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Anti-authoritarian group to strategize this weekend for convention protests
The anarchists' plans, which don't include getting a permit, could include confrontational tactics.
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A group of activists who describe themselves as "anarchists and anti-authoritarians" will hold a private strategy session over the Labor Day weekend to discuss plans to protest at the Republican National Convention to be held in St. Paul Sept. 1-4, 2008.
The group, called the RNC Welcoming Committee, held a news conference Monday at the Jack Pine Community Center on Lake Street in Minneapolis, where Bea Bridges, speaking for the committee, showed a video that hinted at confrontational tactics, read a statement and walked out, taking no questions.
The group had sent out an announcement last week, saying questions had to be submitted by e-mail a week in advance.
Bridges said the group favors "ending capitalism, imperialism, patriarchy and all other forms of hierarchy" to be replaced with "direct, participatory democracy."
She said the group would not seek permits to demonstrate, and said efforts to restrict protesters in that way constituted repression and a "violent threat."
In discussing future tactics, she said, "Some may choose to resist state violence using pacifist tactics, while others use whatever methods they deem necessary and appropriate."
She said they are expecting "a few hundred people" to attend this weekend's gathering, of which about half are expected to come from out of town.
According to an earlier statement on its website, RNCwelcomingcommittee.org, the group plans workshops and a bus tour of the Twin Cities on Saturday and a private strategy session at Jack Pine on Sunday that is closed to the media. It plans to hold a news conference next Monday.
Darrin Blackford, a spokesman for the Secret Service in Washington, D.C., and Tom Walsh, a spokesman for the St. Paul police department, each said they had no comment.
A separate coalition of antiwar groups, which includes Women Against Military Madness, the Anti-War Committee and the Iraq Peace Action Coalition, has already announced plans for a mass march to protest the war in Iraq on Sept. 1, 2008 near Xcel Center in St. Paul where the convention will take place. They say their march will be a peaceful, legal demonstration.
Randy Furst • 612-673-7382
Randy Furst • rfurst@startribune.com
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