted anti-capitalist slogans.

Inside the center, the British P.M Gorden Brown and Australian P.M Kevin Rudd arrived ahead of other world leaders to begin what was expected to be an intense day of discussions to untangle some of the many issues standing in the way of a global agreement.

Negotiators debated until just before dawn without setting new goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions or for financing poorer countries’ efforts to cope with coming climate change, key elements of any deal, The Associated Press reported.

“In these very hours, we are balancing between success and failure,” Hedegaard told delegates Tuesday night before she stepped down. “Success is still within reach. But I must also warn you: we can fail.”

Much of the focus on Wednesday was expected to be on the financing arrangements of the deal, under which industrialized nations would transfer billions of dollars annually to poor nations to help them cope with a changing climate.

One of the proposals to be discussed Wednesday was put forward by Meles the prime minister of Ethiopia, who has been in talks with Goden Brown, Obama and other leaders. The amount and timing of payments were still under discussion.

Norway and Mexico have also offered a financing plan, which envisions annual payments to developing countries substantially higher than the $10 billion annual figure that Mr. Obama said the United States would support in the near term.

Developing countries have said that they will need $100 billion to $200 billion a year by 2020 to pay for low-carbon energy development and adaptation to global warming changes.
Outside the hall, police searched the bags of potential protesters and watched warily as crowds began to gather at rail stops within walking distance of the Bella Center.

Mette Hermansen, 27,a Teacher Trainee and a member of the International Socialists of Denmark, said, “In the Bella Center they are not discussing solutions to climate change. They are discussing how rich countries can continue emitting and how to sell that to the public. We are not preventing leaders from making solutions but encouraging them to make solutions.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~