Sleepy Alpine town tackles rowdy protesters at German G-7 summit
GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN: A fairytale German Alpine town of 26,700 dwellers has swollen with thousands of protesters seeking to rankle world leaders hosted by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The activists planned t o occupy Garmisch-Partenkirchen yesterday and today, to rally against the world’s powers for their policies on global inequality, conflicts and climate change. But getting close to the Group of Seven summit in Schloss Elmau, a luxury hotel tucked away in a secluded valley under Germany’s highest peaks, will be a challenge.
Security has tightened in the town that held the 1936 Winter Olympics under Adolf Hitler. Police expected as many as 10,000 people to arrive for the main demonstration yesterday, and about 1,500 to march toward the venue from five directions today. Some 17,000 police officers have been deployed across Bavaria, police spokeswoman Kathrin Reinhardt said.
Rally organisers appear confident they can get to the destination in sufficient numbers and point to the success of the Alternative Summit meeting in Munich, where as many as 40,000 people rallied on Thursday. Police in the Bavarian capital praised demonstrators for protesting peacefully.
“Protests against the G7 summit have begun with great success,” the Stop G7 Elmau umbrella group attempting to derail the meeting said on its website.
Still, authorities are bracing themselves. Ms Reinhardt said in an emailed response to questions that security forces identified “a significant mobilisation of summit opponents prepared for violence”.
Ever since the 2001 death of a demonstrator at a bloody G8 summit in Genoa, Italy, host nations have picked remote locations with limited access to outsiders in a bid to prevent armed clashes between police and protesters.
Ms Reinhardt referred to scenes of upheaval in Frankfurt three months ago, when thousands of protesters rallied against the European Central Bank as it inaugurated its new 1.3 billion euro (about 49bn baht) tower on March 18. Demonstrators targeted the ECB as the symbol of struggling growth and unemployment, concerned only with protecting the wealthy and privileged.
Demonstrators in Garmisch, which was home to composer Richard Strauss, have set up camp on a meadow after an administrative court this week lifted a ban on protesters occupying the space. Police have sealed off the approaches to Elmau, 16km by car from Garmisch and accessible by a single road, and set up security checks on roads into Garmisch, where some 4,000 journalists plan to work.
World leaders including US President Barack Obama, UK Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Francois Hollande will skirt the measures by flying to Elmau from Munich airport.
The government heads will have views of the Wetterstein mountain range from the spa retreat, which was finished in 1916. The venue boasts an outdoor heated pool and a Michelin-star restaurant. For the adventurous if only time would allow it, there is the Zugspitze to climb: Germany’s highest mountain at 2,962m.