-Caveat Lector-
________________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
http://www.ainfos.ca/
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Protesters besiege IMF meet, dozens hurt in clashes
By Radek Narovec
PRAGUE, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Black-clad demonstrators hurled cobblestones
torn
from Prague's historic streets and torched police with Molotov cocktails
on
Tuesday as they made good on vows to besiege the annual meetings of the
World
Bank and IMF.
A steady stream of delegates, including ministers, headed for the metro
station at the end of the conference where special trains had been brought
in
to take delegates away, under heavy police protection. The station had
been
shut during the day.
Protesters, many armoured with padding and wielding sticks, closed in to
within metres of the congress centre, pelting police and stray delegates
with
a hail of bottles, rocks and Molotov cocktails.
The scene was reminiscent of the so-called 'Battle in Seattle', where
violent
demonstrators halted a meeting by the World Trade Organisation, the first
in
a spate of disruption at meetings of international financial
organisations.
Police tried to force the rioters back with water cannon, tear gas, dogs,
thunderflashes and even threw cobblestones as they were at times
overwhelmed
by hundreds of masked youths shouting anti-globalist slogans.
Early on, several police were set alight when a Molotov cocktail exploded
among them. Their colleagues extinguished the flames using a water cannon.
The worst threat to those at the conference occurred when protesters
stormed
a hotel just across the road from the congress centre. They pelted
financiers
and journalists with stones until police pushed them back with dogs and
truncheons.
Officials said one Russian and one Japanese delegate were hurt.
UNDER SIEGE
Security officials said the activists, who had pledged not to use violence
and to blockade the delegates inside the building until they abolished the
World Bank and the IMF, had managed to put the congress centre under
siege.
``The centre has been cut off. All roads (accessible by cars) are blocked
by
protesters,'' said the congress centre's traffic and security officer
Lubomir
Brychta, adding that he hoped police would open a corridor out later.
A delegate inside the conference centre said those inside were not allowed
to
leave the building at all.
Host Czech President Vaclav Havel, who led the bloodless revolution that
toppled Communist rule in 1989, condemned the clashes and called on
protesters to end the violence, his spokesman said in a statement.
Officials said at least 65 people had been injured, mostly police. Many
were
hurt by projectiles, and emergency services also treated burns from the
petrol bombs. A British journalist was also hurt.
There were no reliable estimates of the number of demonstrators arrested,
but
Reuters correspondents in the city saw dozens detained.
PROTEST ORGANISERS DISAPPOINTED
Police called reserves from all over the country to add to the 11,000
officers already guarding the city, and the umbrella protest group INPEG,
which organised marches that began Tuesday morning, said it disagreed with
the violence.
``We're really disappointed... We were really hoping for a non-violent
protest on the basic issues of the IMF and the World Bank... but instead
now
the focus has shifted to the streets of Prague,'' said INPEG organiser
Chelsea Mosen.
At the back of the congress centre, a water cannon drove through ranks of
activists who wielded sticks, rocks, and bottles. Police helicopters
clattered overhead.
One protester smashed the back window of a limousine with a stone as the
car
raced inside the venue's perimeter, and elsewhere others rained down rocks
on
waiting ambulances, which eventually fled the crowd.
Other groups roamed the streets randomly smashing windows of stores and
hotels and torched at least one car.
But many more marchers, most of them foreign, kept their cool, waving
banners
that demanded the cancellation of debt to poor countries and the shutdown
of
the IMF. Some shouted ``No Violence, No Violence.''
Police said there were up to 9,000 activists, less than half the 20,000
organisers had hoped to attract to Prague.
The rest of Prague was unusually quiet with schoolchildren enjoying an
extra
holiday officials proclaimed recently in anticipation of trouble hitting
the
streets of this picturesque city.
But to one local the disturbances represented a business opportunity. He
set
up a makeshift stall next to the closed Vysehrad metro station and was
selling cold beer and snacks to police and delegates -- at a 100 percent
mark-up.
***************************
For more info, including updates on the many, many solidarity demos around
the world, see:
http://praha.indymedia.org/
***************************
Food for thought:
While the left, the right and various churches talk a good anti-NWO game,
it is the anarchists who actually go out and fight this monster in the
streets.
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