Analysis: Rostock burns after G8 riots

BERLIN, June 4 (UPI) -- Officials are concerned about security at this week's Group of Eight summit in Germany after some 1,000 people were injured in the biggest riots the country has seen in decades.

Burning cars and trash cans, broken shop windows, men in black cloaks hurling stones and bleeding photographers: The streets of the German port city of Rostock, some 12 miles from the G8 summit venue Heiligendamm, by late Saturday afternoon resembled a war zone. Hours earlier, a large anti-globalization demonstration had suddenly turned violent.

Armed with large stones, bats and Molotov cocktails, some 3,000 black-clad men and women from the radical far-left scene Saturday clashed with thousands of baton-wielding riot police equipped with tear gas and water cannons. When they were out of projectiles, protesters used crowbars to rip cobblestones from the pavement and throw them at police.

At the end of the day, about 430 police officers and 500 demonstrators were injured, 60 of them seriously. More than 130 demonstrators from all over the world were arrested in what seems to be an internationally organized wave of violence.

Police said 30,000 people attended Saturday's protest march (80,000 according to its organizers), which had been peaceful for hours until the radicals, concealed in black ski masks and hooded sweaters, took over.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was shocked at the escalation of violence. "Those were terrible images," she told German news channel ARD, days before she is to host her first G8 summit, a June 6-8 meeting of the leaders from the eight richest nations in the Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm.

In years past, G8 meetings has drawn the scorn of activists who feel the governments of the eight richest nations are practicing unjust policies. Groups critical of globalization, such as Attac, condemned Saturday's violence, knowing that it undermined their ability to influence the politics of the G8 summit.

Police officials said they were surprised over the brutality of the radicals. "This is a spiral of violence," Konrad Freiberg, head of the police union, told Monday's Bild newspaper. "We should be grateful that no police officer died."

Freiberg added he expected "the worst" for the next couple of days in Rostock, the main venue of the anti-G8 protest movement where an expected 100,000 activists are expected to meet and march over the next few days. On Monday, police said in a statement that an estimated 2,000 radicals are still in the city, and they may be planning further attacks.

Officials are now debating whether the German security concept needs to be changed to keep violence to a minimum. Several police officials have argued that the concept of "de-escalation" practiced so far has failed to keep the radicals under control.

"Whoever has stones, knives or bats on himself has to be immediately arrested," Freiberg said. Some activists said a police unit from Berlin has been overly brutal with demonstrators and further fueled the violence.

A senior government party politician said de-escalation was the way to go forward. "We must not pour more fuel into the fire," Dieter Wiefelspuetz, interior expert of the Social Democratic Party, told Monday's Berliner Zeitung newspaper.

Authorities will have to answer how the hundreds of foreign radicals made it into Germany, after Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble announced last month that border controls would be tightened to keep violent activists out.

While Merkel said she had "confidence in our police," authorities were apparently ill-prepared to contain the violence on Saturday. After a few hours, the event's hopelessly overstretched officer-in-charge from Bavaria was replaced by a senior official from the Berlin police, a unit experienced with far-left riot missions.

Berlin has come under fire in the past weeks for all-too-tight security moves, including comprehensive raids against the far left in six German states last month. Merkel said police would continue its "zero-tolerance" methods against violent protesters.

At least when it comes to numbers, authorities are prepared: Some 12,000 officers have been deployed to Rostock, and another 4,000 secure nearby Heiligendamm. Everything remained calm Sunday but on early Monday, some 400 hooded activists again clashed with police in front of an immigration office.

Police will have to be on their toes as the next days feature another high-security event: On Tuesday evening, U.S. President George W. Bush and his wife Laura will arrive in Rostock.