The Counter Information Agency Infocafe had its first home as part of a sqauatted neighbourhood in LEEUWENHOEKSTRAAT east Amsterdam in the spring of 2000. The buildings were emptied of their original social housing inhabitants to be renovated into luxury apartments. The people had been tricked or priced out of their community by a profit making corporation called DE KEY who have been contracted to run part of Amsterdam's privatised housing department.

The occupied houses has space for over 60 people to live, as well as making the first CIA Infocafe, a tapas bar, and a community garden which we made from a piece of wasteland and offered free outdoor cinema and food on the long summer nights.

All this creativity, along with the large amount of local support we got, all meant we were number one on the city hitlist for eviction. After an inspirational few months the neighbourhood was dramatically evicted by over 100 riot police pointlessly wasting tens of thousands of guilders.

After this, we moved to the KALENDERPANDEN also in the east of Amsterdam. This was an amazing squatted warehouse which had been a squatted social centre since 4 years. It provided living space, workshop and concert space, a peoples kitchen, radio station, free squatting advice, ran local campaigns and was very vocal and active against the profit driven gentrification , otherwise known as *yuppification* !, of Amsterdam neighbourhoods.

When we set up the second Infocafe there, it was already known that the Kalenderpanden faced eviction. So we joined in the struggle to save the building. Eventually, actions, media coverage, council campaigning and demonstrations were all ignored and the historical warehouses were evicted for so called *development* into, guess what, luxury apartments!!!

Even though our time there was limited, we set up give-away shop as part of the Infocafe, started showing films, hosted activist training, made banner making workshops, and grew vegetables and herbs amongst the wharf cobblestones.

The eviction of the Kalenderpanden on the Entrepotdok has earned a place in Amsterdam local legend as well as squatting history! Visit www.squat.net to find out why!

So, the CIA Infocafe was on the run again!

Not that that shuts us down! We have become pretty good at making Infopoints at manifestations such as the actions in Prague against the World Bank and the IMF in September 2000, and the actions at the COP 6 UN Convention on Climate Change in November 2000. These Infopints were opportunities for public and mainstream media to find out the other sides to the stories being spun by the neoliberal prophets! They were also essential resources for people doing actions to reach each other and get an overall picture of the events.

Our next home was to be the CINEAK, the squatted former Planet Hollywood restaurant on Amsterdam's busiest tourist and commercial street! But this was just too much for the Amsterdam police, who violently and illegally evicted the building once, then again after it was resituated, beating anyone who they came across. Demands by the squatters for the case to be put before a judge were repressed and ignored.

But proving we were not outdone came by making a new infocafe on Muntplein at the top of VIJZELSTRAAT, only a beret throw away from the Cineak! There we reopened after constructing a new back wall to the building!!

Being right in the corporatised heart of Amsterdam, between Mcdonalds and the Pathe cinema!, we were a cultural oasis. As always, offering cheap or free food and making available the latest magazines and information on our usual themes such as economic globalisation, anti racism, women's liberation, neo liberal institutions, genetics and biotechnology, privatisation, climate change, environmental racism, land use issues, debt, biodiversity, local campaigns etc. We researched and distributed the hidden sides of the so called war against terror as it grew after September the 11th.

Whilst at the Vijzelstraat, our Infonights became weekly events, free of charge of course! The topics ranged from a biodiesel workshop to storytelling nights, from AIDs in South Africa to women in Afghanistan, from state surveillance in the Netherlands to Plan Columbia and Plan Dignidad, from cultures of resistance to modern day colonialism and slavery. Being right in the centre gave us the chance to introduce many people to issues, and demonstrate a vision of a different world…

We kept our presence up on the streets too, creating temporary info stalls at local actions against gentrification and in defense of urban green spaces. We also made an infopoint, to accompany street theatre and samba on International Day against climate change, making a banner rise up the infocafe like the sea level rising….especially relevant in the Netherlands!!

But all this is contra to the City's mono culture plans for Amsterdam, and after around one year we were on the eviction list again. And guess what Vijzelstraat will become….?!! yes, offices and MORE LUXURY APPARMENTS!! notice any trend here?!

Still, the cheeky little infocafe pixies have been constantly busy too, making info sticker actions, stencilling, and info fly posting and mischievous subvertising actions across the city….!

Now we have found a new space…read all about it on WHO AND WHY….!