Police, Protesters, Clash at IMF Meeting

Sept. 26, 2000 -- There was blood on the streets of Prague today as police, enraged by gasoline bomb attacks that set their uniforms on fire, hit back with no holds barred.

Demonstrators gathered for the opening of the annual meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund were caught in increasingly violent clashes with the Czech police.

The demonstrators threw Molotov cocktails and rocks they had made by tearing up a sidewalk — and later some of them began building a huge barricade on a street.

Earlier, demonstrators hurled stones at a McDonald’s outlet that had been closed, cracking the glass door and breaking in to destroy the furniture.

The scene was reminiscent of the so-called ‘Battle in Seattle,’ where violent demonstrators halted a meeting by the World Trade Organization, the first in a spate of disruptions at meetings of international financial organizations.

Police spokeswoman Iva Knolova said at least 40 people were injured, including 30 police officers and 10 protesters.

Many were hurt by projectiles, and emergency services also treated burns from the gasoline bombs. A British journalist was also hurt.

There were no reliable estimates of the number of demonstrators arrested, but correspondents in the city saw dozens detained.

Ambulance sirens howled through largely deserted streets in the Czech capital, taking the injured to hospitals. Clouds of white tear-gas drifted above and among the protesters.

Hard-Core Anarchy

Police tried to force the rioters back with water cannon, tear gas, dogs, thunderflashes and even threw cobblestones as they were at times overwhelmed by hundreds of masked youths shouting anti-globalist slogans.

The worst threat to those at the conference occurred when protesters stormed a hotel just across the road from the congress center. They pelted financiers and journalists with stones until police pushed them back with dogs and truncheons.

Officials said one Russian and one Japanese delegate were hurt.

Czech security officials said some of the protesters are believed to be from the hard-core anarchist scene.

The anarcho-group, often disguised by masks and helmets, is well known to most European police forces from soccer violence. They mainly come from Germany and Italy — with a small number from the United States and Britain.

Police sources said an Italian anarchist group “Ya Basta” appeared to be responsible for the worst incidents of violence.

A train with 500 Italian demonstrators was held up at the Czech-Austria border Sunday, but was allowed to travel after a 17- hour delay after four identified “ringleaders” agreed to disembark.

Pleas, Reasons for Calm

The majority of marchers though, most of them foreign, kept their cool, waving banners that demanded the cancellation of debt to poor countries and the shutdown of the IMF. Some shouted “No Violence, No Violence.”

Police said there were up to 9,000 activists, less than half the 20,000 organizers had hoped to attract to Prague.

Police had a 2-1 numerical advantage over the activists, as they called reserves from all over the country to reinforce the officers already guarding the city.

The umbrella protest group INPEG, which organized marches that began Tuesdaymorning, said it disagreed with the violence.

“We’re really disappointed … We were really hoping for a non-violent protest on the basic issues of the IMF and the World Bank … but instead now the focus has shifted to the streets ofPrague,” said INPEG organizer Chelsea Mosen.

Host Czech President Vaclav Havel, who led the bloodless revolution that toppled Communist rule in 1989, condemned the clashes and called on protesters to end the violence, his spokesman said in a statement.

Prague mayor Jan Kasl has also appealed for calm.

Reverse Strategy

Deviating from the strategy protesters employed in Seattle in December and Washington in April, activists did not try to stop delegates from getting to meetings inside Prague’s cavernous, glass-fronted Congress Center — built to host Communist Party gatherings in Cold War days.

Instead, they had hoped to blockade delegates inside the building, refusing to let them leave until they agree to disband the bank and the fund, which were set up to rebuild the world economy after World War II.

Still, protesters, many armored with padding and wielding sticks, had moved closed to the congress center, pelting police and stray delegates with a hail of bottles, rocks and Molotov cocktails.

Before the meeting began, police had closed a metro station adjoining the building and many delegates arrived before dawn, whisked into the center by bus or in official motorcades.

One protester smashed the back window of a limousine with a stone as the car raced inside the venue’s perimeter, and elsewhere others rained down rocks on waiting ambulances, which eventually fled the crowd.

Other groups roamed the streets randomly smashing windows of stores and hotels and torched at least one car.

The Silver Lining

At the end of today’s conference, a steady stream of delegates, including ministers, headed for the closed metro station where special trains had been brought in to take delegates away, under heavy police protection.

Czech security police expect to face running battles through the night with the anarchists, who have good cover in the old town’s narrow streets.

The rest of Prague was unusually quiet with schoolchildren enjoying an extra holiday officials proclaimed recently inanticipation of trouble hitting the streets of this picturesquecity.

But to one local the disturbances represented a business opportunity. He set up a makeshift stall next to the closedVysehrad metro station and was selling cold beer and snacks to police and delegates — at a 100 percent mark-up.

ABCNEWS’ Sue Masterman in Vienna, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.