APEC News update 2: Water cannon and bamboo spears
A very quick update on what’s been happening in Pusan today (now yesterday in Korean time). It seems that the police set out to prevent the anti-APEC demo happening from the outset, preventing protestors (particularly farmers) from getting on buses in various locations around the country and even stealing the keys to some of the buses. As a result of this and perhaps also the violence that happened earlier in the week in Seoul, the turnout for the demo was lower than had been anticipated by the organisers, reaching only 20,000 apparently.
As the day wore on it seems that protestors converged towards the bridge connecting the city to the area where the summit was being held. Here they were met by thousands of riot police (a total of 30,000 were deployed in all apparently) with a barricade of buses and shipping containers. As might be expected, some some pitched battles broke out between the bamboo-spear wielding farmers and the riot police, who began to respond with water cannon. In the tradition of Korean demonstrations things got quite extreme with riot police apparently wielding 3-metre-long metal pipes at demonstrators and angry protestors responding by using ropes to pull the shipping containers from the barricades and into the sea. The fighting went on after dark, but it seems that the police were eventually able to disperse the protestors without too much trouble.
Some news sources (all in Korean unfortunately):
Newscham
Oh My News
Voice of People
And the BBC’s take on things, for what it’s worth.
