Police Fire Water Cannons, Tear Gas and Rubber Pellets 

Activists Protest World Economic Forum in Zurich

AP 27jan01

DAVOS, Switzerland -- Police fired water cannons, tear gas and rubber pellets Saturday at activists protesting a meeting of world economic leaders in this Alpine resort, and angry protesters turned back from Davos rioted in Zurich, burning cars and smashing windows.

Police surrounded several hundred protesters in Davos, where local authorities had banned demonstrations during the annual World Economic Forum. After issuing warnings over loudspeakers, police opened up with a water cannon on demonstrators who tried to get around a fence erected across the main street.

In Landquart, where police stopped hundreds on their way to Davos, protesters blocked roads and police said they fired tear gas and rubber pellets after demonstrators attacked security personnel with sticks. One person was reportedly injured.

As evening fell, some 400 demonstrators sent back to Zurich on a special train from Landquart rioted, breaking windows, burning cars and overturning trash containers and burning cars, authorities said. Police fired water cannons and rubber pellets.

The demonstrators said police had met their train ``with tear gas guns drawn.'' Police in Zurich said the damage from the worst violence in recent years in the Swiss financial capital was ``massive,'' but they had no immediate estimate of its cost.

The protesters claim increasing liberalization of world trade and investment leads to improved living standards for the rich and higher profits for business at the expense of the poor and the environment.

Demonstrators said that despite the protest ban -- and heavy snowfall -- they were determined to deliver their message against spreading globalization to the corporate bosses and other financial leaders meeting in Davos.

``We have to fight for the right to freedom of expression,'' said Kees Hudig, who came from Amsterdam. He called the police response an overreaction.

The forum opened Thursday, and authorities had tightened the seal around Davos, Europe's highest city in elevation, but numerous demonstrators said they managed to slip in anyway.

``It is a right I have to move freely in my country any time I want,'' said a woman from Zurich who gave only her first name, Carmen. ``Until today I didn't realize I lived in a police state.''

Hundreds of demonstrators were stopped at Landquart, about 25 miles from Davos, where they blocked a major rail line between Zurich and many of eastern Switzerland's ski resorts.

With helicopters buzzing overhead and barbed wire fences erected at strategic points, the country's winter tourist heartland resembled a battle zone rather than an Alpine paradise.

Davos itself was almost cut off from the outside world. Most stores closed for the afternoon and McDonald's, which had its windows smashed last year, disappeared behind protective boards.

Elsewhere in Switzerland, a group of some 200 protesters spray-painted slogans on the walls of the Geneva-based World Trade Organization but did not manage to break into the lakeside building.

Scuffles were also reported in Klosters, a nearby ski resort, and police used water cannons in Chiasso, on the Italian border, to disperse protesters trying to enter Switzerland.

Most Swiss newspapers and many residents criticized the security operation as excessive. Tourist officials were dismayed by a U.S. State Department warning to Americans that visiting Davos could be dangerous during the forum.