i have to ask myself, why would the police clear mong kok now? why not on Monday? why not next Friday after the talks?
doing it today has some many drawbacks:
- police is already seen negative due to the Ken Tsang beating
- government just announced that they want to talk to students yesterday, so why provoke the movement with a clearance today
- it's Friday so everyone has time tonight and over the weekend to re-occupy that intersection. you can almost predict the skirmishes coming in the next 2 days
- which might mean that there will be possible violence, leading to a further police backlash and potential cancellation of the talks by either the government or the students
the only positive i can see is that the police thinks by clearing now, and 'cleaning up' over the next 2 days, they will have a clear intersection in Mong Kok by Monday again.
...or is the government seeking clashes so they can cancel the talks again and play for further time?...
My guess is a faction is seeking to derail any talks and provoke an incident. There is a sit down starting by the core of OC
To be fair the police on the ground are not seeking a confrontation. They are spending a lot of time trying to negotiate. HOWEVER .. someone with an agenda is going to bring this to the boil IMHO. Then the talks will magically evaporate. Just a thought and I hope I'm wrong.
Mongkok appears to be occupied again.
[live] Occupy Central Civil Disobedience Movement (Umbrella Revolution)
That's assuming the government really thinks negotiation is the best way forward. I doubt that is what the gov thinks. All along they wanted to out last the OC movement, let them sputter and die and send in the police to clean them up afterwards.
Now they have this negotiation attempt (again) as a sort of face-saving gesture to show the public the government do want to sit-down and listen to the protester's demands. Except for the little problem that the government has consistently refused any discussion on the substantive matters raised by the OC movement. So what exactly could they negotiate over? The orderly removal of the OC protesters? Ha, the government don't seriously expect the OC protesters to just get up and vacate Harcourt Road with nothing gained in return?
Which means this negotiation is nothing but a show, a waste of time. It could be a strategy to distract the protesters and to prep the police to move in on Harcourt Road. Buy time for the police to plan their operation.
Alternatively, I suppose there is a possibility that the government is prepare to yield in private meetings more than they will admit in public so far. But so far there is no hint of that.
Last edited by Cho-man; 17-10-2014 at 10:11 AM.