2008-03-27

The big blue

Ugly things happened that weekend in November 2006 when then federal treasurer Peter Costello hosted a meeting of world economic leaders in Melbourne's Grand Hyatt Hotel. But lawyers with long memories of ugly demonstrations reckon G20 was not the worst Melbourne has seen. Not by far.

What's setting records, they say, is the determination of police to track down and prosecute the demonstrators. Rob Stary is representing a bunch of the G20 accused and has long experience in the courts cleaning up after Melbourne demonstrations. "I've never seen anything like this," he says. "It's unprecedented."

The charges are tough; the prosecution strategy hard-ball; and arrests dramatic. Four G20 demonstrators were arrested in Sydney this time last year in dawn raids involving between 50 and 60 police from NSW, Victorian and Federal squads including anti-terrorist units. All were asleep in their beds.

The arrested include a 14-year-old Melbourne schoolboy charged with riot and affray, charges that carry jail terms of up to 10 years. All the police Summary of Offences specifically accuses him of doing is throwing a bottle at an empty police van.

Those who are found guilty are guilty no matter what's driving the police to hunt them down. But around the G20 case are many who wonder if the exceptional energy and resources invested in cleaning up after these demonstrations is linked to public protests police made at the time that politicians and their own top brass had let them down during the demonstrations.

"The days are gone when the soft approach is OK," declared the secretary of the Victorian Police Association Paul Mullett after the G20 skirmishes. "The warm and fuzzy approach has to change. These people are just out to inflict violence. Our members have been targeted. Our members aren't battering rams for these idiots."

G20 happened a week before the 2006 Victorian election. A television campaign authorised by Mullett and aimed at premier Steve Bracks used brief footage of G20. "He's putting police under pressure and compromising community safety," said the voice over. "Fighting crime is tough enough without having to fight government too. Don't put the pinch on police Mr Bracks. Put the pinch back on crime."

The behaviour of police will be an issue before the County Court when the G20 protesters come to trial. But Victorian authorities have already made it clear they back the police and reject complaints that excessive force was used against demonstrators.

Victorian community legal centres and human rights groups organised teams of observers to monitor the demonstrations. They commended officers for showing admirable restraint under considerable provocation on Friday and until early on Saturday afternoon when "police discipline and the restraint of individual officers, declined gradually as the protests continued into Saturday evening".

The observers recorded "several incidents of highly concerning police behaviour and tactics" around the Hyatt that afternoon and Parliament House that night, and again on the Sunday outside the Melbourne Museum where they claim police made an unprovoked running baton charge on an unaggressive group of demonstrators, leaving several injured.

Their report was swiftly rejected by Victorian police. "We believe our members acted appropriately in the face of extreme provocation and violence," said assistant commissioner Gary Jamieson. "Many of them suffered injuries as a result of these protesters."

A separate complaint about the museum incident filed by the Fitzroy Legal Service was considered for more than a year. But last week Rebecca Fraser, a spokeswoman for the police department, said: "The members were never in fact under investigation and were only assisting with inquiries. The Office of Police Integrity reviewed the file and no further action was taken."

G20 wasn't an endless melee. Police, politicians and press concur that it was overwhelmingly peaceful. Though what happened in the streets will be the subject of argument in the Victorian County Court, what's beyond dispute is that the incidents leading to criminal charges took up, in all, not much more than an hour over those three days.

By the end of the committal proceedings, the trajectory of G20 had become clearer than ever before.

Friday, November 17, 2006, saw a number of brief occupations of office foyers in the CBD including those of the Defence Recruiting Office and the defence contractor Tenix Solutions. Three activists were afterwards charged with unlawful assembly, criminal damage and aggravated burglary.

These "agg burg" charges matter a great deal in the prosecution's hardline strategy. Defence requests that all the accused be dealt with as Melbourne demonstrators usually are - swiftly before magistrates - foundered largely because of these three charges. Aggravated burglary carries a possible 25-year prison sentence merely for entering occupied premises intending to cause damage or harm.

