Complete action plans for Blockupy Frankfurt

Complete action plans for Blockupy (see below): take the squares plan for the 17th, blockade action plan for the 18th, blockade action consensus for the 18th, and character and aims of demonstration for the 19th. I am also sending these texts as attachments and they can be found shortly on the 17to19m blog.

1. Plan of action “take the squares!” on Thursday, May 17
On Thursday, May 17, we will take over the Gallusanlage and Taunusanlage areas as well as other
central plazas near the city center of Frankfurt in critical masses. Starting in the morning, a cultural
and political program will take place at various places. From these places at the latest, or as soon as
we get off of the busses, train, subway or S-Bahn, we will swarm out and find our way to these areas,
pitch our tents and in doing so, occupy these places. In these occupied places, diverse protest events
as well as assemblies and plenaries at which we will collectively decide on our further moves and
actions. These tent villages will serve as assembly and event spaces, as well as sleeping places.
Moreover, they provide us with a good point of departure for the blockade action in the financial district
on the following day.
With this action, we are expressing the real claiming of public spaces as well as our connectedness
and solidarity and the inspiration we have experienced through the struggles at Tahrir Square in Cairo,
the Puerta del Sol in Madrid, Syntagma Square in Athens and the many Occupy camps throughout the
world.
As is the case with all occupation actions, the “take the squares!” action will have a strong element of
improvisation. However, an infrastructural base will exist. Community kitchens and portable toilets,
water supplies, etc., will be in place – although these might not be immediately available during the
occupation action. Subsequent to the successful occupation, we will all have to work together to
achieve a situation of “security” and provisions at the tent villages. But it should be repeated once
again: we will be in the center of Frankfurt, where there accessible infrastructure already exists.
Pack your tent and whatever else you need (see packing list)! Be in place on Thursday at 2 pm at the
latest and participate in the take the squares swarming! At 6 pm, the final information meetings will
take place in the tent villages at the occupied areas. At 8 pm, the delegates’ plenaries for affinity
groups to prepare for the blockade action will take place. Be there and get involved! The action is all of
us!

