Agnes Peterseil's blog

A short Video showing impressions of the g20-rallye yesterday ...

A warm early autumn day, the sun is shining, the female bus driver takes everyone who’s is going to the demonstration ride for free and when getting off the bus we already hear choruses shouting slogans – an ideal start for the largest demonstration in Pittsburgh since the Vietnam war, which ends peacefully early in the evening. Around ten-thousand people came to the university in Oakland and joint the trek to Downtown, to the vicinity of the convention centre, where at the same the G20 were meeting. With hundreds of self-made placards and with well rehearsed and very creative choruses they demanded from the heads of states to abandon their neoliberal agenda.

Wednesday morning. Greenpeace – in an exceedingly daring action – hung a huge banner from the West End bridge in Pittsburgh. Four Activists hang from ropes from the very busy bridge, between them the Banner text „Danger! Climate Destruction ahead. Reduce CO2 Emissions now“

An appeal to the G20-Bosses, not to let the theme fall by the wayside. An Appeal, which Barack Obama should in particular take to heart, who at the UN-meeting yesterday in New York was unwilling to give a US grantee for  even the minimal standards  which China endorsed.

(Translation by Homi Kutar)

As agreed two weeks ago by telephone across six time-zones we met on Wednesday morning with all Attac-members in Pittsburgh to exchange information, plan actions and to know each other. We are coming from Norway, Canada, Germany, Italy and Austria, we talk in German, French, but mainly in English with different accents. In the assembly  hall underneath the Monumental Baptist Church – its administrators allowed the Tent City on their land and made thereby possible the only tent-city in Pittsburgh (all others were not allowed) – are meetings of other activists’ groups besides ours. Already the preparations for lunch are starting, we assist cutting a mountain of strawberries into little pieces. Is does not take long for us to start chatting about our experiences and acquaintances until now and about planning the coming days.

Finally we too arrive in Pittsburgh one day before the start of the official summit. We travelled for nine hours in the extremely cold air-conditioned train from New York across New Jersey and Pennsylvania, through spacious corn fields, cattle pastures and through Amish settlements. On our way from the railway station to our accommodation we passed parts of fences which are to be set-up tomorrow and which will cut-off downtown Pittsburgh.