Kong Yee Sai Mau: The Battle of Hong Kong
By Pranjal Tiwari and David Solnit
Sat Dec 17, Hong Kong—It’s 1:30 am
in Hong Kong. We have just returned to the house after being in the
Hong Kong streets all afternoon and evening in the most intense street
battle that we have ever seen. We are taking turns showering the teargas
and pepper spray off as we write this up. Farmers, workers, women’s
organizations, fisher folk, Hong Kong youth, migrants and other movement
people from Korea, across Asia and around the world marched on, broke
through several police lines to less than a block from the site of the
WTO conference center and laid siege to it until we were dispersed with
teargas and mass arrests tonight. We have heard reports that as many
as 900 have been arrested or detained and we just got a cell call from
an activist still surrounded in the streets who was had been warned
that the police will start to use rubber bullets. Riot police have not
been seen en masse on the streets of Hong Kong for some 20 years, and
this city will never be the same after tonight.
Much of the commercial heart of Hong
Kong Island was shut down tonight, and WTO delegates were locked in
as the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center was under siege. Reports
from inside signalled that they were desperate, frightened, and had
even looted snack bars after the employees fled.
Korean farmers and unionists have led
been the leading edge of the protest all week, both in numbers, creativity
and militancy. They have been joined by farmers from across Southeast
Asia, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and people from movements around
the world. As the direction of the WTO negotiations of the future of
the planet remained dangerously unclear, every sector of the global
movements had called for the derailing of the WTO in Hong Kong- with
the exception of a handful of co-opted groups like Oxfam who called
for a better deal. Contrary to what media reports might say, the confrontations
have been anything but chaotic. Korean groups led veritable battles
against the police with their well-organized, incredibly courageous
and militant resistance, and the scene on the streets felt more like
medieval warfare than a riot. The police were out-organized, inexperienced,
and unable to contain the huge numbers of people that broke through
their lines on numerous fronts in the Wan Chai district. Police scrambled
and remained on the defensive all afternoon and until mid evening. As
hundreds of people assembled and fought with police within a city block
of the Convention Center, they finally dispersed us with tear gas.
MARCH
All this week, Victoria Park has been
a massive, central convergence space, the staging ground for daily rallies,
demonstrations and marches, celebrations and cultural performances,
teach-ins, forums, networking and strategy sessions. Today’s march
began with a couple hours of rallying on the stage there; farmers from
the Via Campesina network, migrant workers and others speaking about
their desperate struggles to survive, interspersed with songs, music,
and theatre. Walden Bello, a long-time radical analyst, organizer and
writer with Focus on the Global South had told the rally that what happened
in the streets today would determine what happened inside the WTO. Very
slowly, people formed into contingents. The various Korean farmers’
groups comprised the largest block of people, each with a giant flag
at the head of their groups and other farmer groups marched together
with the green Via Campesina bandanas and flags. We have been working
to support the organizing of Indonesian migrant workers in Hong Kong
all week, and were working on art for the demonstration the next day
as the Thai farmers—part of a radical network called Assembly of the
Poor-- formed up next to us.
We joined the march with a few friends
from Hong Kong, Canada and the US, and we marched with a contingent
of 150-200 people, most of them Indonesian women domestic workers in
Hong Kong. They carried numerous purple flags and a giant batik banner-mural
on bamboo poles, a large Indonesian flag with slogans painted across
it, and another giant banner that read ‘Sink the WTO’. As we slowly
filed out of the park into downtown Hong Kong behind the green flags
of Via Campesina groups, we heard from people around us that some other,
local groups had already marched to the designated protest zone—a
controlled cul-de-sac along the waterfront within a two or three block
view of the Convention Center-- and were confronting a massive police
barricade tower, from which police were using pepper spray and water
cannons to disperse the crowd. The designated area had already been
sealed off by the time the large march hit the streets, so it was unclear
where we would go.
We marched along a route through downtown
that had become familiar over the week. Hong Kong residents, increasingly
supportive of anti-WTO demonstrations throughout this week, lined the
streets, some cheering, giving thumbs-ups, and even handing out snacks
and water to demonstrators. After about half an hour, as we approached
an intersection between Causeway Bay and Wan Chai districts, the march
slowed and eventually came to a standstill. The migrant workers had
a mobile sound system and alternately led chants and songs in Bahasa
Indonesia, English, and Cantonese, making short speeches to the people
of Hong Kong, and keeping the energy of the group spirited. We remained
at the intersection rallying on one half of the two lane street, the
second half of which was closed, and it was unclear what would happen.
