The protest movement in Hong Kong has been forced to retreat in the face of orchestrated violent attacks by Beijing-funded triad gangs, with the complicity of the police force.
The gangs began their attack in Mong Kok, a high density urban working class district with a high concentration of organized crime.
The spontaneous occupation of Mong Kok on 29 September — in response to the deployment of teargas — was initially hugely successful and took the police completely by surprise.
By 1 October, with the protest movement highly mobilised over two public holidays, the student leaders called for the Chief Executive Leung Chun Ying to resign, or else they would escalate the action.
On 2 October, the government building which accommodates the Chief Executive’s office was completed surrounded. The police had to negotiate for water and food to be let through the cordon of protesters to reach those police officers on duty inside the besieged building.
Leung refused to resign, but appointed his deputy to meet with student leaders.
In response, on 3 October, Leung and the local pro-Beijing forces counter-attacked.
Hordes of burly men wearing blue ribbons — symbolising support for the police — waded into the protestors in Mong Kok, with very few police on duty. Videos widely circulated in Hong Kong showed police arresting some of the thugs but releasing them almost as soon as they were brought back to Mong Kok police station.
Some reports claim rent-a-mob adverts on Facebook offer between $500 to $1000 (£40 to £80) to thugs to attack protestors.
While the Mong Kok occupation initially put pressure on the government and forced them to refrain from further attacks on the occupiers in Admiralty, the prolonged blockage of daily life at street level began to affect local traffic and small businesses, probably eroding the income of the triads’ protection rackets as well.
On 4 October, while the government denied claims of any collusion with triad gangs, and while university leaders urged students to disperse to avoid bloodshed, the Federation of Students, Scholarism and the Occupy Central leaders held a defiant anti-violence rally in Admiralty, albeit with a much smaller crowd of several thousand.
The Federation of Students, having refused talks on 3 October, decided to meet with government negotiators on condition that the police do not exercise force and that triad thugs are stopped from further attacks on protestors.
By 5 October, with the threat of the police using force to clear away protestors, the movement’s leaders called for protestors to disperse.
On Monday 6 October the siege of government headquarters was partially lifted to allow civil servants to go to work. The numbers surrounding the Chief Executive’s office reduced to a token presence. Talks about talks continued between student leaders and government negotiators. Secondary schools reopened in the Central and Wanchai districts.
The Occupy Central leaders’ stance throughout is based on the model of non-violent mass civil disobedience as practised by Gandhi and Martin Luther King. However the government has avoided arresting the leaders to make them martyrs, but outmanoeuvred them with greater tactical skill.
The huge mass of protestors in the early days showed a high level of self-organisation and discipline, but in the end they could not sustain the level of protest in the absence of clear resolute leadership.
The bravery of students had earned them a huge degree of support from the public, as well as some one day stoppages in some workplaces. However, the movement’s leaders did not issue a call for further workplace strikes to support them.
Given the intransigence of the government, with clear backing by Beijing, the mass movement is lacking the political leadership to maintain the pressure to force the Chief Executive to resign or achieve their demands that the Chinese Government reverse their decision on the composition of candidates for the Chief Executive 2017 elections.
It is important that activists and students regroup and seek to establish a broadly representative campaign group with a clear programme and an elected leadership to rally support and continue the use of civil disobedience.
Such a campaign should fight for; the resignation of the Chief Executive; calling to account those responsible for instigating violent attacks; legislative councillors to vote against the adoption of the electoral package proposed by the HK government; the Chinese government to review their previous decision; the occupation of Admiralty to continue until these are achieved and workplaces in Hong Kong to take appropriate action to support the campaign.
The government remains fragile and unpopular, and the movement still has great reservoirs of support for the key democratic demands.
