CCA and the Police - Climate Camp-Up-North - groups

Draft Statement & Policy on the Police

The Camp for Climate Action believes that

a) That the police are part of the problem, not part of the solution;
illustrated by their classification of the Camp for Climate Action and
related protest groups as “Domestic Extremists”. The purpose of the
police is to protect the Government and the Corporations which are both
causing and failing to act on climate change. Thus we cannot accept their
legitimacy.

b) That engaging with the police is to be done solely for the purposes
of facilitating the protests of the Camp for Climate Action.

c) That the police have no role to play in our camps, and we reject
their interference on our right to protest insofar as it is physically
possible.

d) That the police have proven themselves to be untrustworthy in keeping
their word, and therefore our fundamental stance is to mistrust their
promises. We do not believe that they respect the right to protest.
While they are on the back foot over the events of Kingsnorth and the
G20, we do not believe these leopards have really changed their spots.

e) That dealing with the police is a distraction from the more important
role of the camp in tackling the root causes of climate change.

Thus we empower the relevant working groups as follows:

1) Legal: to continue their work exposing the abusive process of the
police; to continue monitoring and analysing the police; and to work
with media and police liaison working groups where messages are to be
distributed into the public domain.

2) Police Liasion to be the messengers between the Camp for Climate
Action and the Police, and to only negotiate on those issues where they
have been specifically mandated by the group they are working on behalf
of; and to actively facilitate actions and camps only where asked with
the purpose of minimizing impact of the police on CCA actions and camps.

3) Media: to report on the work of the liaison and legal groups, but to
be careful to not to provide legitimisation for the activities or
existence of the police as an institution. To emphasise that action
against the root causes of climate change is always going to be more
important than laws that defend the polluters and restrict protest.


Aros 2010-01-07	e) That dealing with the police is a distraction from the aims of the camp in stopping the (root causes? underlying causes??>? etc) of climate change. Also in a) where it says Government and the Corporations – is “institutions of power” better? Dunno.


Omnia Sunt Communia 2010-01-08	Am happy with ‘governments and corporations’ but the police protect more than that, i.e the status quo (capitalism) – including various ‘institutions of power’, but also class rule, private property etc.


kairos 2010-01-09	First off, I like the statement and would be prepared to accept it as is. In relation to this being a statement we show to people who are getting involved for the first time, I think it prescribes an unnecessarily low regard for the police. “The purpose of the police is to protect the Government and the Corporations which are both causing and failing to act on climate change.” This is definitely true whenever the police and camp meet, indeed whenever the police deal with protests, so its probably sufficient for this statement. But… In our current, broken world, the police do have other roles, though. In an ideal world, people would work together within their communities to resolve conflicts and confront unacceptable behaviour. Unfortunately, we haven’t got there yet, and the police are the only recourse in many situations. I would suggest, from a point-of-view of having a statement people who are new to the scene can sign, that we make it clear that we want unity around the police role towards the camp, and not their role in society (which would be nice, but is overly exclusive). “Whenever the police intervene in actions and movements to prevent catastrophic climate change, the purpose of the police is to protect the Government and the Corporations which are both causing and failing to act on climate change.” Everything else then reads that people who get involved must not trust them in any way whilst they are involved with the camp, even if they happen to make a habit (as some of my friends do) of creating police paperwork every time they get knocked off their bike (several Critical Mass regulars, i.e. will do direct action). I can see a lot of people feeling uneasy about such a universally confrontational view, when we really need to build our unity only as far as it serves to build up a strong, confrontational movement.


Omnia Sunt Communia 2010-01-11	Has this been submitted as a proposal now? Deadline today I think.


kairos 2010-01-14	Where did the pre-amble bit get to? Also, hasn’t a set of revisions been circulated on the email list?


Omnia Sunt Communia 2010-01-14	I presume this is the final version: discussion.climatecamp.org.uk/viewtopic...