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Two different meetings - one end

In the middle of June in a Swedish town; broken windows, destruction of many restaurants, riot, flying paving stones, crying people, the police shoots, a man got hit by a bullet, shot in his back. (Luckily the man survived.) What was this? A war?

No, it all happened at the European Union meeting in Gothenburg in Sweden this summer. Thousands of demonstrators had gathered to protest against the meeting and against the unfairness in the world. It was going to be a friendly demonstration, good discussions and a little bit of a party but it all got very bad. The demonstrators did riot and the police answered with shooting. And delegates at the meeting were very disturbed in their talks about European union problems.

A month later. The same thing happened in Genua in Italy, on a bigger scale than in Gothenburg, with about 100 000 demonstrators and 20 000 policemen and it had a much sadder end. This time a police shoots a man, he dies after the policeman drives over him twice in panic.

Many questions

Whose fault was it? How was this possible? Haven’t they learned any thing from Sweden? Are the policemen today not so good and cool as they should be? Were the demonstrators too violent? Should we forbid demonstrators? There are many questions in our heads. Does anyone know the answer? No I don’t think so. Maybe the arrangements could have done this in an other way. I think they should have been more prepared of course but who could guess that it would end like this. It is wrong that important meetings like this end so sad. It’s really important to have these meetings and wrong that it has to be so much violence.

It was sad for everyone who had worked with the meeting. Both the delegates and the good demonstrators became very disappointed, neither of them wanted this to happen. There were many demonstrators who tried to stop the bad black-dressed demonstrators, not only the policemen.

The meetings.

This summer we had in a European meeting in Gothenburg (as I sad). Sweden was the chairman of the European Union the first half year of 2001. The meeting took place the 15-18 of June and it was the first time Sweden was the host for a big top meeting like this one. This time it was really special because it was the first time a sitting president of the USA was visiting Sweden.

On the top meeting they were discussing which candidate countries would be able to join the European Union. Because in 2002 the negotiations with the 12 countries are going to end. They also decided that least 50% of every man/women over 55 years, should be working at 2010. They also said the member of the EU promise to reduce the discharging of the greenhouse gases with 8% until 2012. They also said that the members of the EU promise to reduce discharging of the greenhouse gases with 8% until 2012. But we have heard so many promises from EU which have never come true.

A month later, in July 14-21, Italy which was the host for the other big meeting in Genau. This time it was G8 which had the meeting. G8, it is the seven richest and most powerful countries in the world, USA, Italy, France, Japan, Germany, England and Canada. Plus Russia who is so importune politic. These eight countries have met every year since 1975 to discuss important world things, like the globalisation, the environment, the quick spreading of the deadly AIDS virus in Africa, the USA trying to build a missile defence, the rising dollar and other important matters. They decided many important things but I think it is so bad that they are like the European Union - they say and promise a lot of things but they never do so many things.

I think these meetings are really important but I think it is unfair that only the most important politicians which are invited to these meetings. Why aren’t the poor countries invited too? They are after all discussing the problems of those countries. It’s wrong that it’s only the people who have money who decide every thing in this world. I think you should remember that there are more people in this world who are poor than rich. I really hope that they will do what they have promised. Because there are so many people in this world who really need the help that the important delegates are promising so we all can live in peace. What is your opinion about these two big meetings, or you just ignore them ?

Malin Söderberg Spsa2a (sp03-22@park.se)