COP15

he pre-Christmas winter period in Copenhagen promises to be a hot affair, at least if the militant activist group Never Trust A Cop (NTAC) has anything to do with it. A YouTube video and the organisation’s website seem to be issuing a call to militant activists across Europe to take firm action in Copenhagen during the conference.
“The COP15’s inevitable talk of ‘saving the world from the climate crisis’ is an elaborate hoax to disguise the COP15’s true purpose: to restore the legitimacy of global capitalism by inaugurating an era of “green” capitalism,” the organisation says on its webpage.
“It is time to state why we think that insurrection is needed to actually begin the change everybody is so desperate for,” it adds.
In its YouTube video, the organisation shows still pictures of fires in Copenhagen streets and clashes between Danish police and activists.
“In Copenhagen 7th – 18th December, COP15 will try to get capitalism back on track. We don’t. We will go to Copenhagen to show a dead system how to die,” the video says.
Police aware of group
The COP15 police task force is aware of the network.
“We have always known that there are groups who want to set another agenda and are only coming to Copenhagen to make trouble,” says Assistant Commissioner Mogens Lauridsen who heads the task force.
Inner city
In its on-line material, NTAC is urging militants to remain in the inner city during a major demonstration tabled for December 12 at the Bella Centre, where COP15 is being held.
“You have a choice! Make your voice heard - refuse to be herded. Stay in the city. Choose your own space and way of protest. We need all forms of action to achieve real change,” NTAC says on its website.
NTAC says it was formed as a network to mobilise ‘the radical left’ towards the COP15 summit in Copenhagen and claims that having achieved its mobilisation, the network has been dissolved, leaving individual groups to take action independently.
Previous summits
Previous summits in Gothenburg in 2001 and particularly at the G8 meeting in Rostock in 2007 have ended in violent street battles between police and activists.
“We have seen what happened in Rostock. We will do everything to avoid street battles – but we probably won’t be able to completely avoid trouble, if that is the agenda that is being set,” Lauridsen says.
He adds that it will make things easier for police if activists remain in the inner city during the Dec. 12 demonstration rather than joining the demonstration at the Bella Center.
“If they split off and remain in the city, it’s easier for us to manage them. Overall it’s more difficult to handle if they hide in a large group of peaceful demonstrators and we have to go in and get them,” Lauridsen says, adding that the police force feels well-prepared for the job at hand