[asia-apec 1121] APEC "cleansing" in Auckland

[Jaggi Singh]

[According to the police operations commander below, the area around the
APEC site in Auckland must be "free of people" during the Leader's
Meeting. Nothing could better show what APEC-style globalization is all
about. -- JBS]

from The New Zealand Herald

 
  07/05/99 - City vagrants get hurry-along for Apec 
 
By Bernard Orsman and Tony Wall 

Vagrants who sleep in the Auckland Domain will be kicked out during the
Apec conference in September and offered free beds elsewhere.

Police insisted yesterday that they were not planning to embark on a
cleanup of the central city as occurred before the Apec meeting in
Vancouver, Canada, in 1997 and in Harare, Zimbabwe, before Commonwealth
leaders meet there in 1991.

But homeless people spoken to last night said they had noticed a police
crackdown on the streets and parks where they slept.

Police say they will offer the dozen or so regulars who doss down in the
Domain a comfortable bed elsewhere while world leaders gather at the
Auckland Museum.

The police operations commander for Apec, Detective Superintendent Peter
Marshall, said it was central to security to keep the Domain free of
people during the conference. It was planned to close it to the public for
about 48 hours.

A parliamentary select committee will hear submissions on the proposal in
Auckland on Tuesday.

Mr Marshall said the police had no intention of cleansing the streets of
vagrants.

They would be offered comfortable accommodation and possibly meals,
although he did not know where they would go or how much it would cost.

One man who sleeps in the Auckland Domain said police had begun issuing
"no trespass" notices to homeless people sleeping there and in all areas
around it as far as Parnell. He said the tough approach started about
three weeks ago.

A policeman roused him from a bush where he was sleeping, issued him with
a trespass notice and told him to move along. He and friends had also been
banned from using a shower under the Domain grandstand.

Others spoken to said police were getting tough with the central city
homeless.

"I think they're pathetic," said Raymond Murphy at the Auckland City
Mission last night. "They won't deal with the homeless problem long term;
they just put us in a hotel."

Another man said: "I wouldn't be within two miles of the Domain during the
conference. I'll just go somewhere else and when they go away I'll come
back."

At the Auckland Central police station, Duty Inspector Peter Gibson said
he was unaware of any specific directive on vagrants.

Mayor Christine Fletcher said there was no intention of hiding people from
view.

 
 Copyright 1999, NZ Herald