Workers march for justice on May Day

Clashes mark May Day in Asia

Tokyo, May 2— Police fired water cannon to disperse raucous demonstrators in the Philippines and students clashed with the authorities in South Korea as labor tensions flared yesterday during May Day celebrations across Asia.

In Manila, several protesters and a fireman were injured after demonstrators threw rocks and tried to break through police lines in the direction of Malacanang Presidential Palace.

Police retaliated with water cannon against the hundreds of leftist demonstrators. Seven people were arrested.

Similar smaller rallies took place in other cities.

Violence also erupted in South Korea, where authorities tried to prevent some 2,500 students from joining a rally by workers in downtown Seoul.

Radical students hurled Molotov cocktails, rocks, or brandished steel pipes at riot police, protesting against the planned sale of the ailing Daewoo Motor Co. to a foreign buyer.

It was the most violent demonstration by students in the two years since former dissident Kim Dae Jung became president in 1998.

In Indonesia, thousands of workers took to the streets in Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan and Bandar Lampung to demand higher pay and reject the government’s plan to raise fuel prices.

In a separate incident, police opened fire on students in Medan, killing two and injuring more than 20 during an operation to free five colleagues taken hostage by the students, witnesses said.

The biggest demonstrations were in Japan, where more than 1.7 million workers attended more than 1,000 rallies to demand job security and better employment conditions according to the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo), the country’s largest union. In Malaysia, workers and rights groups focused on calls for a minimum wage and improvements in the "shocking" conditions of plantation workers.

Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, in a May Day message to the nation, rejected the minimum wage demand, saying it would erode international competitiveness.

Similarly, Thai Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai told over 1,000 protesting workers in Bangkok that his government would not yet raise the minimum wage, frozen since the onset of the financial crisis.

In Beijing, however, May Day was marked more peacefully where most Chinese had the day off and headed for parks or visited friends and relatives.

Labor Day celebrations were mostly muted in South Asia with low-key demonstrations in India and Pakistan.

In Sri Lanka, a nation whose president was assassinated on May Day seven years ago, tensions ran high as 7,000 heavily-armed police blocked traffic and watched over workers parading through Colombo.

Sources: Associated Press, Agence France Press, Reuters

McDonald’s wrecked in London

By James Amott

London, May 1— A McDonald’s Corp. restaurant in central London and a foreign exchange office were wrecked by anti- capitalist demonstrators after a peaceful protest in Parliament Square turned violent.

One policeman was seriously injured after a brick was thrown at his face, and another seven suffered minor injuries trying to arrest people outside the McDonald’s, a spokeswoman for London’s Metropolitan Police said. A ninth suffered a dislocated shoulder. Hooded demonstrators attacked camera crews and beat up a reporter at the restaurant. Police had reports of three civilians hurt.

The protests, timed to mark the May Day public holiday across Europe, form part of a global campaign against capitalism that targeted the World Trade Organization talks in Seattle last year and the International Monetary Fund meeting in Washington DC last month. The protesters say globalization is harming developing countries, causing ever-increasing pollution and more poverty.

The London McDonald’s restaurant — often a target for demonstrators seeking to attack a symbol of global capitalism — was destroyed. Staff at the restaurant and a nearby Money Exchange Ltd. bureau escaped through back doors and no employees were hurt, the police spokeswoman said.

The demonstrators moved on from the McDonald’s in the Strand, near Trafalgar Square, and attempted to storm Downing Street in Whitehall, the office of Prime Minister Tony Blair, police said.
The most seriously injured officer was struck by a flying brick in Whitehall, which links Trafalgar Square with Parliament Square.

"Police are now hoping the crowds will begin to disperse" and that the protest will "gradually fizzle out," the police spokeswoman said.

Riot police ringed Parliament Square and blocked the entrance to Downing Street. Demonstrators pelted six officers with missiles shortly after 2pm, and mounted officers were on standby in Northumberland Avenue, which links Trafalgar Square with the River Thames, the spokeswoman said.

Police pushed the demonstrators away from Whitehall, where most government buildings are based, back to Parliament Square, leading to rising tension in the crowd, Sky News reported.

Police said video footage showed that some of the demonstrators were the same people involved in last June’s protests which led to 2 million pounds ($3.2 million) of damage in London’s financial district. That protest, called the J-18 Day of Action to coincide with a G-8 meeting of the world’s leading industrial countries, led to the wrecking of offices owned by the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange. "There is a degree of organization to the violence," Sky News reported, citing comments by London police. Protestors called today’s demonstration "May Day 2K" to mark the festival, which emanates from a 14th century English uprising known as the Peasant’s Revolt. It’s now called Labor Day in many countries.

In the London protest, 22 people were arrested. Two men were taken into custody for possessing equipment that police believed might be used to cause damage, while a third was arrested because
he was "in possession of a pair of scissors," the spokeswoman said.

A 24-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of possessing CS gas —illegal in Britain— and cannabis, while an 18-year-old man was caught with a knife, police said. A sixth man was arrested for drunkenness and a seventh for criminal damage. Others were held for "disorder." They were taken to Charing Cross police station.

