HONG KONG, Dec 17 (Reuters) - Hong Kong police fought running street battles and fired volleys of tear gas on Saturday to repel hundreds of protesters trying to force their way into a building where world trade ministers were meeting.
Seventy-four people were injured in the fighting, including 12 police officers, the government said. Most of the injuries were minor and most of the injured were South Korean farmers and workers who say free trade is ruining them.
"The protesters got very close to the building, they were standing just across the street," a Reuters reporter said.
"They made several advances on police but pulled back a block or so after tear gas was used."
The clashes were the heaviest since the six-day World Trade Organisation meeting began on Tuesday and the worst violence in Hong Kong since protests following China's bloody crackdown on democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989.
But the fighting was less intense than that which marred the 1999 WTO conference in Seattle, which was the scene of huge and violent demonstrations against trade globalisation.
Nine hundred protesters were rounded up on one road in the area, Police Commissioner Dick Lee told a late-night news conference. Asked if they would be arrested, he said: "they will be handled according to the law."
"At the moment, the majority of areas in Wanchai are under control," Lee said. "Police will be taking all necessary action to restore order. We are fully confident the venue (trade meeting) can proceed as normal."
Some 1,000 protesters were involved in various street battles, facing off against twice as many police, Lee said.
Inside the convention centre, trade ministers were locked in talks into the night, trying to find an elusive world trade deal which critics say will hurt the world's poor. Journalists, delegates and policemen crowded round TV monitors watching the brawls outside.
Police said they had not yet decided whether another large demonstration scheduled for Sunday would be allowed to proceed.
At one point on Saturday, protesters seized metal barricades and used them as battering rams against the police, but police lines held and reinforcements pushed the protesters back.
TEAR GAS
Police fired numerous volleys of tear gas in the area near the building, Reuters correspondents said, and television showed officers bringing up what appeared to be armoured vehicles.
European and Japanese delegates were taken to the harbourfront centre by boat for late-night meetings as fighting raged.
Hong Kong, a former British colony, was returned to China in 1997. Lee said police had not asked the local Chinese army garrison for help and China's official Xinhua news agency ran only a short story saying order would be restored.
Protesters wielding bamboo sticks and iron poles began storming heavily fortified police lines in late afternoon, breaking through ranks of police who used pepper spray, batons and blasts of water from fire hoses to try to beat them back.
Some demonstrators put plastic wrap around their eyes while others donned goggles and surgical masks to protect themselves from the irritating spray.
Police sealed off large parts of the crowded Wanchai entertainment and office district and closed a nearby subway station to prevent protesters from moving around the area.
Early on Sunday morning, some seven hours after the fighting began, police moved in and started rounding up the last several hundred protesters who had been staging a sit-in in the area.
"We love Hong Kong," some of the demonstrators chanted as wary police encircled the group. "Down, down WTO."
Policewomen were the first to wade into the crowd, dragging some female protesters away one by one and packing them into police buses as remaining demonstrators started singing protest songs. Others walked quietly to the buses escorted by police.
It was not clear where the protesters were being taken. Earlier, police had told them they were under arrest.
Thousands of protesters from numerous anti-globalisation groups had taken to the streets in the early afternoon, handing pink and yellow roses to police officers manning barricades and releasing yellow balloons printed with "No, no WTO".
As numbers swelled, they began to push against police and probe their defences.
An estimated 10,000 anti-globalisation protesters converged on Hong Kong for the trade meeting, including about 2,000 South Korean farmers, workers and unionists, who have a reputation as the most militant anti-globalisation group in Asia.
The people handling cameras were from different media in the world but most of them were just like you and me, just took risk to take good shots and they bought all the equipments and they looked more professional than the Press.
Down Down WTO!
She is cute
Marching in downtown CausewayBay
Police gazed at crowd with cold eyes
Downtown Causeway Bay
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