Suddenly, and seemingly from out of nowhere,
hundreds of demonstrators from the Korean Peasants League (KPL) came
running down the other lane of the intersection, back from the opposite
direction the march had been heading. Soon, another large group from
the KPL came from behind us and overtook us, sprinting down the second
lane in the direction we were walking, to loud cheers and chants from
other groups in the crowd. Even in running through the streets they
remained incredibly organized and calm.
Police vans moved in to seal the route
of the demonstration. Police had also sealed off two of the remaining
streets in the intersection, and moved in behind the march as well,
such that we could not go anywhere. Then, one contingent of perhaps
75 Koreans confronted a police line and fought their way through it,
leading a breakaway march onto the main thoroughfare of Hennessy Road—within
five minutes the police had already been defeated.
As the police regrouped their lines and
faced the streets bracing for another battle with the KPL contingent,
a group of about two hundred Korean, local, and international activists
came running and cheering from behind them, down the bridge leading
to the designated protest zone. A whole generation of Hong Kong police
has never had to deal with any militant or disobedient street protests,
were unprepared, and by US standards not very aggressive—though of
course, they had been pepper spraying people all week. Caught off guard
and flanked by a large group sprinting towards them, the police were
ordered to disperse by their commanders, giving up the intersection
to the demonstrators.
Compared to the police, the Koreans were
tight units of seasoned activists, who had been involved in the
fiercest and most militant workers, student and farmers struggles in
the world over many decades. They were both intensely organized, like
an army without the rigidity, and very politically focused—chanting
and singing their message and wearing clear messages on their matching
“WTO Kills Farmers” vests, hats, headbands, and many with red signs
attached the their front and back.
WHY WE ARE HERE
In a speech made at Victoria Park earlier
in the week, a representative from the KPL told of how most of his contingent
was made up of small farmers, some of whom had spent their life savings
to get on a plane to Hong Kong and defend their lives and livelihood.
In an attempt to bring to Hong Kong residents an idea of their situation
and the issues that they face, a free broadsheet newspaper was printed
in English and Chinese, and handed out to passers-by in many districts
of Hong Kong during the week. The document did not mince any words:
WTO kills not only peasants but all
people. Smashing the WTO into rubble is the only path to safeguarding
our future and our lives.
Korean peasants have been pushed to the brink. Peasants have been driven to the deathbed: in just the month of November, 4 peasants took their own lives or departed this world at the hands of violent police repression. This is the bitter fruit of neoliberal globalization under the WTO. After the 1994 Uruguay Round, the reality of the Korean agricultural community has been to bleak to express in words. The ranks of peasants shrunk form 10 million to 3.5 million and farm debt exceeds 27 million won (about US$ 27,00) per farming household. Since 2004, under the pressure of the transnational grain corporations and the USA government, Korea has had to participate negotiations over the opening of the domestic rice market despite the enormous damage this would cause to the agricultural sector. The resulting sentiment of crisis around the opening of the domestic rice market to imports and the failure of the government rice policy led to plummeting rice prices for rural communities harvesting this year’s crop and set off a rice crisis.
The WTO is behind these events to
pave the way for food “occupation” by transnational grain corporations
and dispossession of food sovereignty to treat food, as staple which
the people of the world need to survive, as an object of business dealings.
The
struggle of the world’s peoples in Cancun in 2003 felled the WTO and
sent it to the emergency room; the Korean farmers are here to fight
the anti-WTO struggle to choke off it’s last breath. We will keeping
our hearts the words of LEE, Kyung-Hae as he ended his own life in protest”
WTO Kills Peasants.”
Citizens of Hong Kong! Food is not
a commodity. Agriculture is not a business opportunity. . If agriculture
is liberalized, we will be pushed down the slippery slope of liberalizing
education, medicine, services and everything people need to enjoy as
basic rights will be taken away and provided only to the wealthy. We
must all stand to protect agriculture as the first gateway. There is
no country in the world that has completely entrusted its staple foods
to the hands of overseas companies and survived. Defending agriculture
is the way to defend our collective future.
A group of about 100 farmers and others
from movements in Thailand had also made the trip to Hong Kong from
Thailand. Most of them were also with a Thai network called Assembly
of the Poor. A similar appeal was made to Hong Kong people to understand
the situation of the farmers and to put themselves in their shoes:
ASSEMBLY OF THE POOR STATEMENT
To Hong Kong People,
We are Assembly of the poor an alliance
from Thailand representing 19
networks of struggling poor and urban
people, farmers, fisherfolk,
people living with HIV/AIDS, workers,
and landless peasants. We are affected by the trade liberalization and
are made losers in the unfair game of that those people in the convention
center are trying to make even worse. We are here in Hong Kong to make
our voice heard and call for a fair
world.