2. Action plan for the blockade on May 18, 2012 in the financial center of Frankfurt and participation of the blockade groups on May 17 and 19
A broad coalition of organizations, initiatives and networks are mobilizing to diverse days of action
in Frankfurt from May 16th to 18th . The central element of the protest choreography is mass
blockades on May 18, taking place after the take the squares action on May 17 and before the mass
demonstration on May 19. The goal of our action on this day is to effectively disrupt the normal
business activities of European Central Bank and other central actors in the financial center in
Frankfurt. The parties responsible for the global politics of crisis and impoverishment are to be
confronted directly in front of the doors of their decision-making headquarters with imaginative
blockades and creative forms of civil disobedience. Our mobilization aims at a mix of mass and
decisiveness. Thousands of people with various backgrounds and cultures of protest want to and
will participate in the protest actions in arranged affinity groups or spontaneous swarming.
Thursday, May 17: Take the Squares
May 17, the day before the blockades, has the motto “take the squares”. Various spaces in the city
center as well as green areas near the bank towers shall – to the extent that authorities prohibit
declared activities – be appropriated for cultural-political protest events and asambleas.
As blockade groups, we will participate in the occupy activities as much as possible and attempt –
to the extent that the police wants to deter us from the occupation with prohibition measures – to
contribute to the implementation of the occupations. “Take the squares” is a unique element of the
Blockupy mobilization. It should symbolize our solidarity with the struggles at Tahrir Square in
Cairo, the Puerta del Sol in Madrid, Syntagma in Athens and all Occupy camps. As we, the
blockade groups, want to begin our action the following morning at 6:00 am, successful
occupations in the banking district additionally provide us with a good point of departure. We want
to use these spaces for blockade-training, and the occupations on May 17 can both temporally and
spatially flow into the blockades on May 18.
Friday, May 18: Block the ECB
On Friday, May 18, the blockades start at 6:00 in the morning. The primary focus of this day is the
European Central Bank. The ECB is not only the symbol of the crisis management of finance
politics that benefits major banks – as part of the Troika, the ECB is also a direct social political
actor. It plays a role in dictating austerity policies and impoverishment programs in Greece and
Portugal. This is enough reason to pester this institution.
Early in the morning on May 18, demonstration groups coming from multiple directions in the city
center will begin to move in order to block all entrances of the Eurotower. To accomplish this, we
will use mobile blockade fingers to flexibly react to police concepts and actions, and we will – if
necessary – obstruct the adjacent streets in order to make it impossible to access the ECB.
Creative resources
The blockade groups that are making preparations have agreed on a common consensus for action
(http://17to19m.blogsport.eu/2012/04/07/blockade-action-consensus/). The consensus mentions that
each blockade finger will carry diverse objects and symbols in line with thematic concentrations in
order to simultaneously visualize the diverse elements of our resistance against the authoritarian
crisis regime. We will use shopping carts, cooking pots and hospital beds to criticize the impositions
and cuts of social policies as well as policies of privatization in the healthcare system. Cardboard
military tanks will symbolize the militarization of society and show the connection between war
and crisis. Boats and ladders will symbolize resistance against the border regime. Giant marionettes
will refer to the precarious labor relations of (not only) migrants. The protest against education
policies will be present in a book block made of oversized books. We will use ventilators, stilts and
yucca palms to express the struggles against global climate change. We will use barrels, white
protection suits and masks to expose the countless disastrous ecological catastrophes, such as
Fukushima and Deep Water Horizon. We will use all of these symbols and objects – which will also
include red-and-white barrier tape and woolen thread – in order to effectively set up and hold onto
substantive blockade points.
Flooding Frankfurt
Both in the time before and on the day of the blockade itself, we will publicly communicate our the
subject matter and goals of our actions – to persons who work in the bank towers who will not be
able to reach their places of work and to all persons who will not be able to use the streets and
particular subways and other local trains that are blocked. The transportation authorities will be
informed prior to the actions that the stations surrounding the ECB and in the banking district will
be affected by a “strike from elsewhere” as well as why this will be so. The blockade of the ECB
will affect other banking and business centers in this district. Depending on the strength of the
mobilization, the call to blockupy should be spread as early as possible to further actors of global
exploitation.
With blockades and occupations, go-ins, encirclements and diverse forms of creative action, we
wish to and we will transform the financial center for this entire day into a colorful and loud zone of
protest.
May 19: Mass demonstration
On the day after the blockades, May 19, the mass demonstration will take place. For this and for all
the action days, mobilization is occurring on a Europe-wide scale. As blockade groups we will
participate in this demonstration with all of our symbols and thematic forms of expression. We are
hoping for a resolute demonstration that points to our (hopefully) successful occuptions and
blockades on the day before and send a strong signal of transnational solidarity. We are using our
symbols to express that we understand the collaborative mobilization of Blockupy Frankfurt as a
catalyst and demand to transform the unendurable conditions in intensified struggles in our daily
lives.
The Blockade Working Group of Blockupy Frankfurt, April 1, 2012

3. Action consensus for the blockade of the ECB and financial center on May 18
The blockades
… are an action within the European action days against the crisis dictatorship in
Frankfurt from May 16-19. By occupation of the squares, diverse interventions, public
events and demonstrations, we are jointly taking our protest and resistance to the street.
We declare ourselves
… in solidarity with all those who share with us the goal of practicing resistance against
authoritarian crisis management and the politics of the Troika, in order to defend the
social rights of the employed, precarized, and unemployed in Europe.
The effective and mass blockade
… of the banking district of Frankfurt am Main on May 18, 2012 is what we, together
with thousands of activists in the action Blockupy Frankfurt, will do in order to shut
down Frankfurt as a financial location for one day. In this action, we are sending a clear
sign of international solidarity against the authoritarian crisis management and
impoverishment politics of the Troika – consisting of the European Central Bank (ECB),
the EU Commission and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
By preventing bankers and employees from going to work, we are intervening the norms
of daily capitalist business and blocking it. We want to do this in a calm and careful
manner by putting ourselves in its way and staying there. The employees are not our
opposition – in contrast: we are helping them to have an extra free day by our action.
Our form of action is mass blockades which will consist of people. In order to illustrate
our protest, we will create thematically accented blockades. These will, for example,
symbolize our precarious daily life and impoverishment, the connection of crisis and war,
escape and migration, and our struggles against exploitation and racism. For this purpose,
we will have objects and other blockade resources with us, such as, for example, hospital
beds and shopping carts, ladders and rubber boats, objects from facilities, cardboard
tanks, banners, woolen nets and similar objects. Together with many different people, we
will carry out our action in mass, publicly and announced.
During the action, we want to create a situation that is transparent for all persons
blockading, and in which the action participants look out for one another in solidarity and
support each other.
Police forces will attempt to put us off from our plans, but we are not focusing on them,
because our targets are the ECB, the German Federal Bank, Deutsche Bank and
Commerzbank as well as firms and companies who run the impoverishment politics of
the Troika and profit from it.
Where it is possible, we will flow through or around police chains. We will use our
bodies to hold our blockades as long as we want. It is true that we will not be able to
exclude a meeting with the police, but no escalation will come from our side. We will
claim our right to physical integrity with materials to protect our bodies.
Arrive in time, create reference groups and participate in action trainings, delegates plena
and asambleas to prepare yourselves for the action!
Comment: this is the action consensus for the mass blockade of the ECB and financial center on May 18 and not for the
total choreography of the action days.

