UK: Police clash with N-30 protesters
01 November 1999
In London the declaration of an international day of action on 30 November by civil rights and anti-capitalist campaigners in response to the start of World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks in Seattle, led to demonstrations in several locations throughout the morning and afternoon, including Trafalgar Square and Bow Street Magistrates' Court. In many instances, police greatly outnumbered demonstrators.
A joint operation, "Operation Benbow", involving three forces, the Metropolitan Police, the City of London Police and the British Transport Police was coordinated by a team of 50 officers. This operation involved a large police presence, including riot officers at Euston station before there was any hint of trouble. This played a part in starting clashes between police and demonstrators leading to forty arrests with seven people needing treatment in hospital.
Reclaim the Streets, organisers of last June's J-18 carnival in the City, which ended in widespread confrontations between the police and demonstrators, organised a demonstration outside Euston station which was attended by around 2,500 people. Speakers at the demonstration included an RMT rail trade unionist, a nurse from University College Hospital who spoke against job losses resulting from privatisation, the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, who pinpointed Labour links to arms producing businesses, an anti-GM crops activist, the "Free Mumia Abu-Jamal" campaign and the Movimento Zapatista. The speeches called for "fair trade rather than free trade".
The demonstration was noisy but non-confrontational, despite a heavy police presence, with police photographers taking close-up pictures of protesters to identify individuals taking part. At 18:55 the clashes began as demonstrators were leaving the rally via the Eversholt Street exit from the bus terminal at the front of the station, where they were met by policemen. Brief clashes, during which a barrier was thrown at a police cordon, were followed by 20 minutes of police charges with shields and batons, clearing an area largely filled by passive bystanders. Police closed in from all sides, as protesters overturned and set alight a British Transport police van which, inexplicably, had been left unattended in the bus terminal. Eventually 100 people were surrounded by policemen and photographed, as a brief sit-in protest by demonstrators demanding the release of those encircled partly blocked traffic along the Euston Road.
Independent 1.12.99., Guardian 1.12.99.