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Letters:

Police to blame, too

I am glad to see that a debate about the Genoa summit has developed in the Taipei Times. Frans Soede, while sympathetic to the protesters, finds blame with "Black Block anarchists and other hooligans and rioters who have as their major objective to create havoc and to use any opportunity to loot, battle the police, or to enjoy an orgy of violence" (Letters, Aug. 17, page 12).

A larger proportion of the blame should rest with the police and Carabineri (paramilitary police) who arrested, injured and provoked the mostly non-violent protesters. There have been worldwide protests against the Italian authorities for the treatment of the protesters and Amnesty International has launched an investigation into the behavior of the police. The organization says that the head of its Greek section was among those assaulted by the Carabineri.

The police and Carabineri's role in causing and provoking violence should not be ignored. In a raid on a secondary school used to house protesters and the Genoa Social Forum, 93 people were detained and all but one were cleared of any violence and released without charge. In another raid on an independent media group, Indymedia, 90 people were arrested and at least 66 injured. More than three-quarters of those arrested were injured and some of the injuries were quite serious.

There were many more cases of brutality and one fatal shooting. The behavior of the police cannot be explained just by saying they were poorly trained. Soede comes to the very reasonable conclusion, that the politicians should "invite the protesters to participate in the meetings and ... listen very carefully to what they have to say."

This raises a very important question. If the point of these summits is to spread democracy and help alleviate poverty, why do they have to go about it in such an undemocratic way?

Adam Gilbert

Kuandu, Taipei

Activism off target

The Taiwan government is sluggish and strangled in red tape. Like all modern governments, it faces issues of corruption, waste and inefficiency. But it sometimes provides exceptional services that serve the greater good. The Mass Rapid Transit System (MRT) is one of these.

Last Friday's Taipei Times contained a report about a woman who was injured on a MRT escalator ("Woman impugns train station safety,"Aug. 17, page 2), after being pushed by a fellow rider. The woman blamed the Taipei City Government, saying that signage identifying the escalators was unsatisfactory.

I found her point strange. The true perpetrator of the accident was the passenger behind her. The real threat in the MRT are one's fellow riders, not the moving stairways. I also wonder whether the woman has ever ventured outside an MRT station. There, she would find much greater hazards: uneven sidewalks, construction equipment swinging within two feet of the heads of passersby, caustic traffic fumes, impenetrable rows of scooters and thousands of steps with no adjacent escalators. Compared to this, the MRT is a hazard-free haven-safe, clean and efficient.

Activism is a powerful tool, but it is important that we understand how to direct it. The government is an easy target and usually the first to be criticized. But asking your neighbor to slow down and slowing down yourself might be more effective. Perhaps we should all suggest to shopkeepers that they clear up their impassable storefronts and ask scooter riders not to park in the middle of the busiest sidewalks.

Matthew Huy

Yang Mei
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