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Austrian police officers stand guard next to the
entrance of Interalpen Hotel, where the Bilderberg meeting is held, in the
Austrian village of Buchen, June 12, 2015. (Reuters / Leonhard Foeger)
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The Bilderberg
conference, which bills itself as a “forum for informal discussions” held by
the world's top brass, has drawn fire from protesters gathered near the
Interalpen-Hotel Tyrol in Austria, accusing the attendees of corruption and
elitism.
After a rally on Friday, anti-Bilderberg activists
re-emerged on Saturday afternoon to protest what many of them refer to as a
gathering of criminals. Thousands of protesters are expected to assemble
outside the hotel where the Bilderberg group meeting is taking place.
“What we have seen is a very tight police cordon. It
has been very difficult for many people to get to this area. Some journalists
have been subject to rather humiliating police tactics,” RT's Peter Oliver
reported.
Some like it hot, but those gathered for the
Bilderberg meeting in Austria seem to prefer it “top secret.” According to the
published agenda, a total of around 140 participants from 22 countries have
confirmed their attendance this year, including German Defense Minister Ursula
van der Leyen, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, UK Chancellor George
Osborne and former President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso,
just to name a few. One of its past participants is the former managing
director of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss Kahn, accused of
sexual assault by a New York hotel maid in 2011.
The key rule of participation is the so-called
“Chatham House Rule”, which states that while attendees are free to use the
information received, “neither the identity nor the affiliation of the
speaker(s) nor of any other participant may be revealed.”
A 50-kilometer safety zone has been created and two
checkpoints set up around the event to ensure the safety of the influential
guests. Up to 2,100 officers from all over Austria will be on duty, along with
300 German police officers, should an emergency occur during the four-day conference.
American journalist Rob Dew, news director at
Infowars, told RT his crew suffered from what he called “police brutality.”
“At the beginning they were very brutal and rude to
us. They saw we're from Texas, pulled us out of the car and searched us. So the
next time we go to the checkpoint we start video taping because that's what we
do in America – when we're feeling tyranny, we start video taping. And we
actually went to the police station live on Skype during the Alex Jones show
and confronted them because they were calling our hotel manager asking where we
were, when we're going to be back. We were fed up with it because we'd already
shown them our papers and we have nothing to hide, but we're not going to take
humiliation.”
According to the published agenda, the Bilderberg conference
will discuss a range of issues – from artificial intelligence and chemical
weapons threats to the US elections and European strategy regarding Iran,
Russia and NATO.
Investigative journalist Tony Gosling told RT the
Bilderberg conference tries to “make sure it's as difficult as possible to
cover the meetings.” He says the mainstream media are actually part of the
group.
“We're given the minimum
information and it's very high security. There are thousands of police and
security services in Austria keeping journalists away. The reason journalists
don't often go is because their bosses are there and want the secrecy. You're
not going to upset your boss by trying to break their vow of silence,” Gosling
said. “We've got around about 20-22 media barrons in there. These are
generally controlled private media corporations, senior editors, managers or
owners of the big media corporations and they are actually the fourth-largest
contingent at Bilderbergs. They are not far behind the bankers and the
politicians and the owners of big industry. Essentially, media has become
something so you can buy and sell,” he added.
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