bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

moreOnThisArticles

urlAlias

commentCount

sponsorType

authorLocations

authors

paywallTypes

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

socialHeadline

headline

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

publishedDate

additionalInfoBoxes

images

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

createdDate

sponsor

factSheets

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

copyrighted

customTimezone

liveContents

Barclay Crawford

Militant farmers lead the charge but police beat them back

It was clear when the protesters reached the top of Marsh Road in Wan Chai that the final destination - the open spaces of the cargo working area - was where they would make their stand.

Police and organisers had  managed to keep the various groups apart during the march from Victoria Park past  the battened-down  shops of  Causeway Bay.

'It's like the lunar New Year,' said long-time Wan Chai resident Tommy Lui over the beat of farmers' drums.

International franchises such as adidas, Apple Shirt and Bauhaus were taking no chances - conscious their brands have been targets for anti-WTO protesters. But local boutiques, jewellers and restaurants shut too. While they remained open, Sogo and the Causeway Bay Plaza malls were under heavy guard.

The Retail Management Association is predicting takings will be down 30 to 50 per cent this week, and nearly all the shops along Lockhart Road were closed yesterday morning.

Once the protesters neared the convention centre, the openness of the area, compared to Wan Chai's concrete canyons, gave protest groups  the opportunity to join up once again.

The tone for what followed had been set much earlier,  in Victoria Park. The carnival air that had greeted demonstrators for Sunday's protest  was replaced by the ominous sound of the Korean peasants' and workers' drums and their battle cry - 'WTO kills our brothers'.

Police were not dealing with a rent-a-crowd rabble here, but a well-drilled unit that knew how to make its point - and make it forcefully. The centrepiece was a 220kg coffin built of  material brought from Korea by the militant Korean Advanced Farmers' Federation.

On it was the message 'RIP WTO'. But its real purpose was to kill  any hopes the authorities may have had that the Koreans would keep to their pledge to protest peacefully.

At 3pm, all had made it to the final destination, and word swept through the crowd of 4,500 that Koreans had lifejackets on and would jump in the water and try to swim to the convention centre.

And so it was, amid speeches denouncing the WTO, that at least 100 Koreans, led by a single Bangladeshi protester, bolted to the edge of the harbour with an eager media pack in tow.

Water patrol teams looked on anxiously as cameramen jostled for position. To the chorus of 'down, down WTO' they jumped into the sea at about 3.30pm and started swimming towards the summit venue.

Would this be the collective's best today - a worthless attempt to penetrate the convention centre by water?

Of course not. It was a decoy, a way of distracting police long enough for the main attack, one which would draw the extremist elements from among the NGO and union members, schoolboys and random protesters who made up the crowd.

Just before 4pm, the Koreans holding the coffin picked it up and began moving forcefully to the front of the gathering, only narrowly avoiding trampling over many of the protesters camped peacefully in front.

With no visible police presence at the exit next to the Wan Chai Sports Ground, they were going to make a break for the convention centre.

Their plan was soon foiled. Police formed up  in front of the group and their Trojan horse. The face-off did not last long, a Korean throwing a burning rag onto the coffin, setting it on fire,  before the group tossed it into the sea of police shields.

Then the fight was on.

The first scuffle was vicious, the Koreans taking on the officers directly, screaming as they slammed fearlessly into the shields, swinging pieces of their disintegrating coffin. Riot police, screaming 'get them out' were quick to clear away most of the big chunks of  burning coffin,  but the smaller pieces remained.

These young riot officers would not have seen such a disturbance in their working lives, and the fear showed.

One officer yelled at a cameraman to get out of the way, threatening him with his baton while a fellow officer tried to calm him down.

The attack was a call to arms for the various Korean groups. They attacked in pincer movements while the main group held police at bay - wave after wave ploughing into the shields, braving police batons and eventually clouds of pepper spray.

The spray seemed to hurt the rest of the multinational contingent more, with legislator Leung Kwok-hung one of many casualties.

Those with spray in their eyes got comrades to blow smoke in their faces to clear it away.

They were joined in the melee by teenagers, Hong Kong trade unionists, and beer-fuelled protesters like John Becvar and Derek Morley - both from Brockville, in Ontario, Canada, and veterans of other anti-globalisation riots, who had arrived from Shenzhen yesterday spoiling for a fight.

With them were Hong Kong teenagers Thomas Edmond, 16, from South Island School, and Michael Bentley, 17, who said he had told his mum he 'was going to throw eggs at the cops today'.

Michael managed to seize a bottle of pepper spray.

At 4.38pm, the main group of protesters began beating their drums as organisers cleared a space before the shields - and the cameras.

They screamed as they ploughed into the shields, withdrawing briefly before striking again and again, before withdrawing for a final rallying call.

'Their shields and their clubs will not stop us from going to the convention centre,' a Korean Peasants' League spokesman told the crowd, to a loud roar of approval.

'We have to get to the convention centre, we have to make our voices heard. The police will not get in our way. Our struggle has seen men commit suicide. We will not be stopped.'

It was an ominous warning from a group which has promised their actions will escalate to a  crescendo by the end of the week.



A swim, a burning coffin and a scuffle - Koreans pitch in