Mass protest confronts G7 summit

Like medieval lords plotting against an impending peasant revolt after a bad harvest, the heads of the seven most powerful imperialist countries — the U.S., Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada — met June 7-8 in a renovated castle-turned-hotel in Elmau in southeastern Germany to plot on behalf of the tiny group of billionaires who rule the world.

The capitalist world economy has been in crisis since 2008. The role of this summit meeting, which is costing $350 million, is to resolve the crisis on the backs of the working class and the weaker nations.

This year’s meeting excluded even capitalist Russia from a seat at the masters’ table at the resort. The imperialist overlords accused Russia of “aggression” in Ukraine. That’s because Russia has refused to submit to the NATO countries’ high-handedness in overthrowing the elected Ukrainian government in Kiev in February 2014 and NATO’s plan to extend its military reach to the Ukrainian border with Russia.

Despite the meeting’s isolation in the village of Elmau, the German hosts gathered nearly 30,000 cops and other employees of the state apparatus to block any protesters from getting close to the heads of state.

The protesters were demanding an end to the trade accords known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, whose overall effect is to eliminate jobs, cut workers’ wages and create riskier working conditions. The activists also demanded effective measures to protect the climate and fight against poverty — which has been growing worldwide, including in the imperialist countries.

On June 4, some 40,000 people demonstrated in the nearest major city, Munich, in the largest of the protests. On June 8 in Elmau, some 7,000 mostly youthful protesters climbed right up to the security fence and the thousands of cops separating the powerful heads of state from the people they pretend to represent.