200 still to get in
by anne 11:01am Mon Sep 11 '00
At a brief press conference by Director of Comms and Public Affairs, Charles McLean, he said that approximately 200 of the 850 delegates were still to get in to the Casino to attend the WEF.
But he was confident they would eventually get inside. "It's business as usual", said McLean.
Lunch plans however have had to change. Instead of leaving the Casino to have lunch at the Hyatt, the delegates would instead enjoy the food the Crown Casino has to offer.
http://www.melbourne.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=443
Melbourne, South News 11Sept
Bus loads of security guards and delegates have been turned away by protesters at the Crown Casino complex as police and thousands of protesters lined up against each other in the build up to the World Economic Forum's Asia Pacific Summit.
The clashes occurred when protesters blocked vehicles from entering. Several protesters suffered minor injuries as mounted police forced the protesters back.
According to an eyewitness"Well, we were guarding the exit and then we looked behind us and there was a row of dozens and dozens of police walking toward us, so we turned around and linked arms," she said.
Many braved a fierce rainstorm earlier this morning to set up camp. Business and political leaders from around the Asian Pacific region, including Microsoft founder Bill Gates, were meeting in Melbourne for the next three days to discuss globalisation.
Lenny Colton, from the protesters' umbrella organisation S11, said they were fighting against the globalisation of trade.
« We'd like to stop them from meeting because they are an undemocratic organisation, » he said. « The only way to get through to them is to stop them everywhere they go and we are going to have a protest. »
Banners include: « Welcome to a non-violent demonstration », « poverty is profitable » and « fair trade, not free trade ».
Greens senator Bob Brown gave a rousing speech to the protesters. He said the eyes of the world were on Melbourne because of S11. « Keep your hearts strong and remember we're joining the worldwide movement to impoverish the rich and enrich the poor, » he told the protesters.
He also had a message for Bill Gates, Victorian Premier Steve Bracks and Prime Minister John Howard: « You're at the wrong microphone, come out and speak to the people. »
Barbara Sullivan from Public First said 500 people had gathered on Saturday to discuss strategy for the conference.
« People inside should be very afraid and it's more of a fortress for the people inside, » she said.
She said when the mounted police rode down the road, « it was like the cavalry, very frightening. It was quite a sight and a show of power. »
Overnight hundreds of protesters started converging as Melbourne braced itself for the biggest and angriest protests it has experienced in decades.
S11 supporters have been gathering across the street from the Crown Towers hotel with three days of blockades, music and street parties planned.
Police yesterday erected barricades around the forum venue, the Crown Casino complex, and have ordered stringent restrictions for access to airspace, footpaths, the adjacent Yarra River and its banks.
Friends of the Earth spokesman Cam Walker expected the demonstration to remain peaceful.
"That's certainly the hope and the intention of the vast majority of the people taking part in the day's actions," he told Melbourne Radio 3AW. "From the very beginning S11 alliance has stated categorically that it supports non-violent civil disobedience in terms of protesting the World Economic Forum meeting."
All police leave has been cancelled and senior police at the weekend compared the presence of officers at the scene to the heady anti-Vietnam War protests that clogged Melbourne's streets in the early 1970s.
Up to 50 union, student and community groups are among those convening under the banner of S11 - named for today's date. They have vowed to shut down the WEF, which they have derided as "a club of the world's richest 1000 corporations".
A 22-year-old student among a couple of hundred protesters at the demonstration said he expected the protests to be peaceful.
"Certainly we will continue to ensure that it is a peaceful protest down here," National Union of Students spokesman Matt Heinz told Melbourne Radio 3AW. "We had expected these barricades all along, so it really wasn't a surprise for us to come down here yesterday when the barricades first went up.
"It's just a matter of ensuring that we've got the numbers around the casino to get the message across," he said.
http://www.melbourne.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=448
Local news sources have been rather pathetic, here's a quick summary of the nromal trite we have to put up with in Melbourne, Australia
Local media coeverage of the s11 morning has been patchy at best. No mainstream sources have bothered to do live broadcasts from the casino site and live crosses to reporters are essentially useless.
Local AM talk-fest station 3AW has chosen to focus on the traffic interuptions caused by the protests which have blocked a key thoroughfare into and the the central business district of Melbourne. Kings Way runs through the casino complex and into the CBD of Melbourne and has been set up as the second southern thoroughfare besides St.Kilda road for the majority of Melbourne's population to get to their CBD jobs. Of course the peddling line has been that protesters are claiming to be pro-workers when blockading traffic forces workers to be late for their jobs.
Naturally 3AW has chosen to largely ignore any immediate debate on the issues this morning and instead focused on live events, an approach which has not included any debate with the thousands who are prepared to get out and brave a very wintery Melbourne day with 40 kilometre/hour gale force winds sweeping the city coming off the nearby Port Philip Bay.
Other sources including the national Government funded youth broadcaster Triple J have not given the events a very significant level of coverage, an approah that is contrary to their pre-s11 approach. Usually a very progressive source that is not afraid to cover left-oriented news in a very right wing Australian political climate, Triple J's breakfast show, which runs from 6am to 9am, essentially ignored the protests in favour of their regular comedy and music format. 'The Morning Show' which takes over at 9am and is a news and current affairs weekday program, featured a live cross to a reporter on the scene, however the information presented was typically vague.
This seems to be an amatuerish trend from a news media that does not appear to understand that they should be hoevering around the ENTIRE casino complex in order to get a balanced perspective. Clearly any serious (and well funded in this econimically rationalist world - funding which Triple J isn't given) media organistaion would realise that at least 3 reporters and optimally more, are required to gain an accurate depiction of events. The casino complex sprawls over half a kilometre long on the south bank of the Yarra River in Melbourne, opposite the CBD, and hence the action needs a wide perspective to be viewed accurately. There are at least 6 main entrances that are being blockaded.
Local conservative Melbourne talk station 3LO, which is again part of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) network - a taxpayer funded network - appears to be largely ignoring the events when I have flicked over to their station.
As usual the star of the scene is 3CR, Melbourne's premier Community Radio station that is covering the protest non-stop from 6am to 10am today.
.... Triple J has reported on it's 10am news that one Police Officer has been injured, and Westerna Australian Premier Richard Court - the chief behind controversial mandatory sentencing laws arguably designed to hit Western Australia's Indigenous Aborigines hardest - has had his car blocked from entering the casino complex. Reacting in the most aggressive fashion reported so far today, police are storming into the protesters with batons raging in order to presumably get Court's car through. In the same report news was presented that a car had been spray painted by protesters, it is unclear if this was Court's car they were referring to.
melbourne.foe.org.au/s11
jason
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