Posted on 02/16/2005 6:57:38 PM PST by Pikamax
Kyoto protest beaten back by inflamed petrol traders By Laura Peek and Liz Chong
WHEN 35 Greenpeace protesters stormed the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) yesterday they had planned the operation in great detail.
What they were not prepared for was the post-prandial aggression of oil traders who kicked and punched them back on to the pavement.
“We bit off more than we could chew. They were just Cockney barrow boy spivs. Total thugs,” one protester said, rubbing his bruised skull. “I’ve never seen anyone less amenable to listening to our point of view.”
Another said: “I took on a Texan Swat team at Esso last year and they were angels compared with this lot.” Behind him, on the balcony of the pub opposite the IPE, a bleary-eyed trader, pint in hand, yelled: “Sod off, Swampy.”
Greenpeace had hoped to paralyse oil trading at the exchange in the City near Tower Bridge on the day that the Kyoto Protocol came into force. “The Kyoto Protocol has modest aims to improve the climate and we need huge aims,” a spokesman said.
Protesters conceded that mounting the operation after lunch may not have been the best plan. “The violence was instant,” Jon Beresford, 39, an electrical engineer from Nottingham, said.
“They grabbed us and started kicking and punching. Then when we were on the floor they tried to push huge filing cabinets on top of us to crush us.” When a trader left the building shortly before 2pm, using a security swipe card, a protester dropped some coins on the floor and, as he bent down to pick them up, put his boot in the door to keep it open.
Two minutes later, three Greenpeace vans pulled up and another 30 protesters leapt out and were let in by the others.
They made their way to the trading floor, blowing whistles and sounding fog horns, encountering little resistance from security guards. Rape alarms were tied to helium balloons to float to the ceiling and create noise out of reach. The IPE conducts “open outcry” trading where deals are shouted across the pit. By making so much noise, the protesters hoped to paralyse trading.
But they were set upon by traders, most of whom were under the age of 25. “They were kicking and punching men and women indiscriminately,” a photographer said. “It was really ugly, but Greenpeace did not fight back.”
Mr Beresford said: “They followed the guys into the lobby and kept kicking and punching them there. They literally kicked them on to the pavement.”
Last night Greenpeace said two protesters were in hospital, one with a suspected broken jaw, the other with concussion.
A spokeswoman from IPE said the trading floor reopened at 3.10pm. “The floor was invaded by a small group of protesters,” she said. “Open outcry trading was suspended but electronic trading carried on.”
Eighteen police vans and six police cars surrounded the exchange and at least 27 protesters were arrested. A small band blocked the entrance to the building for the rest of the evening.
Richard Ward, IPE’s chief executive, said that the exchange would review security but denied that protesters had reached the trading floor. However, traders, protesters and press photographers confirmed to The Times that the trading floor had been breached.
Mr Ward would not discuss whether he would press charges, and said he would not know until this morning if there had been any financial loss.
Greenpeace later started a second protest at the annual dinner of the Institute of Petroleum at the Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane, in Central London. Greenpeace claimed that five campaigners had got into the Great Hall. About 30 protesters were outside the hotel, some blocking the front entrance by sitting down and locking themselves together, while others sounded klaxons and alarms. Climbers scaled scaffolding to unfurl a banner reading, “Climate change kills, oil industry parties”.
You know, is it just me or does it seem like a whole lot of people are sick and tired of the Left these days? On the strength of this plucky repulse of the green slime, I say give the Brits their guns back.
"Working Class White trash!"
You rang?
I saw the video this morning...it was a beautiful thing. I love that they are completely shocked that anyone would fight them. I know many liberal activist groups here that need a good ass whooping.
I saw a bumper sticker you'd like today:
PROUD to be an INFIDEL
We need to start beating the living daylights out of this kind of filth when they interfere with daily life in our own communities. Really punish and hurt them.
There is still a spark of life left in England!
-ccm
"Pushcart vendors".
Looks like the spivs can still give the toffs a bloody good hiding.
To translate this into American terms, imagine a pompous Harvard man fresh out of a Connecticut prep school going down to a construction site in South Boston and trying to shut it down. After his well-deserved ass kicking, imagine him sneering at the "white trash Micks". That's the tone this Greenpeace douche bag is setting.
My dad's people were Cockneys. Rough and tumble East Enders. I am so happy they are still so pugnacious. Like the Scots, they get treated like s**t by the upper classes, and lost far more than their share of men in every war England ever fought.
-ccm
This story...and the news that Jennie Finch is in this year's SI Swimsuit issue...are just such stories. :o)
In essence, they're calling them "white trash".
Interesting tack for someone on the supposed "sophisticated left".
Regards, Ivan
I have to admit, I'm smiling.
Regards, Ivan
Ah, so you invade their workspace and refuse to leave, and they defend their livelihood, but they're the thugs. OK buddy, we won't need to do an MRI, no brain=no brain damage.
No, they were protesting the fact that Britain isn't interested in economic suicide.
Brilliant!
A friend of a friend is a former Air Force security policeman. He proudly displays in his home a photo of himself arresting one of the Commie nuns who used to try to sneak onto the base and damage equipment. He has her arm bent up behind her back and everything; she sure did resist hard for a pacifist! This particular nun was one of the people sent to prison for beating on a nuclear missile at a silo in Colorado a year or two ago. Some folks never learn.
Just stuff their reply envelopes with heavy trash paper and return them. Let them pick up the tab. For a $5 donation, you get onto enough lists to cost them $100 in postage.
bttt
I just went to the greenpeace.org site, where they have a free faxing service to Tony Blair telling him to sign Kyoto.
I sent a fax that blasted the fascist Greenpeace thugs and asked PM Blair to not sign the accord!
I doubt he'll see it, as I doubt they'll send it, but it was fun nonetheless!
Ed
However, this was more of a "breaking and entering" scenario. Full Cockney rules apply here. Hope they leave scars.
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