Thousands march but fail to keep finance leaders from meeting

WASHINGTON - Thousands of marchers failed to stop world finance leaders from meeting Sunday, but paraded through the capital in a show of celebration and anger that provoked one ugly episode - a surging crowd met by a stinging cloud of irritants fired by police.

Festive street theater with giant puppets coexisted with pushy confrontations between police and protesters agitating about the plight of the poor and ''decadence'' of the rich.

At one point, police in riot gear and on motorcycles charged into a crowd that had surged toward the police line. Police used pepper spray and what they said were smoke bombs to drive back the protesters, who were convinced they'd been tear-gassed.

''Coughing, burning, numbness around the mouth, eyes watering, skin irritated,'' said John Hamilton, one of the victims.

But unlike the protests that overwhelmed police and smashed windows in rainy Seattle at trade meetings late last year, the weekend demonstrations were largely nonviolent - and the sun beamed on them Sunday.

''I've seen a whole lot less property damage than after a Bulls game in Chicago,'' said Han Shan, a protest organizer from the California-based group Ruckus.

More protests were set Monday, when the resumption of the weekday rush hour threatened horrendous traffic problems.

Federal authorities announced Sunday night that government employees whose offices are in a restricted area roughly 90 square blocks around World Bank headquarters were told to stay home from work Monday. The officials said they could not estimate how many employees that would involve, but such major departments as Commerce, Treasury and Agriculture - not to mention the White House - are headquartered within the restricted area.

In addition, all federal workers in the District of Columbia were given permission to take a vacation day as long as they call and let their supervisors know.

Similarly, non-essential District of Columbia workers were told they would be on a ''liberal leave'' policy, meaning they could stay home if they were willing to burn a vacation day.

Officials in Arlington County, Va., just across the Potomac, from Washington declared a similar ''liberal leave'' policy for county employees.

Police in America's security-savvy capital sent buses under the cover of early morning darkness Sunday to pick up world finance ministers at their hotels, and used circuitous routes and U-turns to get them to work.

But some VIPs were stranded: The finance ministers of France, Brazil, Portugal and Thailand were thwarted by the crowds and sat at the Watergate Hotel six hours after the meetings started, wondering what to do. They eventually made it to the spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund.

''I think there is a great misunderstanding,'' French Finance Minister Laurent Fabius said.

Police, who estimated as many as 10,000 protesters were on the streets, let demonstrators largely have their way outside the security zone.

''Today we had a victory party in the streets,'' said Beka Economopoulos, member of Mobilization for Global Justice. ''We have every right to tout this as a victory. I think we were up against incredible, impossible, odds.''

Protest leaders estimated their crowds at more than 30,000.

Shan credited police with being relatively restrained, if suffocating in the size of their force. ''Overall, they maintained their composure quite a bit,'' he said. ''They have brutalized a few people without provocation.''

While the numbers Sunday were far smaller, the security measures were not unlike those of the giant anti-war demonstrations of the 1960s and early 1970s.

President Nixon's White House was once ringed by city buses parked as a barricade against protesters; during the 1968 riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., troops set up machine-gun encampments on the steps of the Capitol.

The atmosphere was less tense than on Saturday, when police raided and closed the protest headquarters during the day and arrested more than 600 people in the evening.

About 20 people were arrested Sunday, police said. One police officer was hospitalized for back pain and another for heat exhaustion.

The protesters chanted, beat on plastic buckets and wore papier-mache puppet heads cast in the likeness of the leaders they hold in contempt.

It was all meant to disrupt the World Bank and IMF meetings being held Sunday and Monday.

But the anger sprang from a bazaar of causes - human rights atrocities in Ethiopia, the ''prison industrial complex.'' biotechnology in food and much more.

''Keep your genes out of our beans,'' said one T-shirt.

''In all your decadence people die,'' said a sign.

Protesters accused the World Bank and IMF of burdening poor countries with crushing debt payments, unsafe food, environmental destruction and sweatshops.

Responded Michael Moore, director general of the World Trade Organization: ''Blaming the World Bank for poverty is a bit like blaming the Red Cross for starting World Wars I and II.''

One group of demonstrators, some holding sections of chain link fence, charged toward motorcycle police and an anti-riot squad dressed all in black.

Police counterattacked with clubs and six to nine volleys of irritants, according to Associated Press radio reporter Ross Simpson, who was both clubbed and sprayed.

Stunned demonstrators were dragged away by friends and taken to medical teams standing by with jugs of water to flush eyes.

Protesters thought they were tear-gassed but Police Chief Charles Ramsey said ''smoke dragons'' were used, canisters containing less severe irritants.

He said homemade versions of pepper spray were used against police, and some officers were hit by stones and bottles, but none seriously hurt.

Ramsey also said a protester in a black mask was taken into custody and found to have at least four bottles of flammable liquid believed to be gasoline. The bottles were to a laboratory for analysis.

Kate Standish, 19, of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., handed out carrots, granola and water.

She wore a sign that said ''Food.''

Most demonstrators were in their 20s, but some, like Elizabeth Burke, 66, of Santa Barbara, Calif., have been activists for decades.

''In Vietnam, some jumped on the bandwagon to save their own skin,'' Burke said. But here, ''Nobody's going to be drafted, so here it's different.''

Washington Mayor Tony Williams said, ''Whenever you're dealing with a situation like this you're going to be up on the boundary line in terms of constitutional rights.''

At the head of the day's parade was a huge puppet, its sunny yellow face standing 10 feet tall, and outstretched arms holding a banner saying ''Globalize Liberation.''

Much of the action swirled around the White House, itself an island of serenity. Police horses munched hay in nearby trailers.

President Clinton was out of town.

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EDITOR'S NOTE - Also contributing to this story were Cal Woodward, Alice Ann Love and Will Lester.