LONDON — Chanting G20 protesters clashed with riot police in central London on Wednesday, overwhelming police lines, vandalizing the Bank of England and smashing windows at the Royal Bank of Scotland. An effigy of a banker was set ablaze, drawing cheers.
More than 30 people were arrested after about 4,000 anarchists, anti-capitalists, environmentalists and others clogged London’s financial district for what demonstrators branded “Financial Fools’ Day.” The protests were called ahead of today’s Group of 20 summit of world leaders, who hope to take concrete steps to resolve the global financial crisis that has lashed nations and workers worldwide.
Late in the day, police said a man collapsed near one of the protest camps, and responding officers were unable to resuscitate him. He was pronounced dead at a hospital. It was unclear whether the man was a protester, and his cause of death is under investigation.
The protests in London’s financial district began as Prime Minister Gordon Brown and U.S. President Barack Obama held a news conference at Britain’s Foreign Ministry elsewhere in the capital. A battered effigy of a banker in a bowler’s hat hung on a traffic light near the Bank of England as protesters waved signs saying: “Resistance is Fertile,” and “Make Love not Leverage.”
Bankers have been lambasted as greedy and blamed for the recession that is making jobless ranks soar. Other banners read “Banks are evil” and “Eat the bankers,” and “0 percent interest in others.”
Some bankers went to work in casual wear Wednesday fearing they could be targeted. Some bolder financial workers leaned out office windows, taunting the demonstrators and waving 10 pound notes at them. Two men — one wearing a suit — exchanged punches before police intervened.
Groups of protesters converged on the central bank, with Tibetan, Palestinian, communist and anarchist flags poking out from the crowd. Tensions rose as officers refused to let the protesters leave the small plaza in front of the bank.
Protesters pelted police standing guard at the Royal Exchange with paint, eggs, fruit and other projectiles,and a small group of anarchists, skinheads, and masked protesters repeatedly attacked a police cordon flanking the Bank of England.
