• English Site
• > Germany

Learning from the Past

G-8 Rioting Has Germans Second Guessing Policing Strategy

By Charles Hawley in Berlin

Is it possible to avoid violence at the G-8? For years, police in Europe have been trying to perfect their riot-control strategies. But Saturday's rioting in Rostock has the Germans questioning what they've learned.

It seems as though someone hit the rewind button. The scenes from the Rostock Rumble that flashed onto television screens across the globe on Saturday could just as well have been file footage from the 1999 Battle in Seattle, one of the first of the violent, anti-globalization riots. Or it could have been taken from Genoa circa 2001, when prolonged street battles resulted in the death of a demonstrator.

Now though, the images of burning cars, of black-clad rioters throwing stones, and of police wading through the crowds, Billy clubs at the ready, will forever be associated with the 2007 G-8 summit in Heiligendamm. And even before the meeting has started, frustration has spread across Germany. What, both police and protestors are asking themselves, went wrong?

It’s a variation of a question that both police officers and riot control experts have been asking for years. Ever since the Seattle debacle, an increasing number of specialists have been taking a closer look at the dynamics of mass protest in the age of international demonstrations targeting international governmental and financial institutions. At the same time, police have increased cooperation with colleagues in cities already experienced in hosting G-8 summits or other international events.

Research into the G-8

Indeed, the German police have been preparing for this year’s G-8 for years. Observers from Germany were on hand to take a close look at how British police patrolled the G-8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland in 2005. They went to Genoa to talk to their Italian colleagues. And John Vine, the man who directed the police response in Gleneagles, is on hand in Germany this year.

“We do talk to one another and I think it is very important that there is learning particularly for events such as the G-8,” Vine told SPIEGEL ONLINE. “Before the Gleneagles meeting, we did a lot of research into the G-8 event itself to see what kind of tactics have been used before by anarchist groups. We also visited a number of places in Europe.”

Still, he went on, “in hindsight you can say that worked well and that didn't work well. There's no manual on how to police a G-8 summit and there's no right way.”

Perhaps not. But there are an increasing number of experts looking for the silver bullet of protest control. Indeed, even a brief look at the Heiligendamm security plan makes it clear that the police have been listening. In "The Policing of Transnational Protest," published in 2006, co-editor Donatella Della Porta, a widely published riot expert from Italy, makes clear that so-called "red zones" -- blocked off areas inaccessible to protesters -- have become de rigueur at international events. Other newer strategies, the book says, include " individual police officers are more commonly equipped with ‘less lethal’ arms; databanks of ‘traveling troublemakers’ have been constructed; special anti-insurgent units have been created; and in some cases the military has also been deployed for public order tasks."

Avoid Confrontation

All of those strategies, except for military deployment, can be seen in Germany this year. The 12-kilometer-long, razor-wire-topped fence surrounding Heiligendamm has gotten the most press. But weeks prior to the event, German police began raiding the homes and offices of radical leftists and stepped up border checks, having turned away 85 people from entering Germany and arresting an additional 35. Conflict control teams accompany every march. Deploying the military domestically remains illegal in Germany, but on Monday, a number of representatives from the conservative Christian Democrats called for the deployment of the anti-terrorist unit attached to Germany's federal border police.

But it is a further element of the growing literature on riot policing that is being tested this week in Germany. The police response to the G-8, named Kavala, has focused heavily on a strategy of de-escalation. Officers were trained to avoid confrontation if possible so as not to provoke the demonstrators.

The idea, Otto Adang, chair of public order management at the Dutch police academy, explained to SPIEGEL ONLINE, is to avoid an "us versus them" mentality. It is important, he says, to develop a dialogue with the protesters and to encourage them to see the police as helping the demonstration by preventing violence. And if there is violence, he says, it becomes vital to differentiate between those causing it and those who are not.

More Attention to Riot Control

"The more a situation escalates, the more your options run out," Adang says. "If you have a confrontation, you enter the confrontation and you try to win it. But even then you have to keep differentiating between people who are being violent and those who are not. There has been more and more attention for this kind of thinking. Elements of this have been around for a longer time, but they are being applied more and more."

Gleneagles police director Vine said that prior to the 2005 summit, he carefully trained his police force to do whatever possible to avoid escalation. He emphasized a proportionate response to any demonstrator violence, taught that arrest was a last resort, and established a "very, very defensive" strategy.

"There are always going to be elements who don't want to speak with the police," Vine said. "But there are others who want to legitimately protest, and you want to help them. In training, if we noticed that there were officers overreacting, we didn't assign them to riot control units."

Still, as it became clear in Rostock on Saturday, it is difficult to plan for those who want violence at all costs. And, as riot expert Stephen Reicher from St. Andrews University in Scotland points out, all it takes is a single spark. "It's those incipient moments where things can be nipped in the bud. But they can also radically and quickly escalate," he said. "There is always the danger that those on the ground will react and undermine your tactics."

That, in fact, is the dilemma the German police are now facing. Frustration with Saturday's riot in Rostock has led to finger pointing among the different police forces involved, with a Berlin policeman telling SPIEGEL ONLINE that there was a "complete failure in planning." And demands are coming from all sides for a more aggressive police posture.

Those in charge of policing the G-8 have said that they are going to maintain their strategy of de-escalation -- sort of. "We are going to stick to de-escalation," police spokesman Axel Falkenberg told reporters on Tuesday. "But it is, of course, clear that we are going to lower our threshold when it comes to counteracting violence."