Fuel protests in Philippines bring out crowds, riot squads

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Fuel protests in Philippines bring out crowds, riot squads

Agence France-Presse

MANILA, Philippines (September 15, 2000 12:45 a.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - About a thousand Philippine riot police squared off with hundreds of demonstrators protesting rising oil prices near two petroleum storage facilities in Manila Friday.

The protests came a day after deadly firebomb attacks on several gasoline stations in the southern Philippines.

Television footage Friday showed special weapons and tactics police and private security guards behind barbed wire-wrapped barricades.

Radio reports said the police phalanx prevented about 400 left wing protesters from marching on the central Manila oil depots of refineries Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. and Caltex Philippines Inc.

In a separate incident, protesters threw salted fish paste at the office frontage of Pilipinas Shell in the Makati district, local radio said.

The demonstrators left the depots at midday and headed for the US embassy to protest the visit Friday of US Defense Secretary William Cohen, a spokesman for the protesters told AFP.

The government mounted a massive security operation around oil facilities Friday after three gasoline stations were firebombed in the southern Philippines on Thursday.

The attacks in the towns of Kabacan, Matalam and Pikit killed one person and injured five others, provincial governor Manny Pinol said Friday. Fires ignited by the explosive devices also destroyed one building, he added.

No group has claimed responsibility for the blasts, which occurred in areas near the sites of recent intense gun battles between government forces and Muslim separatist guerrillas of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

Police said they expected left wing protesters to imitate actions taken in the past few days by transport workers and other groups in Europe that have paralyzed major cities.

The energy department said on Thursday it would undertake "necessary measures to ensure the continuous flow of petroleum products to all end-users" if the protesters prevented oil tankers from making deliveries to service stations.

http://www.nandotimes.com/noframes/story/0,2107,500257524-500395829-502356942-0,00.html

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), September 15, 2000


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