Saturday, November 18, began with about 60 demonstrators leaving Treasury Gardens and heading for the Hyatt. Many were wearing the white paper overalls of an outfit calling itself Arterial Bloc. They broke through three sets of barriers, but mounted police prevented them reaching the Hyatt's entrance in Russell Street.

As they headed away from the hotel, demonstrators trapped two Melbourne City Council contractors in their truck. One demonstrator, Akin Sari, has since pleaded guilty to charges of assault and criminal damage over this incident. Another is facing charges of assault for allegedly being one of a group who ran down the hill with linked arms and knocked two policewomen to the ground.

They headed for the main rally outside the State Library in Swanston Street. Only about a tenth of the predicted 20,000 had turned up. After an hour of speeches a march set off for the Hyatt with The Sunday Age reporting: "Initially, the atmosphere was part-protest, part-street theatre."

Police say a motorcycle officer was surrounded and two demonstrators were charged with assault. Half-a-block short of the hotel in Russell Street, the march hit the first of the barricades. They were filled with water and cabled together. They held.

About 80 to 100 protesters broke off and slipped into Collins Street through narrow Alfred Place and found themselves facing another barricade. Who was responsible for what over the next hectic and at times violent half-hour will be the subject of intensely contested evidence at the trials of the G20 accused. Twenty-one demonstrators were charged with riot, affray and reckless conduct.

Seven of these are also facing charges for allegedly injuring a policewoman at the barricade. The situation is by no means clear, but her shoulder injuries appear to be the worst demonstrators are accused of inflicting on police at G20. Missing in action from court so far is evidence of the urine filled balloons that were said to have been thrown at police.

About 2.20pm, a group of 50 or so demonstrators set out to march around the hotel but found their way blocked by an empty police Isuzu van, known as the brawler van, parked across Flinders Lane. Another melee occurred at this point, lasting six to 10 minutes and causing nearly $10,000 damage. The courts will decide who did what here, but 20 demonstrators have been charged with riot, affray, reckless conduct and criminal damage to the van.

A number of isolated incidents occurred in the CBD over the next hours, but the only charges were laid outside Parliament House in Spring Street where demonstrators chained to a dumped car were the centrepiece of a street event that would last until midnight. Once more the charges were for riot and affray. A protester who is accused of throwing a tire was also charged with "reckless conduct endangering death".

Everyone had cameras. Mobile phone cameras were hard at work all day. Television crews were everywhere and so were police photographers. By the time it was all over, police had about 10,000 photographs and 3500 hours of footage to scan for malefactors.

The white-paper overalls worn by so many "persons of interest" presented a challenge. Police had to rely on glimpses of shoes, bandanas, glasses, earrings, moles, teeth and T-shirts to identify suspects. When the raids began around Melbourne and later in Sydney, police headed straight for clothes cupboards. The 109-page official Summary of Offences reads like a rag trade inventory.

Arrests began even before the G20 flew out of Melbourne. Drasko Boljevic, who was out of town on the Saturday, was picked up in the CBD on Sunday and thrown into a police van. The Age quoted Boljevic saying he was tied up and driven round the city with a policeman sitting on his head. He was then handcuffed, arrested and released. Later, Chief Police Commissioner Christine Nixon confirmed a man had been mistakenly arrested.

Arrests continued for a year. One accused was brought down from Queensland. Another was arrested at Mascot as he flew from New Zealand to Spain on holiday. One was arrested quite by chance after an off-duty policeman out shopping saw a hardware-store employee showing his mates his face in a newspaper photograph of the demonstration. Police reckon luck has been running their way through the G20 clean-up.

Police are naturally reluctant to say how many demonstrators they'd hoped to arrest. They emphasise the case is not closed. Fresh arrests could be made at any time if they identify more faces in their picture files. But as of now, the total number arrested is 28.

["www.theage.com.au":http://www.theage.com.au/news/in-depth/the-big-blue/2008/03/24/1206207016405.html]

Source: www.theage.com.au