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by Daniel McGrory The Times- London 4-23-1
Wednesday, Apr. 25, 2001 at 9:02 PM
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2-118536,00.html
The promise by Tony Blair, Scotland Yard and Ken
Livingstone, the Mayor of London, of a ,"zero tolerance,"
policy to ensure that the city stays open is regarded as a
challenge by the protest organisers.
Anarchist groups plan to disrupt emergency services in their
campaign of chaos on May 1 by encouraging their followers
to make hundreds of bogus alarm calls. They want protesters
to create bomb scares at London,- main rail and Underground
stations, which would swiftly paralyse the capital. The leaders
are also suggesting raising fire alarms in streets choked with
protesters. Police are worried about the dangers to genuine
emergency calls if the groups carry out their threat, which
one senior officer described as ,"mindless and irresponsible,".
The anarchists also plan to set up fake road-blocks and
immobilise vehicles to increase the chaos.
The promise by Tony Blair, Scotland Yard and Ken
Livingstone, the Mayor of London, of a ,"zero tolerance,"
policy to ensure that the city stays open is regarded as a
challenge by the protest organisers.
One leading figure said yesterday: ,"They boast that it will be
business as usual on May 1, and we will show them
otherwise to make our point.,"
Public buildings will again be a target, with a plan to barricade
No 10 by padlocking the gates of Downing Street. The climax
of the protest will be in Oxford Street, where protesters are
being urged to pour into shops and department stores to block
the doors so that customers cannot come or go. As soon as
police arrive, the protesters will be told to disperse and move
to a different target.
Specialist police teams are intensifying their electronic
warfare against the organisers to unmask the ringleaders and
discover their targets. Detectives know that they are being
bombarded with misinformation in this high-tech battle and
are trying to crack encrypted e-mails that the leaders are
using to discuss tactics.
Police have the power to shut down Internet sites, but they
say that they prefer to leave them running and to monitor
them. It was through electronic mail that police first found
details of the Mayday Monopoly, where demonstrators pick
addresses from the board game to match targets for the
protest.
Homeless groups will descend on Park Lane, protesters
against Third World debt will gather in the Strand, and groups
trying to drive cars off London,- streets will begin the day
with a slow cycle ride at King,- Cross station.
The latest threat on the Internet is a campaign of looting
designated businesses called ,"Sale of the Century,", taken
from the Seventies television game show of that name. Some
student groups have threatened to boycott the May 1 protests
if the looting is not dropped.
Police are investigating links between British groups and a
band of international anarchists called Black Bloc, which was
heavily involved in the weekend,- riots at the Summit of the
Americas in Quebec. Three of its leaders were among the
masked figures arrested during the trade summit siege.
Black Bloc was at the centre of attempts to disrupt George
W. Bush,- presidential inauguration in January and the violent
protests at the World Trade Organisation summit in Seattle
last year. It has proposed joining the London demonstration
and has sent ideas on how to disrupt the city.
Their plans have been translated into four languages and
distributed on the Internet to make it easier for activists from
Europe to join the protest. The Italian anarchist movement
known as Ya Basta is expected to attend. It has been linked
to the hijacking of a train in Italy, and British protest groups
are known to have studied its tactics and been in contact with
its leadership.
rense.com/general10/bomb.htm
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