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Updated:2006- 11-18 15:51:40
Protestors Clash With Police at G-20 Summit
By MERAIAH FOLEY
AP
MELBOURNE, Australia (Nov 18) -- Police on horseback and wielding batons clashed with rock- and bottle-throwing demonstrators outside a meeting of some the world's top financial officials on Saturday, turning what had been promised as a peaceful rally against poverty into running street skirmishes.

One officer was taken to hospital with a wrist broken by a toppled steel barricade and several other police received scratches and bruises but stayed on duty, police said.

Two demonstrators were arrested, and more arrests were expected, Victoria state Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon said.

"They threw missiles and rocks, ... bins - anything they could get their hands on they threw it at police and damaged property," she told reporters. "We have not had anything like this, any kind of violent demonstration in the last six years."

Police on horseback and other uniform and riot officers brandishing shields and batons kept protesters out of the plush hotel where U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and top officials from Europe, Asia and Latin America opened two days of talks on global economic issues.

Protesters ripped apart traffic barricades and sprayed slogans on at least one building, Associated Press reporters and photographers at the scene said.

At one place, about 200 demonstrators rained stones, glass bottles and plastic garbage bins down on about one dozen police standing near a police car and truck parked outside the security perimeter, an AP photographer said.

The police ducked behind the vehicles to avoid the barrage, until a contingent of mounted police charged from behind the security fence and drove the demonstrators off.

About 200 charging demonstrators threw brown smoke grenades at a line of mounted police at a barricade but were beaten back by officers wielding batons. It was unclear whether anyone was injured.

About 3,000 people rallied at a city park around midday Saturday, then marched on the meeting of the Group of 20 finance minister and central bankers. But most of the violence appeared to center around a group of about 200 demonstrators dressed in white coveralls with red bandanas tied around their faces.

The group ran from one location to another near the venue, challenging police before retreating.

The unrest recalled the widespread violence at anti-globalization protests that marred the World Trade Organization' s meeting in Seattle in 1999, and a meeting of the World Economic Forum in Melbourne the following year.

"There is a hardcore militant and violent element among these protesters," Australian Treasurer Peter Costello, the G-20 meeting's chairman, told a news conference after the day's deliberations.

"These are people who want to trash the streets of Melbourne and trash the reputation of Australia ," he said. "We won't stand for that."

Nixon blamed the violence on fewer than 100 protesters dressed in white whom police knew were coming with the intention of creating violence. She would not name the group they represented, saying she did not want to give them publicity.

Inside the hotel, the G-20 finance ministers and central bankers went about their business, discussing the global energy situation, the need to work to revive stalled world trade talks, rising global interest rates and other factors affecting the world's economy, Costello told reporters.

Finance mandarins from 19 countries and the European Union, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund attended the talks. Formed in 1999, the G-20 includes the Group of Seven advanced industrial countries, the EU as well as China, Brazil, India, Russia, South Korea, Argentina, Australia, Indonesia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Turkey.

Reform of the IMF, rising interest rates, the Chinese and Japanese currency levels and efforts to economically isolate nuclear-armed North Korea are also expected to be discussed, along with China and India's surging demand for oil and minerals, which are fanning concerns about unstable supplies and market distortions

Together, the G-20 represents about 90 percent of the world's gross national product, 80 percent of the worlds' trade and two-thirds of its population.

Activists criticized the G-20 on a wide front, including the Iraq war, the environment and Western capitalist systems.

One speaker, Margarita Windisch, called for the arrest of Paul Wolfowitz, the former U.S. deputy defense secretary who is attending the Melbourne talks as World Bank chief, for his role in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq .

"He has got no right to walk the streets any more," Windisch told the crowd, waving a pair of handcuffs. "We will ask the police to lock up this war criminal."

A group representing major international mining companies, the Energy and Minerals Business Council, is due to address G-20 delegates Saturday - the first time a business group has had direct access to the forum.


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11/18/06 03:07 EST