For more than three weeks, hundreds of protesters have deactivated the center of New Zealand’s capital, occupied the area in front of parliament and made increasingly violent threats against politicians and other public figures in a sham battle against the country’s vaccine mandates.
On Wednesday, the 23rd day of the protest, police launched an aggressive crackdown, disembarking at the Wellington site at 6 a.m., dismantling tents, toilets, kitchens and other camp infrastructure and urging protesters to leave. In the end, most did – but not without a fight.
In chaotic and sometimes bloody clashes, protesters used fire extinguishers filled with paint shells, homemade plywood shields and forks. Some bumped into the cobblestones of the officers. Others have accumulated debris on gas fires, including the one that caused an explosion at a playground near parliament.
Protest leaders against the soundtrack to the national anthem and Maori pop song “Poi E” from the 1980s called on protesters to hold the line and called the police “Gestapo”. Officers, many wearing riot shields, responded with pepper spray and rubber bullets. At least 60 people were arrested and three employees were taken to hospitals.
Such scenes are rare in New Zealand, a country known for its relative remoteness, tranquility and stability. In this case, however, police expected “hostility, resistance and violence,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told a news conference. “That’s what they and the Wellings have been going through for weeks.”
As the protest intensified, she said, police avoided escalating the situation. But growing violence has left officers with few alternatives in “trying to bring the profession to an end.”
Inspired by the recent anti-government protest by truck drivers in the Canadian capital, Ottawa, the occupation was a response to New Zealand’s highly restrictive approach to the pandemic, which allowed the country months without a single surrender to the community.
The restrictions appear to have repelled a small group of New Zealanders, many of whom have lost their jobs after refusing to abide by the country’s comprehensive vaccine mandates.
The first days of the protest had a calm, even carnival atmosphere, as protesters scattered mud and hay on the lawn in front of parliament and set up their campsite.
But in the following weeks, the composition of the crowd changed, leading to much more violence and forcing police to intervene, said Andrew Koster, police commissioner, at a news conference on Wednesday. “The damage far outweighs any legitimate protest,” he added.
The protest was unpopular from the start: in a poll about a week later, 61 percent of those polled opposed the occupation. Over time, hostility to the protesters has grown, especially as people living in Wellington have encountered blocked streets, harassment and violence by protesters and an increasingly smelly protest site.
As in Canada and elsewhere, rocked by pandemic protests, a segment of people demonstrating against restrictions on viruses in New Zealand have gradually been included in the far right.
In a working paper released late last year, members of the New Zealand think tank Te Punaha Matatini warned that the two groups were merging in an alarming way. “The latest outbreak of Covid-19 and the vaccine are highly visible, powerful symbols used to promote various far-right and conservative ideologies,” the newspaper said.
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“Channels and groups of telegrams are broadcasting content that is violent, far-right and related to the QAnon conspiracy theory, signaling an almost smooth transition for New Zealanders from vaccine hesitation, vaccine resistance and then to content that reflects broader conspiratorial ideologies, ”they added.
To dusk on Wednesday, the police cleared the majority of the place of the protest, which made some remaining demonstrators escape instead of facing them. Some descended on the city’s nearby central train station, and at least one group headed to camper parking spaces in Porirua, 10 miles north of the capital. Several dozen people remained on the streets around the parliament.
Speaking at the press conference, Ms. Ardern praised the police and said two checks would be carried out to determine if more could have been done to prevent the occupation. She expressed hope that the events of the day would not change the way New Zealanders recall the pandemic’s response.
“Looking back on this period in our history, I hope we remember one thing,” Ms. Ardern said. “Thousands more lives have been saved in the last two years from your actions as New Zealanders than were on the grass in front of parliament today.
Pete Mackenzie contributed to the reporting.