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Anti-capitalists rampage
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June 18, 1999: 11:03 a.m. ET
From Sydney to Senegal, 'J18' activists target big money; London's City besieged
By Staff Writer Douglas Herbert
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LONDON (CNNfn) - Y2K, meet your match. For cowering capitalists the world over, June 18 is the dreaded "J-One-Eight": a day to ditch the pinstripes, banish the briefcase and barricade yourself behind the bank vault as militant money-haters wreak havoc in a financial center near you.
In a string of global protests timed to coincide with the Group of Eight power summit in Cologne, Germany, demonstrators took to the streets Friday from Sydney to Senegal armed with an anti-capitalist's arsenal of dead wombats, super-glue, spray paint and a mandate to "counter the globalization of misery under capitalism."
That's the directive issued on the official Web site of the "International Day of Protest, Action and Carnival in Financial Centers Around the World."
The site's manifesto marries Marx and cyberspace in a spirit of pin-the-tail-on-the-CEO levity.
Activists swarm London's financial district
To mark the occasion, the "Cymraeg Dim Sharid a Cymraeg" collective in Wales planned a mass bicycle blockade of downtown Cardiff. In Montevideo, Uruguay, organizers invited garbage haulers to deposit their refuse in local bank branches and to block the streets with their carts. In Nigeria, indigenous tribes were joining forces with a militant environmental group against the local oil industry.
There even were reports of dead wombats -- three, to be precise, all road kill -- dumped at the doorstep of the Australian Stock Exchange in Melbourne to protest the logging of Australian forests by Japanese companies.
A misspelled grafitto scrawled across the exchange's gleaming marble facade read: "Don't Envest in Death."
Warning: "Money Kills"
Yet ground zero in the campaign was London's square-mile financial district, known as the City, the hub of European business and finance.
There, 300 slow-moving cyclists brandishing banners that read "Money Kills" disrupted traffic Friday morning as Metropolitan Police braced for up to 10,000 protesters. Elsewhere, protesters strung banners over Tower Bridge.
"They're highly organized," said a spokeswoman for the Corporation of London, the local authority with jurisdiction over the City.
Earlier, the police sent advisories to target companies such as McDonald's, the Gap and National Westminster Bank. The pamphlets reportedly included tips on defensive measures, including the use of glue solvent and saws to detach protesters who might super-glue themselves to cash registers and other property.
"We plan to combine satire and entertainment with serious critique, to shine light on the dark side of finance -- the giant banks at the center of the neoliberal conquest of the world," one group statement asserts.
The activists also struck at the favored tabloid of London's financial titans, publishing a mock edition of the Evening Standard newspaper under the tweaked title: Evading Standards.
The "satirical" aspect aside, City companies were taking few chances Friday. The activists have disavowed violence. But they have professed their readiness to sabotage property and premises belonging to their targets -- and the food eaten by them.
Police warned financial district denizens not to accept food or drinks at makeshift "carnivals" organized by protesters: It may be laced with laxatives.
"The main thing is we have advised all staff to be vigilant and reminded people of existing security arrangements," said David Outhwaite, a spokesman at NatWest Bank, whose office in the heart of the financial district employs 2,000 workers.
Taking a cue from the police advisory, Outhwaite said the bank had advised its staff to dress down more than usual Friday. "You walk around the City and there's hardly anyone in a suit," he said.
Police say the casual attire will help camouflage the power brokers amid the protesters and lessen the chances for confrontation.
Other London business were said to have advised their staff to take lunch in their offices, and to leave their BMWs and Mercedes in the garage and commute to work by public transport.
Among the groups in 43 countries joining Friday's action are the Bangladesh National Garment Workers' Confederation, the Indian Fisherfolk Union and the North Sumatra Peasant Union. 
-- with additional material from wire reports
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