May Day violence spreads around the world
From Australia to Zimbabwe, millions of people took to the streets today to mark May Day with protests, violence, demonstrations and, in some causes, enjoyment.
The first May Day trouble erupted in Australia where thousands of anti-globalisation protesters scuffled with riot police as chanting activists tried to shut down stock exchanges and business districts.
Several people and police were injured when protesters tried to force their way into the stock exchange in Brisbane. Police on horseback charged and broke up a group of protesters in Perth on the west coast.
‘‘The world belongs to the people. The streets belong to the people,’’ protesters screamed in Brisbane.
Across the world in Germany, police called up water cannon to combat violent left wingers in the capital Berlin.
During the night, about 500 protesters erected barricades, set fires and threw rocks and bottles at police, who responded with water cannon.
With Berlin still in the process of reclaiming its role as the German capital, authorities this year banned the main anti-capitalist May Day demonstration that regularly led to riots in past years. More than 9,000 police were on the streets.
Even with 9,000 police in the streets, the mayhem dented the city’s hopes of ending an annual ritual of anarchist violence that officials increasingly view as undignified for the revived German capital.
Violence reignited in the afternoon around an anti-capitalist march that drew at least 1,500 demonstrators to the Kreuzberg district, a hotbed of Berlin’s alternative scene and May Day riots for years.
A few demonstrators ripped up cobblestones and threw them at the police, smashing a telephone booth and a bus stop shelter. Police charged the rock-throwers, who retreated.
‘‘This is a revolutionary Labour Day and I’m demonstrating against the capitalist system,’’ said demonstrator Vincent Gephard, a 23-year-old student.
In Pakistan, police fired tear gas shells to disperse violent protesters and blocked roads in Karachi to prevent a pro-democracy rally against the military rule.
Thousands of Communists marched across Ukraine under red Soviet flags to celebrate May Day after defeating the country’s reformist government, while rival opposition parties organised their own rallies.
About 1,500 Communists attended a rally near the former museum of Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin in central Kiev.
Up to 100,000 people gathered in a Zagreb park to celebrate May Day in Croatia by devouring free bean stew a welcome meal for many workers struggling to make ends meet in an economy mired in a deep recession.
In Zimbabwe Ruling party militants tried and failed to take control of the annual May Day celebrations organised by the main union federation.
About 600 militants forced their way into the Harare soccer stadium and were jeered by the crowd of about 7,000. Militant leader Joseph Chinotimba was protected by a cordon of riot police as he and about 100 militants tried to reach the speaker’s platform.
Thousands waved the union movement’s clenched wrist sign and open-hand salutes, a symbol of opposition to President Robert Mugabe and yelled: ‘‘We want peace’’ as armed riot police with dogs fanned across the soccer field to separate rival groups in a tense hour-long stand off.
Braving heavy snowfall and basking in bright spring sunshine, hundreds of thousands of people joined May Day marches and rallies across Russia, many of them carrying relics of the Soviet Union that collapsed a decade ago.
The Interior Ministry estimated that about 730,000 people took part in demonstrations.
About 50 demonstrators threw fireworks at Swiss policemen during a May Day demonstration in Zurich.
The protesters, with their faces covered, scuffled with police following a speech by former Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled, which was applauded by several thousand people. Police beat the protesters back with water cannon.
About 30 people were arrested.
In France, where May Day marches traditionally remain peaceful, thousands of workers and trade unionists took to the streets to celebrate and protest at a string of recent job losses.
Pride of place at the head of the marches was given to workers from British retailer Marks & Spencer which has closed down its French operations.
In Greece, thousands joined May Day labour marches, but many others used the holiday to travel to the countryside.
In China, May Day marks the start of one of the year’s biggest travel seasons. The government requires employers staffs the rest of the week off, in part to try to stimulate the economy by encouraging travel.
Elsewhere in Asia, some 1,000 workers from North and South Korea sang and danced together at Diamond Mountain, a scenic North Korean resort area. The festivities were the first joint May Day celebration since the division of the Korean Peninsula in 1945.
In Cuba, leader Fidel Castro’s government called for hundreds of thousands of workers to take part in a march past the US government’s mission in Havana.
