Hong Kong officials resume work as protests thin

HONG KONG — Hong Kong's civil servants returned to work and schools were reopening yesterday as a massive pro-democracy protest that has occupied much of the city center for the week dwindled.

Student demonstrators say they have taken early steps to begin talks with the government on their demands for wider political reforms, but actual negotiations have not started and many disagreements remain.

At the government headquarters, where some protesters agreed to remove barriers blocking roads Sunday ahead of the government's deadline to scale back their protests, the scene was orderly as government officials arrived for work. About 25 or so remaining protesters, mostly young students, looked on as a dozen police stood guard nearby.

The crowds had thinned markedly after a week that saw tens of thousands of people fill the streets in peaceful protest. In Mong Kok, another protest site across the harbor where protesters had clashed violently with their opponents, a few hundred activists were staying put at the sit-in site.

Some activists disagree with the partial withdrawal at government headquarters, and an alliance of students say they will keep up their protests until details of the talks are worked out. They say they will walk away from the talks as soon as the government uses force to clear away the remaining protesters.

Alex Chow, a student leader, said he was not worried about the crowd dwindling.

"Because people need rest, but they will come out again. It doesn't mean the movement is diminishing. Many people still support it," Chow said.

But Louis Chan, who still plans to stay at the government headquarters for "as long as he can," is not sure achieving universal suffrage — the students' original goal — is now likely.

"I think it was possible, but now I don't think so because they (the Hong Kong government) don't give any response and China is also very much against this," he said.

Students occupying an area just outside city government headquarters agreed to remove some barricades that were blocking the building's entrance, after the government said it would do whatever was necessary to ensure 3,000 civil servants would have full access to their offices on yesterday.

The partial withdrawal appeared to be part of a strategy to regroup in another part of town, as protesters were urged to shift from other areas to Hong Kong's Admiralty shopping and business district, a central location near the government's main offices that has served as an informal headquarters for the protests.

Protesters had feared that officials may clear the streets by force, but by yesterday it's clear the government was settling for a partial victory in clearing some roads. A main road on the Hong Kong Island remains partly closed, and the government indicated some disruptions were likely to continue.

"To restore order, we are determined, and we are confident we have the capability to take any necessary action," police spokesman Steve Hui said. "There should not be any unreasonable, unnecessary obstruction by any members of the public."

Television footage showed a man shaking hands with a police officer outside government headquarters and the two sides removing some barricades together. About 300 demonstrators stood by outside the government building's main entrance, but then many sat back down and refused to leave.

"I'm against any kind of withdrawal or tendency to surrender," said Do Chan, a protester in his 30s. "I think withdrawing, I mean shaking hands with the police, is a very ugly gesture of surrender."

Tens of thousands of people, many of them students, have poured into the streets of the semi-autonomous city since Sept. 28 to peacefully protest China's restrictions on the first-ever direct election for Hong Kong's leader, promised by Beijing for 2017. The protests are the strongest challenge to authorities in Hong Kong — and in Beijing — since the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

China has promised that Hong Kong can have universal suffrage by 2017, but it says a committee of mostly pro-Beijing figures must screen candidates for the top job. The protesters also are demanding the resignation of Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, the city's current leader. He has refused to step down.

Police said they had arrested 30 people since the start of the protests. Protesters, meanwhile, complained the police were failing to protect them from attacks by mobs intent on driving them away.