Training camp prepares activists for S11

BY MARCEL CAMERON

MELBOURNE -- Forty activists attended a lively “socialist training camp” near Ballarat in country Victoria to prepare for the September 11-13 blockade of the World Economic Forum summit here.

The camp, organised by the socialist youth organisation Resistance, combined educational talks with interactive workshops on non-violent blockade tactics, public speaking, legal rights and using the radical press.

A workshop on non-violent blockading techniques was conducted by the Democratic Socialist Party's Tim Gooden, who is also a militant in the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union in Geelong.

Gooden drew on experiences such as the Seattle protests against the World Trade Organisation in November, the August 19, 1996 trade union mobilisation against the Coalition government outside Parliament House in Canberra and his own involvement in union struggles.

Gooden stressed that the tactic of a non-violent, disciplined blockade agreed to by the S11 Alliance would ensure that the political message of the protests would not be lost. “Through the speeches, banners, placards and chants we can let people all over the world know why we're protesting”, said Gooden.

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