Strasbourg, France !!!

Saturday 4th April 2009

I just woke up, it's like 9.40 in the morning. All night I was freezing in my tent as my sleeping bag is for the summer, and all night I heard the chucking sound made by helicopters flying over the camp area. A text message woke me, saying I should go to the internet tent because the computers weren't working. As if I could do anything to help. But still I lugged my sleepy-ass self here, and plugged in. The internet at this moment doesn't work. It probably hasn't worked for a few hours now, I speculate and suspect that the police have maybe cut us off from the internet. But phones work, fortunately. We've received news that the blockading group has managed to get to the blockade point, and have held their positions for almost 3 hours now, to my knowledge.
There were two Finnish teams for the blockade, a group that left early last night to stay overnight closer to the town and another group that left this morning at 4 o'clock. The latter group hasn't gotten to the blockade point yet.
Yesterday was also a day worth mentioning in my memoirs. It was almost comparable to the riots that happened the day before. We noticed a few helicopters going around the camping grounds, and the black block people started mobilizing from the camp. It was worrying that people who were really nice and seemed peaceful, suddenly donned their black hoodies and masks and went out with sticks. There seemed to be hundreds of them, maybe thousands. It's hard to make any assessment, since I've no grasp in large masses of people like this as to count them. A few moments, maybe hours later – I don't remember, my memory fails me, I blame the adrenaline rush – smoke started appearing in the horizon and loud bangs and booms near the camp-village.
There was beforehand a worry from NATO-ZU that the camp security patrols were mainly militant black block people, and a request that people who respect the non-violent NATO-ZU guidelines should join the security patrols. I've no info at the moment whether people from NATO-ZU actually joined the security patrols or not. But from what I've heard, I speculate that not. There were reportedly roadblocks assembled – burnable, highly combustible roadblocks. They'd burnt at least one roadblock, and toxic fumes were released into the air. People had to breathe through their t-shirts, various cloths etc just to get through.
Fortunately the situation yesterday did not escalate to the point it did the day before. Although I had no information on what was going on then, but I wasn't worried. The helicopters flew around, we heard loud bangs and smoke came out near the camp, but things calmed down eventually. I think it was only a police tactic to make us fear or to get us on a “by-stand” mode.