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German police battle anti-G8 protesters
Many tried to block roads leading from the port of Rostock to the resort of Heiligendamm to prevent officials from reaching the meeting of the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States. Authorities closed one of the main roads from Rostock approaching Heiligendamm after protesters staged a sit-in. They also blocked a train carrying journalists to the summit venue, a luxury hotel. The journalists were eventually taken in by sea in German navy boats. The main flashpoint was the 12-kilometre (seven-mile) long barbed wire fence surrounding the resort. Police said about 800 people were trying to get to the barrier. "We had to deal with potentially dangerous people who were throwing stones," a police spokesman said. "We used water cannon to push them back from the fence because they were getting close to it." An activist group said police had also used tear gas against demonstrators, but police could not confirm this. US President George W. Bush and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were already in the summit hotel at the time of the battles. About 16,000 police, many in riot gear, are on duty for the summit. Tilo, a 25-year-old German demonstrator dressed in black, was sitting with several thousand anti-globalisation protesters on one of the main roads from Rostock to Heiligendamm, forcing authorities to close it to traffic. "I'm staying here, I'm not moving. I personally will not respond to violence with violence, but I can understand why some protesters resort to it," he said. Police have banned a neo-Nazi party, the National Democratic Party, from holding a demonstration against the G8 summit on Thursday in Rostock. "We believed that it would be completely inappropriate to allow this demonstration to take place in Rostock," police spokesman Axel Falkenberg said. Violence had flared in Rostock on Saturday. Hundreds of police were injured in clashes with masked and hooded protesters ahead of the three days of talks focusing on climate change and development aid to Africa. Two Spanish protesters and a German were sentenced on Wednesday to up to 10 months in prison for their part in Saturday's violence. Along the coast from Heiligendamm, more than 4,500 journalists covering the summit are based in the seaside resort of Kuehlungsborn, where locals found the stringent security measures hard to cope with. "It is really very stressful," said a retired man who was trying to lead his dog through a queue of parked police vans. "It's normally so nice and peaceful here," said the man, who declined to give his name. Miriam Becker, a 17-year-old high school student, cast a bemused eye over the comings and goings in her home town. "It is fun to see that the world has come to our part of the world. But I have read that the leaders will not reach agreement on anything and so I wonder whether all the money that our region is spending on security is worth it," she said. "And our region is not the richest in Germany." Heiligendamm is in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, which has one of the highest unemployment rates in Germany. Posted by: Fred 2007-06-07 |
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