'Thuggery' of protests against EU-US talks condemned
European integration
Ian Black and Michael White in Gothenburg Saturday June 16, 2001 The Guardian
Hundreds of demonstrators denouncing global capitalism ran riot in the streets of Gothenburg yesterday, smashing windows and hurling stones in clashes with Swedish police guarding the EU summit. The Swedish justice ministry said there would be an inquiry into the rioting.
With President George Bush safely out of the way in Poland, they were able to get within shouting distance of the heavily guarded conference centre where EU leaders were beginning two days of talks.
A key issue is the union's enlargement and the Irish referendum rejecting the Nice treaty, which was meant to set the stage for new members.
Up to 25,000 protesters were involved. Few will have been pleased by President Bush's warning against protectionist forces when he met EU leaders here on Thursday.
Gothenburg Action 2001, a coalition of green, anarchist and leftwing groups whose members staged peaceful protests, called the clashes "a disaster".
Tony Blair said it was an outrage that peaceful demonstrations had turned into "thuggery".
Opposing free trade, he said, was misguided.
"The fact is that world trade is good for people's jobs and living standards. And actually, what the poorest countries in the world need is more world trade and access to the richest countries' markets, not a destruction of world trade."
The Swedish foreign minister, Anna Lindh, said the violence was "tragic and serious", adding: "It is very unfortunate when serious demonstrators cannot stage their protest because of a small group of violent people".
This was the latest in a serfies of confrontations at international conferences involved in one way or another with free trade.
In Seattle, Prague and at last year's EU summit in Nice, large numbers of mostly young protesters vented their rage at the wealthy countries which dominate the world economy, often to the detriment of the poor.
In the centre of the placid coastal city of Gothenburg, hundreds of youths, some masked or helmeted, some brandishing red and yellow banners attacking global capitalism, threw cobblestones ate the police, whose response was directed from helicopters hovering overhead.
Mounted officers in riot gear were dragged off their horses while demonstrators were chased by furiously barking alsatian dogs across streets strewn with glass and back to the leafy canalside park where they been pinned down when Mr Bush was in town.
Bang & Olufsen and a McDonald's were badly damaged in the rampage.
Cafe furniture was tossed on to bonfires. The two companies may have been picked on because they were handy, and because and can be regarded as symbols of unsustainable consumerism. In the 1999 riots at the Seattle World Trade Organisation talks a Starbucks coffee shop was wrecked for this reason.
In gentler Gothenburg - second city of a country which has not been at war since 1815 - there were complaints of police heavyhandedness from the organisers of protests that were supposed to be peaceful.
With the word slavery emblazoned across the brim of his peaked cap, John Shepherd, 19, from London, said he had come to Gothenburg to oppose US policies on global warming, the death penalty and missile defences.
"It's grotesque to compare the petty amount of violence here to the unbelievable mass murder of global capitalism," he said, describing himself as a Socialist Workers party activist and Leninist.
Ida Wistbacaka, 20, a local resident, said she did not belong to any political organisation, but she added: "It's not strange that people get this angry. They are very frustrated."
Tempers flared on Thursday when the police blockaded a school where they suspected that activists were planning violence, and arrested 250.
Three police officers and 12 others were injured in what the local papers called "the Battle of Gothenburg".
Among the things the protesters said they opposed were the euro, immigration policies for a "Fortress Europe", and international financial and trade institutions, including the World Trade Organisation, whose objective is free trade.