London Met Police have been accused of using plain clothed officers to
infiltrate the G20 protests held in london this April in order to provoke violence.
The accusation has come after several weeks
of shock after news of the death of Ian Tomlinson at police hands and the
injuring of many others.
Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake, who was
present during the disturbances outside the Bank of England on April 1st, said:
"When I was in the middle of the crowd, two people came over to me and said:
‘There are people over there who we believe are policemen and who have been
encouraging the crowd to throw things at the police.’"
When people become suspicious the two men made
a hasty exit via the police cordon. They were also believed to have displayed
ID cards to allow them to pass.
Antonio
Olmos, a freelance photographer at the scene, said: "I had seen an individual wearing black
clothes who in my mind looked like a rugby player not a protester, who seemed
to be encouraging his fellow protesters to be more aggressive toward to police,
i.e., in the throwing of bottles, pushing against police lines etc.
"Just as
I noticed this behaviour several protesters turned on this individual and
accused him of being police. He produced some sort of ID when he approached the
police lines and he was quickly let through at a time when no one, including
press, were being allowed to leave the police cordon around the Bank of
England."
Metropolitan Police
chief Sir Paul Stephenson has so far refused to comment on the issue.
Police conduct in early
April is widely regarded to have been unacceptable, with officers across the
city engaging in frequently unprovoked attacks on demonstrators.
After enclosing protestors
outside the Bank of England – a method also known as ‘kettling’ – units of the
Special Territorial Group were conspicuous by their lack of ID badges as they
assaulted several people in the crowd.
Officers present gave
no reason for the sudden decision to enclose the crowd, nor would they respond
to inquiries on how long people would be confined. In one instance a man
claiming to be diabetic and wishing to return home to take his medication was
refused permission to leave.
Others claimed that
police had visible stockpiles of bottled water, yet refused to release them to
a crowd that had now been stood in the sun for many hours.
Later that evening a massed police charge
was aimed at the Climate Camp, where environmental activists had gathered.
Despite repeated chants of "this is not a riot" from protestors, officers
smashed into the gathering and forcefully dispersed it.
The Independent Police Complains Commission
received over 250 complaints over the course of the G20 protests, with 121 of
these being over the use of force.
The use of plain-clothes police officers
has been a recurring method in the history of modern policing. However, whilst
officially they are only used to identify potential troublemakers, unofficially
they can be used to provoke violence.
Historically the term ‘agent provocateur’
was coined in France
and used to describe police agents who would infiltrate underground
organisations in order to discredit them.
Since then such individuals have been
suspected of being in operation within the workers movement in varying
countries.
In the 1960s FBI agents were alleged to
work in organisations such as the Black Panthers in order to drive them to
commit violent acts, whilst MI5 and Special Branch personnel have admitted to
operating in the British political left during the 1980s.
As this goes to press, Tom Brake has
declared his intention to present his account of the G20 protest to a
parliamentary committee on human rights. Mr Brake said: "The police strategy of
locking in all the protesters, peaceful or otherwise for up to six hours, in my
view, put peaceful protesters at greater risk, increased the likelihood of
violence as well as having serious implications for peaceful protests in the
future. These are matters that a full inquiry will need to consider."
Last month’s (May) Socialist Appeal editorial
quoted Engels that the state ‘consists not merely of armed men but also of
material adjuncts, prisons and institutions of coercion of all kinds.’ Marxists
say that the state as a rule serves the interests of the ruling class. The case
of the agents provocateurs at the G20 demonstrations shows this is as true as
ever.
Click here and here to read more on the G20 events
