More Violence In Melbourne
Baton-wielding police, some on horseback, charged through a human chain blocking access to an economic forum, leaving several protesters with bloodied faces, as renewed anti-globalization protests erupted Tuesday.
Organizers said about 50 demonstrators were injured in clashes during the charge, mostly with cuts and abrasions. Police said one officer was taken to the hospital with breathing difficulties.
The charge allowed several buses of delegates to enter the three-day Asia Pacific Economic Summit -- the latest target of an anti-globalization movement -- on its second day.
But protest organizers warned the police action was an escalation of the violence that could rebound in stronger protests shortly.
The police tactic appeared to be in response to the success of about 5,000 protesters on Monday in stopping about 200 of the conference's nearly 900 delegates from entering Melbourne's Crown Casino, the venue of the three-day summit organized by the privately-funded Switzerland-based World Economic Forum.
Conference organizers said virtually all of the delegates were able to attend the conference Tuesday.
Protest spokesman Stephen Jolly said police violence could spur protesters to retaliate, adding that the demonstration would be boosted Tuesday by the addition of several thousand labor union members.
"There's a hell of a lot of workers coming down here today and this is going to heighten emotions something terrible I can tell you," Jolly told reporters.
Two protesters were arrested Monday, and one Tuesday. They were released and were expected to be charged with assaulting police.
On Monday, dozens of protesters surrounded and clambered over the limousine of one delegate, Western Australian State Premier Richard Court, before slashing the tires and spray-painting the car with anti-capitalism slogans.
Five protesters and five police officers required hospital treatment. One organizer described the protests as "Seattle without the tear gas" a reference to violence that marred last year's World Trade Organization talks there.
Prime Minister John Howard condemned the protests.
"The right of lawful dissent on any subject is etched very deeply into the Australian way of life," Howard said Monday night. "We did not see lawful dissent today, we saw hooliganism which is unacceptable and un-Australian."
Many of the demonstrators said the civil unrest was the only way to register their distrust of the heads of global corporations.
"We have no vote on who these major world leaders are," said Michael Gann, a California native who lives in northern New South Wales state. "They are not accountable to people because they are not voted into office. The only way we can send a message is by being active like today."
One group inconvenienced by Monday's protest was the U.S. Olympic women's basketball team, which as late for a morning training session after being stranded in the casino hotel lobby because its bus could not penetrate the crowd of protesters.
The clashes between Seattle police and protesters at a World Trade Organization meeting in November 1999 sparked several smaller-scale repeats: at an International Monetary Fund-World Bank meeting in Washington in April and at the Republican National Convention in July and the Democratic convention in August.
Anti-globalization groups are targeting a September meeting of the IMF-World Bank in Prague as the next protest site.
The groups involved in the protests typically oppose corporate power and distrust trade agreements in the belief that they foster environmental destruction, worker exploitation and the loss of national sovereignty.
The conference is being hosted by the privately-funded, Switzerland-based World Economic Forum. Its most high-profile delegate, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, said the protesters were mistaken if they were opposing global trade on social grounds.
"World trade. If you block it, the big losers will be the poor people of the world," Gates said in response to a question.
Gates canceled two functions scheduled for later Tuesday for security reasons. The two presentations of a new Microsoft product were to be held in a building across the street from the Crown hotel, but police advised the billionaire it was not safe to cross the street.