The results are now in from most of the joint Spring Offensive by Occupy DC and the Anarchist Alliance-DC Network.
There was a taste of things to come with an April Fools March targeting Monsanto among other corporations, but the weighted blows began to fall in the week of April 16-22, culminating in repeated disruption of delegates to the Spring Meetings of the IMF and World Bank. Since the IMF meetings cooincided with Earth Day, Occupy DC declared that to by "Occupy Earth Week."
After a rather low-key visit to the American Petroleum Institute on the 16th of April, thing began heating up when protesters stormed the grounds of the Canadian Embassy on April 17th and disrupted an event just inside over the Alberta tar Sands mining. That project produces the oil the Keystone XL Pipeline was meant to export, and here's what things sounded like as Occupy DC converged on the Embassy:
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As cops began showing up, the warning to "get out of Canada!" went out, and protesters scattered to the winds. Not one was caught.
On Wednesday the 18th of April, protesters repeated this performance by storming the building housing the American Natural Gas Association, which promotes destructive hydrofracking for gas. Protesters got past security and went up the stairs, only to find the 8th floor doors were locked. After charging back down the stairs, Occupy DC had something to say about gas fracking:
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The next morning, Thursday the 19th of April, was scheduled for a third visit to Monsanto also known as MonSATAN to protest their role in genetic engineering, seed patents, and attempts to gain total control of the world's food supply. Since this protest was expected, it was cut short, with everyone returning to McPherson Square, waiting out the cops, then storming the offices of Cargill, another purveyor of pesticide-dependent genetically-engineered seeds
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On Friday, the 20th of April, things started getting really intense as the IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings got underway. First up was a 10 AM protest in front of the offices of BP, on the anniversary of the worst oil spill in US history. Protesters marched on the building, and this time, instead of storming the building, someone dumped oil in front of the doors from a man-sized imitation of an oil drilling rig. One person was arrested and one more detained as more protesters dumped what they lablled as Correxit, the same stuff BP used in a failed attempt to clean up the Gulf of Mexico.
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Unlike in the Gulf, protesters were not actualy using Correxit, using instead some nontoxic facsimile.
That evening, still the 20th of April, protesters marched and rode bikes into an insane level of afternoon traffic created by police checkpoints for the IMF meetings. They were soon heckling delegates at a variety of entrances to the meetings:
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late in that round of protests was a surprise: a visit to the International Finance Corporation or IFC, an arm of the Bretton Woods institutions that lends directly to private corporations. They had never been hit before, and were outside of the security perimeter:
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The next morning dawned early, as the Anarchist Alliance-DC Network and Occupy DC marched on the IMF meetings for another round of delegate disruption and heckling. This time activists had a new tactic: Climbing ropes! Ropes were deployed in the streets with banners draped over them, forcing delegates to step over and in some cases nearly trip over the ropes. Another rope was tied to the police barricades and protesters bent their backs in a tug-of-war with the police, pulling the barricades into the streets in an attempt to take them down:
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About a half hour later came two very violent arrests. One woman was thrown down to the street, receiving bruises to both her face and back as well as cuts on her face and smashed glasses. Brutality charges are pending against the police:
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None of that violence deterred protesters from going back out that night for a round of storming delegate hotels; Protesters managed to storm the Washington Circle Hotel and nearly managed to enter the Mayflower Hotel in addition. Again police responded with violence, one person is still recovering from a cuncussion caused by a club blow to the head as this is being recorded.
Protesters went out for a fourth and final round of heckling IMF delegates on Sunday, the 22nd of April, Earth Day itself, in pouring rain.
The final score for Occupy Earth Week was 4 buildings stormed, four rounds of delegate heckling, three people arrested, at least two protesters injured by police violence, and one set of police barricades nearly towed away by protesters using climbing rope while delegates were trying to climb over other ropes.
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