HONG KONG - Pro-democracy protesters occupying a swath of downtown Hong Kong confronted their opponents at the barricades on Monday, when hundreds of people tried to tear down barriers that have choked off traffic through the usually frenetic area. The police, who earlier in the day had also hauled off some of the protesters' barriers, struggled to keep the two sides apart, and tensions persisted.
The flare-up in Admiralty, near where the protests first spilled onto Hong Kong's streets over two weeks ago, laid bare the volatile political divisions in the city, pitting the mostly young demonstrators against residents who say they are fed up with disruptions brought by the protests or who are loyal to Beijing, which opposes the demands for full democratic elections for Hong Kong's leader.
Opponents of the pro-democracy sit-in converged on barricades at two ends of Queensway, a traffic artery through Admiralty that the protesters have sealed off, and began pulling apart barriers, mostly portable steel railings tied together, which the protesters had assembled to put pressure on the government and to protect their camp. Earlier, opponents of the 'Occupy' protests had gathered in a nearby park, and some opponents had chanted in Cantonese, 'Open the road, open the road,' while groups of men dismantled some of the makeshift roadblocks.
'They are not looking after the interests of the Hong Kong people,' said Yang Xiuyin, a 60-year-old woman from the northern side of Hong Kong who said she had come to try to help open the roads. When two men nearby loudly accused the United States government of instigating the protests, Ms. Yang said she agreed: 'America is fomenting 'color revolutions' around and are infringing on the sovereignty of many nations.'
The confrontation sent a shiver of fear through the main protest camp on nearby Harcourt Road, which runs parallel to Queensway. A speaker on stage in the camp urged parents to keep children safe.
'Two malicious forces on Queensway are stirring trouble, dismantling our barriers, destroying our tents, even medical stations,' said the speaker. 'Please take care of the minors.'
Outside of Pacific Place, a high-end mall on Queensway, the opponents of the protesters' blockade used a crane mounted on a large truck to pull apart a barrier until the police arrived and tried to ease tensions. A group of people wearing blue ribbons - the insignia of those opposed to the pro-democracy sit-in - also destroyed a supply station for the protesters.
The police formed a cordon to keep apart the pro-democracy protesters and their opponents, who began dispersing. By midafternoon, the confrontations on the street appeared to ease and hundreds of police officers guarded the remaining barriers and kept an eye on the crowd, which included many workers in nearby offices.
Nathan Law, a member of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, the university student group that has led the protests, said in an interview that the democracy demonstrators would not retreat from their encampments, despite the conflict.
'We need more people to watch our barriers,' he said. 'We need reinforcement here so at least we can form human chains to protect our barriers from these anti-Occupy protesters.'
Hours before the confrontation, police officers had taken the protest camp by surprise and began removing some barricades on major avenues in Admiralty, in a predawn operation that opened at least one important downtown artery but left the protest camp untouched. The police said that they were not trying to clear away the demonstrators but to merely 'reduce the chance of traffic accidents.'
China has promised that, by 2017, Hong Kong voters will have the opportunity to vote for the city's leader, or chief executive. But the government has rejected a call for open nominations, instead demanding that candidates be approved by at least half the members of a committee dominated by people loyal to Beijing. The current chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, said on Sunday that the protesters have 'almost nil' chance of forcing Beijing to abandon its election rules, and he accused the student-led movement of being 'out of control.'
Supporters of the pro-democracy occupation said that the men attempting to break the traffic blockade appeared to include members of 'triads,' the local organized crime gangs, as well as truck and taxi drivers. But a good number of those supporting the attempted road clearance were ordinary residents.
Lucy Tse, 52, said that she had been trapped in her home in east Hong Kong island since the street protests broke out two weeks ago, and she lamented that she had to take the train, instead of getting around in her Mercedes-Benz E-Class.
'This is a public space for all Hong Kong people, not just for the students, not just for the government,' she said. 'These Hong Kong students are spoilt.'
Posted by Unknown on Monday, October 13, 2014 - Rating: 4.5
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