In the WTO conference, Thailand’s negotiators have been calling for a more liberalized market worldwide for agricultural products. We disagree. The delegation do not represent the best interests of small farmers. We knowthat this negotiation will not bring us benefits; only the rich would get richer from exports, while the poor poorer.
Our voice has never been heard. Our
plight has never been heeded. That is why we are here, with support
form the public who are concerned and aware of the consequences of the
WTO negotiation. It is not easy for us to have been here in Hong Kong; in a different
climate, with a different language, leaving our families behind. We
have no choice. If we let the WTO have it’s way, our domestic market
would be flooded by agricultural products from other countries. Thai
farmers would be forced to produce more, but only for the benefit of
exporting corporations.
Thailand’s Minister of Commerce
and Thai delegate have not legitimacy to negotiate on behalf of Thai
farmers. They do not represent us. They do not listen to us.
Governments propagandize the advantages
of trade liberalization, despite the fact that the liberalized
trade and agreements under the WTO would only worsen the sufferings
of the poor all over the world, and push them to flee, migrating to be laborers
in other countries, including Hong Kong, or into prostitution. A better
world is possible. Hong Kong people can live happy lives, while farmers all
over the world still maintain their livelihoods, by supporting our cause
for a fair trade and the just and peaceful world.
We hope Hong Kong People who have
greeted us with warmth and hospitality during the past week,
understand our grievances and support our struggle. Despite obstacles, we vow
to move forward. We, Assembly of the Poor, will work together with La
Via Campesina, to stop this unfair negotiation until the very end.
Solidarity
Assembly of the Poor, Thailand
CONFRONTATION & TEARGAS
At this point we got separated into two
groups. Two of us stayed with the migrant workers’ march, while others
ended up with a group of about fifty Koreans from the Korean Confederation
of Trade Unions (KCTU), facing a line of riot police at the intersection
of Lockhart Road and Tonnochy Road. After initial clashes during which
several Korean activists were doused in pepper spray and beaten with
batons, one being hit quite severely on the head, the demonstrators
decided to regroup. In an amazing display of coordination, organization,
and solidarity, an announcement was made that the group was going to
take a rest and gather its strength. Twenty Korean activists and their
supporters formed a cordon around the area of confrontation, keeping
press and onlookers behind the human wall, and only letting in those
who were prepared to join the confrontation. Individuals were angrily
ordered not to throw things at the police, as if the group had no time
for such small, futile acts of frustration. Inside the cordon, as KCTU
members and a few international supporters sat in rows, bags of cookies
and small cakes were handed out, along with boxes full of water bottles.
Six or seven of the older KCTU members sat at the front, leaning with
their backs against the police riot shields and sharing cigarettes as
they discussed tactics. It felt like the calm before the next storm,
and while there was still tension in the air, people seemed genuinely
relaxed. Yet the forcefulness with which KCTU members urged us to eat
cakes, drink water, and rest, suggested that we were gearing up for
something big.
After about forty-five minutes, we were
told to stand, and people were talking all around us in Korean. Not
understanding what was about to happen and potentially heading for a
major clash, I asked an activist around me for a translation. It turned
out that another unit led by Korean groups had broken through police
lines at another intersection, that other units were breaking police
lines throughout the district, and that the police had essentially retreated
to within a block of the Convention Center where a large mass of people
were now gathering. Though there were still police at the intersection
and dispersed along the streets, they made no attempt to stop us as
we marched towards the Convention Center, ecstatic, cheering, chanting,
and picking up many, many local supporters along the way. When we arrived
at the top of the bridge with the spectre of the Convention Center looming
so closely in front of us, we were at least one hundred and fifty people.
There was already a crowd of at least two thousand at the scene.
The events at the Convention Center were
much the same as the actions throughout the week. Periods of calm during
which tactics were discussed and units divided up, followed by action.
As we reached the intersection, however, the air of urgency and imminence
was far more prominent than at any other time this week. Ahead of us
we saw a line of riot police three people thick, to the side was another
line of police guarding the road leading to the massive Central Plaza
building, which is connected to the Convention Center by overhead walkways.
