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SCMP Reporter

It is not possible to know their names. So we will just dub them Mr Backpack, Mr Goldshades, Mr Marlboro and Mr Shortsleeves.

 They are among the mysterious characters who showed a surprising interest in the street activities of veteran activist and self-professed professional Marxist Leung Kwok-hung when President Jiang Zemin was in town.

 Mr Leung is an easy guy to track, not least because of his waist-length hair and his habit of carrying a huge coffin daubed with slogans such as 'Reverse the verdict on June 4'.

 So maybe it is charitable to assume the mysterious chaps who made such a bad job of following Mr Leung around were trainees. Maybe after they graduate they can try to trail someone with ordinary-length hair who does not carry a coffin.

 As an example, Mr Leung's April 5 Action Group rallied outside Wan Chai MTR at 5.30pm on Wednesday. After a short speech, they gathered their banners together and started marching towards the Convention Centre where Mr Jiang would soon eat his banquet.

 The moment the 50-odd demonstrators moved off with their coffin, various members-of-the-public who were doing ordinary activities such as waiting for the bus decided to spontaneously start walking in the same direction.

 Among them was a chap with a green backpack, a white-shirted short fellow with gold sunglasses perched on his head, and various others whose distinguishing feature was the brand of cigarettes in their top pocket.

 They did not chant slogans. Instead, they kept their hands in their pockets and gazed gently into the distance and followed along.

 An hour later the April 5 Action Group had arrived at the Convention Centre, negotiated fruitlessly with the police, had various discussions, and ended up setting their coffin on fire as a mark of disgust at not being allowed within earshot of the President.

 The journalists were complaining of boredom. But Mr Backpack and Mr Marlboro and Mr Salem were still hanging about. In a spirit of journalistic research, this reporter approached Mr Goldglasses for a friendly chat.

 'At work?'  'Yes,' he said, gold glasses still in place on his head.

 'Are you by any chance a plainclothes police officer?'  'No. I'm trying to sell insurance.'  A few minutes later Mr Goldglasses had gone. Maybe he had decided Marxists were a poor insurance risk.

 By about 7.30pm it was clear the protesters were going to be penned up in an area very distant from Mr Jiang, and the police were not going to budge. The protestors decided to call it a day.

 Mr Leung, who says he accepts being tailed and has nothing to hide, gathered up a few friends and started off for their van, on Gloucester Road 500 metres away. A bulky man in a short-sleeved shirt and his slightly weedy friend, previously loitering, mysteriously decided to walk in exactly the same direction.

 Indeed, when Mr Leung turned a corner they sprinted for it - only to come face-to-face with Mr Leung who discovered the van was not there so he decided to backtrack and sit down.

 Mr Shortsleeves and friend took up Humphrey Bogart-style watch positions, slouching around and smoking, one with his face half round the corner.

 After 15 minutes, Mr Leung headed over Gloucester Road, a signal for our mysterious watchers to stub out their cigarettes and follow him, gesticulating wildly to each other until they saw him get into a van and drive off.

 As they watched Mr Leung drive into the distance, your reporter made a gentle approach similar to that made to Mr Goldglasses. This time they refused to say anything, and just gazed into the distance when asked.

 At least they were less obvious than one of the plainclothes officers who followed the April 5 Action Group when they marched on the Foreign Ministry on May 31.

 This 'undercover' operator was possibly the only person in the history of the Chinese race to be more than 1.8-metre tall with hair dyed a shimmering gold. His covert career was not helped by the big photo of him that subsequently appeared in Next Magazine under the headline 'Gold-hair stands out from the crowd'.

 Law Yuk-kai, director of Human Rights Monitor, says the mystery watchers probably first turned up in early 1997 and attend some but not all demonstrations. 'For a while after the handover they tried to use some kind of intimidatory tactics and made themselves prominent,' he said. Now their role seems to be observation - for instance, recording slogans. He believes they are police, but says he can't know for sure.

 The two mysterious followers wandered backwards and forwards a bit on a bridge over Gloucester Road, then headed off into the streets of Wan Chai. Your reporter tried to follow them at a discrete distance to see if they went into Wan Chai police station.

 Not surprisingly, they vanished into the crowd at the first junction. After all, it is not easy to follow someone without them realising - even for professionals.



Undercover exposure