TNAG-0118-FCO40-154-Disturbances-1967-1968-1969 — Page 26

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At the San Po Kong factory itself there were further demon- strations, with processions and the chanting of slogans. These inevitably attracted crowds of idle spectators as well as hooligans and mischief-makers and, when, on May 11, communist pickets threatened to break into the factory and there was a further clash with the police, there was a mob at hand ripe for violence. There was serious rioting, which spread from the streets in the vicinity of the factory to adjacent areas of Kowloon, and for three days mobs, including many who were paid to take part, battled the police, attacked and set fire to buses and other vehicles and broke into and looted government offices and staff quarters in an orgy of destruction. A curfew was imposed in the affected areas during the nights of the 11th, 12th and 13th, but it was not until the 14th that calm was restored. These disturbances were dealt with firmly by the police but with the minimum of force; no firearms were used and the army was not called upon for assistance.

Meanwhile, a campaign of intimidation had also begun on Hong Kong Island. An ‘All-Circles Anti-Persecution Struggle Committee' was formed, with a membership drawn from all communist organizations in the Colony. It was given considerable publicity in the communist press. Delegations of employees of communist newspapers and department stores and representatives of communist trade unions and other organizations began to converge on Govern- ment House with petitions protesting against government brutality and insisting that the communist demands be met.

On May 15 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Peking issued a statement protesting against the action taken by the British au- thorities against Chinese residents in Hong Kong. (This statement possibly reflected the highly coloured reports put out by the com- munist press in Hong Kong. On May 23, for example, the New China News Agency alleged that 200 people had been killed or injured. As a matter of record, one person had been killed and not by police action but probably by a brick thrown or dropped from above him by one of the rioters).

In the days that followed the demonstrations at Government House increased; the demonstrators became more unruly and aggressive and the posters, both at the gates of Government House and elsewhere, more violent and seditious. Powerful loudspeakers

Chanting demonstrators plaster

the gateway of Government House

with posters.