The German Navy blocked a Greenpeace attempt to besiege the G8 Summit this morning, narrowly preventing the activists from delivering leaflets to representatives of the world’s leading economies.
A fleet of 11 – made up of high-speed inflatables, catamarans and 6-metre long speed boats – set out at day break to breach a 10-nautical-mile exclusion zone around Heilgendamm, the home of this year’s summit.
But the German coastguard rammed, ran over and capsized two of the boats only a few hundred metres from the shore, according to a Guardian report.
Early reports indicate that three protesters have been taken to hospital, while all other crew members are believed to have been taken into custody.
“It’s a terribly dangerous act. Greenpeace is well known in Germany. We are peaceful and non-violent,” a Greenpeace spokesman said.
The boats were reportedly carrying petitions calling on G8 leaders to cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2020 and 50% by 2050, and to limit world temperatures rises to 2C.
The Battle of Heilgendamm, as historians could well remember it, echoes the 1941 Battle of the Denmark Strait. In May 1941, and at the height of World War Two, the British battle-cruiser HMS Hood was sunk by the Bismarck, the famed German warship. Winston Churchill subsequently ordered the British fleet to “sink the Bismarck”, an event that followed only three days later.
Reports that Greenpeace will respond accordingly have yet to be confirmed.
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