What it meant for the protesters: a chance to outwit a heavy-handed

0 Comments | Sunday Herald, The, Jul 10, 2005 | by Home Affairs Editor Liam McDougall

THE response was overwhelming.

A Chinook swung in with a deafening roar and landed behind the security fence, spilling scores of riot police onto the field at Gleneagles. It was followed by a fleet of more than 20 police vans, each carrying around a dozen riot police, then another two Chinooks with yet more riot police equipped with batons and shields.

Their target was a group of around 300 demonstrators who had peeled off from the march and crossed a field to take their message directly to the G8 leaders. Just two miles away, the prime ministers and presidents of eight of the world's richest nations stood in the plush surroundings of the Gleneagles Hotel.

The events, later dubbed the Battle Of Gleneagles, began inauspiciously enough. The march set off peacefully in the Auchterarder rain, with a colourful band of around 5000 protesters blowing whistles, banging drums and shuffling forwards. Then a woman, made up like a clown and armed only with a blue wig and a multi-coloured tickling stick, left the route of the march and simply stood in the field.

Within minutes, and with the police making no effort to stop them, scores and then hundreds of demonstrators - among them pensioners, children, hippies, communists, environmentalists and even an entire marching band - seized the opportunity to get as close to the world leaders as they could. They marched off across the field to another security fence, behind which stood a line of police backed by mounted officers and dogs.

Despite shouts by demonstrators for the protest to remain peaceful, bricks taken from a nearby dry-stone wall were hurled at the police. Part of the perimeter fence was pulled down and the violence escalated. Fence posts and wooden stakes were uprooted and placards thrown at the police.

But it wasn't the anarchist-led riot that the police and residents had feared. Most of the trouble appeared to come from local teenagers. Two boys aged around 15 and wearing black balaclavas were among those to do most damage. The bricks were still raining down on the shields of the police when the commanders called for back-up.

Within seconds of the Chinook landing, the riot squads from London's Metropolitan Police charged. Dressed in black and with their batons drawn, they fanned out and pushed the protesters back into the field. Police on horseback joined them, shouting: "Get back."

Verbal abuse was by now the only thing being hurled at the police, but again the officers charged and lashed out at the protesters in front of them.

Women, children, peaceful protesters and journalists had their hands in the air or showed the "peace" sign, yet still the police charged. Some, who sat down and began singing, were dragged to their feet and pushed back into the field. One woman was hit by an officer as she tried to flee. As she fell on a barbed-wire fence she was hit again with a baton.

The stand-off in the field continued for around two hours, the police gradually pushing the protesters back onto the road. By around 5.30pm the field was mostly cleared, with protesters shocked at the level of violence used by the police.

"We planned for this and thought it would happen, " Scottish police control in Glenrothes later said. "Our reaction was planned."

One Auchterarder local standing outside the Star Inn criticised the massive police presence. "That lot, " he said, indicating several heavily armoured police officers who had just bundled away a clown, "were just antagonising them."

"We just don't understand what this is all about, " said Isa, a member of the Clown Army, who insisted they were intent on peaceful protest. "People are angry but mostly dazed by such a completely enormous but rather predictable reaction from the kind of people fenced in at Gleneagles Hotel."

However, Superintendent Gavin Buist, of Central Scotland Police, said more than 60 weapons had been seized earlier that day from people entering and leaving an "eco-village" of some 2500 protesters on the edge of Stirling. "I don't think it's heavyhanded at all, " he said.

Eco-villager Frank Schmidt left optimistic that the protest had achieved its aims.

"This is one of the most successful and effective summit protests, probably in the last four years, because we made it very difficult to organise the summit, " Schmidt said.

"We closed down roads for a long period of time and even breached the security fence on the field at Auchterarder.

"We were outnumbered and outgunned, but several thousand people organising autonomous actions managed to outwit massive military- style police action."

Additional reporting by Alan Crawford, Neil Mackay and Jason Parkinson