text in English: Gaseous Atomic State. The government thanks all participants in this CS-gas experiment: results will follow
background: In the early afternoon of September 19, thousands of
people started the blockade on the small dikes leading to the site. Besides
them razor-blade sharp barbed wire. Many people were bringing construction
material for the anti-nuclear village and starting to build provisional
shelters. When thousands gathered in the beautiful autumn sun, suddenly
dozens of teargas grenades were fired at the crowd. Panic broke out, but
nowhere to go except into the barbed wire. In the first hour 120 people
were treated for wounds by first aid teams. Later the police said they
just answered with teargas after rocks were thrown at the police lines,
but no one saw rocks being thrown (and no footage exist of such thing happening).
But as a result of this many people got angry and frustrated and then rocks
were thrown, still not many, but especially in the pasture land after police
used more violence to force the demonstrators back, things were thrown
at the police. After a few hours all teargas grenades in stock were used
up, and police start using fire extinguishers filled with teargas and sprayed
it into the crowd. Police first denied such apparatus, but could not longer
deny it after pictures and footage clearly showing it.
Slowly people started to reorganize and blockades were established
further away on the roads to the site. But especially many families, children
etc, left and were so frightened by the repression that they never dared
to go to another demonstration again. And that was exactly the intention,
to break the power of the popular movement. People that stayed at the actions
were ‘hardliners’, ‘violent anarchists’, ‘hooligans’. The intention was
to marginalize and criminalize the movement..
city:
country: The Netherlands
date & year: September 1981
produced by: