By Walden Bello* 

(Sapporo, July 6, 2008) Trade, climate change, skyrocketing oil prices, and debt have been the topics of discussion in the parallel civil society events to the Group of Eight Summit, but the issue that has drawn the greatest attention is the Japanese authorities’ heavy handed approach to security for the official gathering.
 
21,000 police personnel have been deployed to the island of Hokkaido, most of them to the city of Sapporo and nearby Toyako, where the meeting will take place next week.  Large numbers of them, including contingents of riot police dressed up in Darth Vader gear, were stationed along the route of the Peace Walk staged by several thousand protesters on Saturday, July 5.  To show they meant business, police smashed the window of a vehicle and arrested two of its occupants for playing music that they said was interfering with their operations.  One photojournalist and a participant in the demonstration were also apprehended.
 
That same morning, 24 activists were flown back to Korea after being held for over 24 hours at Hokkaido’s Chitose Airport.  Nineteen of them belonged to the international peasant group Via Campesina and four to the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU).   As a result of this action, several events were disrupted, including a symposium on free trade agreements that I was supposed to speak at that had been organized by the Korean trade unionists who had been deported.