Germans angry at G-20 violence
Germans expressed anger on Sunday over violence that hit the Group of 20 (G-20) summit in the port city of Hamburg, raising awkward questions for Chancellor Angela Merkel less than three months before her country’s election.
A poll showed that 59% of Germans believed that the riots had damaged the image of their country.
About 20,000 police struggled to contain several hundred anticapitalist protesters who torched cars, looted shops and hurled Molotov cocktails and stones during the July 7 and 8 summit. Overall, 476 officers suffered injuries and 186 people were arrested.
Merkel was forced to defend her choice of Hamburg, saying other cities, such as London, had hosted similar meetings. She had wanted to demonstrate to G-20 partners her commitment to freedom of speech and rejected the notion that some cities were out of bounds as summit venues.
Germans expressed anger on Sunday over violence that hit a Group of 20 (G-20) world leaders’ summit in the port city of Hamburg, raising awkward questions for Chancellor Angela Merkel less than three months before an election.
About 20,000 police struggled to contain several hundred anticapitalist militants who torched cars, looted shops and hurled Molotov cocktails and stones during the July 7-8 summit. Tens of thousands more demonstrated peacefully.
Overall, 476 officers suffered injuries ranging from cuts and firework burns to eye damage from laser pointers. Police said they had arrested 186 people and took 225 into custody.
German newspapers devoted far more space to pictures of police firing water cannon onto hooded anarchists and other protesters than they did to Merkel’s diplomatic balancing act with fellow leaders of major world economies.
“Embarrassment for Germany” was Tagesspiegel’s description. “The pictures of helpless police who could not secure state order and protection of property are a political catastrophe,” columnist Gerd Nowakowski wrote.
Top-selling Bild am Sonntag splashed pictures of masked anarchists and politicians on its front page with the headline “Criminals and Losers”. Inside, a political scientist described the scenes as an “orgy of violence”.
International media have focused more on US President Donald Trump’s first meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin at the summit, as well as Trump’s diverging views on climate change and trade from those of the other leaders.
Nevertheless, an Emnid poll showed that a majority of Germans, 59%, believed the riots damaged the image of their country — even though violence has affected a number of international meetings around the world over the years.
Merkel was forced to defend her choice of Hamburg, saying other cities, such as London, had hosted similar meetings. Hamburg, a seaport which is Germany’s second-biggest city, has a strong radical leftist tradition.
Merkel had wanted to demonstrate to G-20 partners, including Putin and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, her commitment to freedom of speech and rejected the notion that some cities were out of bounds as summit venues.
The strategy has backfired, said some commentators.
“I can barely breathe with anger because Chancellor Merkel and Hamburg mayor [Olaf] Scholz trivialise the brutal riots as ‘not acceptable’,” a commentator wrote in Bild am Sonntag. Scholz, a Social Democrat, has been widely castigated for appearing complacent before the summit.
The Social Democrats (SPD), trailing Merkel’s conservatives by 12-15 percentage points in polls, squarely blamed Merkel.
“The invitation to the G-20 was issued by the Chancellor .... That some conservatives are now pushing responsibility onto the SPD and Scholz is cheap,” one of the SPD’s deputies, Ralf Stegner, told RND media.
Behind heavy security, Merkel used her negotiating skills to forge a compromise between a range of views. She persuaded leaders to agree on trade, energy and Africa while acknowledging differences with the US on climate change.
She was not involved in what was for many the diplomatic highlight — the first encounter between Trump and Putin.
She has promised compensation to residents whose property was damaged.