Earlier, demonstrators trying to draw attention to environmental issues engaged in "guerrilla gardening" by digging up turf in Parliament Square to plant vegetables. Police were unsure whether the protest constituted criminal damage and no arrests were made.

Reclaim the Streets, one of the organizations demonstrating, announced on the Internet "city-wide autonomous actions," a conference against capitalism and "a very big surprise for the Millennium Dome," Britain’s showcase building in Greenwich, southeast London, to commemorate the year 2000.

Police, who are keeping a strong presence across London, were not aware of any other planned demonstrations in the city, and they had "no idea" when the protests might end, the spokeswoman
said.

She said the violence had only been started by a minority of demonstrators determined to cause trouble, and the majority of the protests were peaceful.

Trouble was also reported in demonstrations in Russia, Poland, Germany and Italy, with arrests in all four countries, though protests in Europe did not match the scale of the gathering in London, home to the continent’s largest financial center and a number of US-owned corporations such as McDonald’s.

In Asia, violence was reported during May Day celebrations in South Korea and the Philippines. Police used water cannons to disperse demonstrators in Manila near the Malacanang Presidential Palace after protesters threw rocks at police and tried to break through police lines, the Associated Press said.

Seven members of a labor group were arrested, the AP reported, and several protesters and a firefighter were hurt. Labor groups complain that Philippine President Joseph Estrada has favored pro- employer policies despite campaign promises to help labor groups fight poverty.

In South Korea, as many as 300 students threw rocks and used sticks to fight riot police in downtown Seoul, the AP said.

Source: The Guardian

US financial centers hit by May Day protests

By Brad Schade

Chicago, May 1— Hundreds of May Day demonstrators took to the streets in US financial centers on Monday, protesting political and economic exploitation and demanding amnesty for illegal immigrants.

In New York, where 600 people massed at Union Square, police arrested 19 who called themselves anarchists. In Chicago, where the May Day protest movement was born 114 years ago in pursuit of the eight-hour work day, about 900 people ended a day of traffic-disrupting marches through the city center with a rally in Daley Plaza.

"It’s been peaceful, so we’re basically on hand to make sure no one gets hurt, that there’s no property damage," Chicago police spokesman Edward Alonzo said.

The US protests were part of a worldwide wave of May Day activities that saw marches and scattered violence.

The arrests in New York were made after police said the demonstrators had violated a state law against obscuring one’s face during a demonstration. Police at the scene also said the action was prompted by the fact that some of the demonstrators were dressed in garb similar to that worn by activists at tumultuous World Trade Organization demonstrations in Seattle.

They were charged variously with loitering and resisting arrest.

In flyers handed out on the scene, the anarchists said they were protesting against "corporate tyranny" and the WTO, International Monetary Fund, and World Bank.

In Chicago, more than 200 people carrying banners and chanting "People before profit" rallied first outside the Chicago Board of Trade, several miles from the site of the Haymarket Square massacre, a landmark in 19th-century May Day history.

The group’s signs referred to the exchange, the world’s oldest futures exchange, as the "Chicago Board of Traitors." Demonstrators then began a march through the downtown area that was to last much of the day.

In New York, many of the demonstrators were chanting "Amnesty now!" in Spanish to demand immigration amnesty for illegal aliens so they can receive benefits such as Social Security, passports and health care.

"There is a double standard in US immigration law. The government knows undocumented people are working and paying taxes, but when it comes time to get any benefits, such as collecting Social Security or tax returns, the government says, ‘No, you’re illegal’," said Edison Severino, business agent for Local 78 of the Laborers International Union of North America, which represents 2,400 hazardous-waste laborers in New York.

After the rally at Union Square Park, the New York demonstrators proceeded peacefully down Broadway to the offices of the Immigration and Naturalization Service at Federal Plaza.

After rallying there, the group converged on nearby City Hall, where speakers hammered home the day’s theme of rights for illegal aliens working in the United States.

There was a strong police presence along the route and in the Wall Street financial district, which protest organizers also said could be a target of the day’s demonstrations. Traffic slowed, and police in riot gear directed traffic.

The New York Stock Exchange said it was open for business as usual but would remain in close touch with police and take appropriate action if there was any change in the situation.

A spokesman for the Chicago Board of Trade said the exchange was "working closely with the Chicago Police Department for an orderly demonstration."

The exchange said that as a precaution, it was closing its visitors’ gallery, which overlooks the trading floors. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange also closed its gallery, while the New York Stock Exchange said its would remain open.

Protesters in Chicago said they were paying tribute to the first May Day march ever held, in Chicago in 1886. The event was followed by a police crackdown on a labor rally. An ensuing demonstration at Haymarket Square was hit by a bomb blast that killed eight policemen and wounded about 65 others.

Historians have said have said the four labor activists executed were prosecuted for their political ideas rather than for any proven connection to the bombing.

Source: Reuters