Beyond them all, in front of the Center were police vans and pockets
of riot police scrambling to regroup. Though a fairly formidable force,
this was all that stood between us and the Convention Center. As people
played drums, wrapped saran wrap around their eyes, put bandanas up
to their mouths and noses, cheered, or just watched from the side, there
was a palpable sense that we could actually do this, we could get to
the gates of the Convention Center and shut this meeting down.
The police were preparing for the Korean
groups to attack them head on. They had a huge spotlight behind their
lines and were moving it around, trying to disorient the crowd. When
the action came, however, it was not head on, but from the side, as
a large group of demonstrators tried to break through the police line
guarding Central Plaza. Demonstrators took apart wooden Christmas decorations
to use against police and use bamboo poles to break the lines, and snatched
row after row of metal barricades that stood in front of the police.
The police were frightened, shouting ineffectually for demonstrators
to stop, showering people with pepper spray, and beating them back with
their batons. On the far side, the police line broke and officers retreated
as demonstrators moved forward. A group of demonstrators ran with the
final metal barricade, using it to charge the police line, which was
now, for all intents and purposes, completely dissolved. At this point
the police fired the first canister of tear gas.
To use gas in this small plaza, essentially
a confined space except for above, was an incredibly stupid thing to
do. The gas spread and lingered in the air for a long time, concentrated
in the narrow streets walled by buildings and bridges. One woman collapsed
and went unconscious, and demonstrators ran, vomiting, holding their
chests, gasping for breath into the highway one block away. Amazingly,
groups of Korean women continued to play their drums as people ran for
open air, and isolated pockets of demonstrators could still be seen
confronting police inside the thick gas clouds.
The use of tear gas in such a confined
space was an admission of defeat by the Hong Kong police. They had been
completely outplayed tactically, were about to give up the intersection
leading directly to the Convention Center, and were desperate.
We were forced by the gas onto a four
lane highway just down the road. The police had sealed off the exits
on three sides, leaving one road open, which led to a block where police
were stationed in fewer numbers. Demonstrators largely stayed in the
middle of the highway, recovering from the effects of the tear gas,
playing drums, dancing, with some attempting to uproot separation barriers
that were bolted into concrete. The police lifted up large orange banners
warning people that they were participating in an illegal gathering,
and played pre-recorded announcements advising us to disperse immediately.
Unfortunately, as several people found out, we were not being allowed
to leave.
MIGRANTS DISPERSE
It was at this point that we came together
as a group again, and decided to find the Indonesian migrant workers’
contingent. Due to their immigration and employment status, the migrant
workers were in an extremely vulnerable situation, and had taken a significant
risk in coming out at all that day. Arrest was out of the question,
as this would almost certainly mean deportation, and loss of livelihood
for them and their families back home. Several of them told us that
they were frightened, and wanted to disperse. We decided to break into
small groups and attempt to go through the police lines in different
locations, particularly the lines further away from the highway where
the police seemed less discerning about who was passing through their
ranks.
We managed to shuttle most of the migrant
workers out of the sealed area in this way, but some ran into trouble.
Some were asked upon reaching the police lines if they were Indonesians,
and when they replied, their bags were searched and identity cards checked.
Moreover, when WTO-related pamphlets were found in one of their bags,
the person was told they had to stay in the area and could not leave.
After moving around different police lines and some frantic negotiation,
however, everyone in our contingent was able to leave the area and regroup
once again in Victoria Park.
VICTORIA PARK
We skirted police lines to get back to Victoria Park as much of downtown was sealed off with police lines and police vans and motorcycles- lights flashing- were speeding all over. As we neared Victoria Park we joined march of a couple hundred people led by the Philipine group. We marched with it for a few blocks as it grew in size. Then the march stopped and we continued. Victoria Park was surrounded by police lines and we could not see anyone going in or out. We negotiated our way through: “We are artists and left our supplies in the park” and walked through a gauntlet of cops. The usually vibrant bustling-with-people massive concrete open space in the park was completely abandoned with only police gaurding under military style police occupation. We went back to the migrant workers tent where the well publicized music concert with about thirty audience members and the park officials were trying to shut it down and demanding to see the permit.
As hundreds of people were still surrounded by police and being arrested our friend text messaged to us:
“OK starting arresting. very slow process.
We sing and chant and sleep. All is the color solidarity. Peace.”
* Pranjal is a journalist, editor of In
the Water blog (http://inthewater.typepad.com/in_the_water/) and Hong Kong activist. David is a San Francisco
Bay Area activist and editor of Globalize Liberation.