SECRET
INWARD TELEGRAM
TO THE COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (The Secretary of State)
FROM HONG KONG (Sir D. Trench)
A
Cypher
Do
22 May, 1967.
11
14002
R. 22
IMMEDIATE
SECRET
No. 663.
1967
23
MAY
#1 12
3
!X
(115
RECEIVED IN
ARCHIVES Nɔ. 63
23AP
HWA'li
Repeated
Addressed to Commonwealth Office.
"Peking No. 249.
11
11
"P.A. Singapore No. 116.
"Washington No. 130. (Please pass PRIORITY
to all).
My telegram No. 656.
108
Statue Square was again the main centre for disorder, but there were also disturbances in Kowloon and farther east on Hong Kong Island. The first main incident was at 1100 hours when a crowd tried to force its way up to Government House. Over 100 people were arrested. At about the same time a crowd of 600-700 outside the South Kowloon Magistracy, consisting mainly of school children became unruly and had to be dispersed with tear gas. Demonstrators on the Hong Kong side reformed in Statue Square and at the foot of Garden Road, then moved in procession around the central area of the city singing and shouting. Their main aim was to provoke the police. In this they were encouraged and directed by the loud speaker in the Bank of China.
20
At 12.30 as the lunch time traffic was building to its peak, bus drivers in the area of the Star Ferry and its approach roads on the Hong Kong side abandoned their vehicles completely blocking the roads. Shortly after on the Kowloon side a group of bus company employees attacked the police at the bus/ferry terminus. At the same time, a crowd in the Causeway Bay area on the island speedily grew to over 1,000 when reinforced by school children and had to be dispersed with tear gas.
3. The situation was obviously deteriorating and the Commissioner of Police asked for a curfew in Hong Kong. At 15.15 hours I declared a curfew to cover the urban areas on the north of Hong Kong Island from 18.30 to 05.00 hours.
40 During the afternoon, demonstrators remained in the Statue Square but made no major offensive moves. The drowning of the Bank of China's loudspeaker by an even louder machine playing music from the roof of a nearby Government building possibly helped. By 16.30 hours the situation was quiet and crowds, mainly from offices in the central district, were dispersing towards their homes as best they could, conscious of the impending curfew and hampered by the dearth of public transport. It is hoped that the curfew will enable the police to rest some of its men. At the same time it may discourage
the onlookers who throughout the day complicated the problem of
108 120 124
SECRET
/crowd
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