4. Character and aims of the demonstration on May 19
The demonstration on May 19 is the closing element of the European action days in Frankfurt from
May 16-19 against the crisis dictatorship. We will convene at 12:05 near the Main Train Station, at
Baseler Platz. Loud, diverse and resolute, we will progress through Frankfurt and we will reach the
closing rally at 5 pm at Willy-Brandt-Platz, directly in front of the European Central Bank (ECB). We
intend to collectively carry our protest against the austerity dictatorship to this actor.
Together, as thousands of participants from many European countries, we will send a clear and visible
message of international solidarity against the authoritarian crisis management and the policies of
impoverishment of the troika, consisting of the EU Commission, the ECB and the International
Monetary Fund (IMF). The international demonstration will denounce the destructive policies of the
troika as well as the German Federal Government that acts as its motor. Their politics oppose the will
and the needs of the population.
To visualize our protest, we will carry diverse thematic messages on banners and signs. We will
express our grievances and make demands. In addition to conventional banners, we will have
symbols that call attention to everyday situations and struggles. For example, ladders and rubber
boats symbolize the perilous efforts of illegalized migrants to cross highly-militarized EU borders;
cardboard tanks criticize war, militarization and the corporations that profit from it; oversized dolls and
shopping carts throw light on the precarious working relations of millions of people; barrels and
protective gear visualize the countless devastating ecological catastrophes, such as Fukushima and
Deep water Horizon. Our imaginations have no limits.
At the demonstration, we intend to show the size, strength and diversity of our colorful and broad
protest and make the networks, initiatives, parties and individuals participating in Blockupy loud and
clear. The demonstration will represent the loudness and multilingual assemblage of the many
persons who expressed their protest and resistance in the assemblies, sit-ins and creative actions of
direct democracy in the streets of Frankfurt on the previous days.
Course of action and route of the demonstration
The demonstration symbolically begins at 12:05 Middle European Time in the proximity of the
Frankfurt main train station (Baseler Platz) with an opening rally, and should end at 5 pm with a central
closing rally at a stage in front of the ECB. In between, the demonstration will circle the Frankfurt city
center in one line of demonstration. When we reach Deutsche Bank, the line will divide into two and
symbolically surround the Frankfurt financial district from two sides, meeting to unite again at the
closing rally.
At the rallies and during the demonstration, various groups and guests will state their reason for
protesting. Voices will be heard from Greece, Italy and North Africa, as well as from attac, Occupy,
labor unions, the interventionist left, and the party Die.Linke. The demonstration will end with an Iries
Révoltés concert.
For a free right to demonstrate
During the demonstration, we intend to create a situation that is transparent for all participants and in
which they consider and support each other in solidarity and collectively advocate for a successful
demonstration. All persons are welcome and should feel safe at our legally registered demonstration;
this especially applies to persons in wheelchairs and families with strollers. We intend to arrive at the
location of the closing rally and end the demonstration together.
We insist that none of the participants feel discriminated, mistreated or excluded due to age, clothing,
sexual orientation, gender and/or origin. This applies to arrival at the opening rally, during the
demonstration as well as to departure after the closing rally. We refuse discriminating and intimidating
controls in the run-up to the demonstration and the possible deadlocks of parts of the demonstration
by plainclothes police officers. We expressly underscore that there is no place for racist and neofascist
slogans and organizations at our demonstration.
We strongly disagree with sensationalist press reports about the Blockupy days in Frankfurt, which
obviously serve to increase circulation instead of reporting on our aims and the content of our actions.
We see the danger that already in the run-up to the action days, a constraint on our freedom to
demonstrate and freedom of opinion is being legitimated by propaganda.
An immediate concern of our demonstration is direct communication with the citizens of Frankfurt and
educating the interested public about the content and aims of our protest and resistance against the
current crisis politics.
In this way, we demonstrate our European and international solidarity.
Blockupy!
Take the square +++ block +++ demonstrate

Source: email at international commission mailing list.