Sabtu, 16 November 2019
Trump responds to former US ambassador's testimony | ABC News - ABC News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CzdsoGT8Zg
2019-11-16 16:25:37Z
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Prince Andrew: I stayed friends with Jeffrey Epstein because he was 'too honorable' - New York Post
Prince Andrew stayed friends with convicted billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein because he was “too honorable” to end the relationship, The Duke of York told the BBC.
The royal — who was photographed at Epstein’s Manhattan mansion as recently as 2010 and is accused of having sex with one of his alleged underage victims — said he stayed at the pervert’s lair for the sake of “convenience.”
The photos of the prince peeking his head out from behind the front door of the Upper East Side townhouse were taken just months after Epstein’s Florida prison sentence on charges of soliciting an underage girl for prostitution.
“It was a convenient place to stay. I mean I’ve gone through this in my mind so many times,” he told the BBC’s Emily Maitlis in an interview set to air Saturday. “At the end of the day, with a benefit of all the hindsight that one can have, it was definitely the wrong thing to do.”
The prince blamed his admittedly faulty decision making on his strong sense of loyalty.
“At the time I felt it was the honorable and right thing to do, and I admit fully that my judgement was probably colored by my tendency to be too honorable, but that’s just the way it is,” he said.
The royal also denied claims he slept with alleged Epstein sex slave Virginia Roberts Guiffre.
https://nypost.com/2019/11/16/prince-andrew-i-stayed-friends-with-jeffrey-epstein-because-he-was-too-honorable/
2019-11-16 15:00:00Z
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Fact check: A list of 45 ways Trump has been dishonest about Ukraine and impeachment - CNN
Relentless deceit has seemed to be his primary defense strategy in the court of public opinion. Trump has made false claims about almost every separate component of the story, from his July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the whistleblower who complained about the call to Democrats' impeachment inquiry hearings.
The President is dissembling about so many different topics at once that it can be difficult to keep track of what is true and what isn't. To help you fight Trump-induced dizziness, here are brief fact checks of 45 separate false claims Trump has made on the subject of Ukraine or impeachment.
The phone call with Zelensky
1. Trump released an "exact transcript" of his call with Zelensky. (The document says on its first page that it is "not a verbatim transcript.")
2. Trump did not ask Zelensky for anything on the call. (Trump asked Zelensky to look into former Vice President Joe Biden, look into a debunked conspiracy theory about Democratic computer servers, and speak with his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr.)
3. Zelensky criticized former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch "out of the blue" on the call. (Trump brought up Yovanovitch first.)
4. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was "angry" when she saw the rough transcript of the call, and she said, "This is not what the whistleblower said." (Pelosi has said no such thing in public, and there is no evidence she has said anything like that in private. Her public statement on the call was scathing.)
5. "Everybody" that looked at the text of the call agreed that it was "perfect." (Some of Trump's staunch defenders agreed with this characterization, but clearly not "everybody" did.)
6. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell spoke to Trump about the call and said, "That was the most innocent phone call that I've read." (McConnell said he doesn't recall speaking to Trump about the call. His public statement on the call was far less effusive than Trump's description.)
7. People are not talking about the call anymore. (People continue to talk about the call, a central focus of the impeachment inquiry.)
8. The Washington Post made up fictional sources for its article on how Trump had allegedly tried to get Barr to hold a news conference saying Trump had broken no laws in the call. (There is no evidence that the Post invented sources. Other major news outlets, including CNN, quickly reported the same thing the Post did.)
The whistleblower
9. The whistleblower was "sooo wrong." (The rough transcript and witness testimony have proven the whistleblower to have been highly accurate.)
10. The whistleblower, a second whistleblower and the first whistleblower's source have all "disappeared." (There is no evidence for this. Whistleblowers do not have an obligation to speak publicly after filing their complaints.)
11. The whistleblower had "all second hand" information. (While the whistleblower did get information about the call from other people, the whistleblower also had "direct knowledge of certain alleged conduct," noted Michael Atkinson, the Trump-appointed inspector general for the intelligence community.)
12. The whistleblower "said 'quid pro quo' eight times." (The whistleblower did not even use the words "quid pro quo" in the complaint, much less specify a number of times Trump allegedly said those words. Trump may have been referring to a Wall Street Journal article that had asserted that Trump urged Zelensky "about eight times to work with Rudy Giuliani" on a probe that could hurt Biden; the article did not say this claim came from the whistleblower.)
13. The whistleblower "works now for Biden." (There is no evidence for this. The whistleblower's lawyers said their client has never worked for or advised a candidate, campaign or party; the lawyers said the whistleblower has come into contact with presidential candidates for both parties while working as a civil servant in the executive branch.)
14. Someone "changed the long standing whistleblower rules" just before this whistleblower submitted their complaint. (Contrary to a report on a right-wing website, the whistleblower rules were not changed.)
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff
15. Schiff committed "a criminal act" by delivering an exaggerated interpretation of Trump's July 25 call at a committee hearing. (The Constitution gives members of Congress immunity for comments they make at committee.)
16. Schiff did have immunity for his comments at the committee, but not when he tweeted a video of those comments. (Experts say members of Congress also have immunity for videos of their comments at committee.)
17. Schiff might have committed "treason." (Treason has a specific constitutional definition that Schiff's actions do not come close to meeting.)
18. Schiff made his comments before Trump released the rough transcript of the call, not expecting Trump to release it. (Schiff spoke the day after Trump released the document.)
19. Schiff "didn't use one word that I said" in his rendition of the call. (Schiff did add words Trump had never said, but he didn't make up the whole thing; some of his remarks hewed closely to what Trump said.)
20. Schiff might have been the whistleblower's source. (This is nonsense. The whistleblower said in the complaint that information about the call came from "multiple White House officials with direct knowledge of the call.")
21. Schiff might have picked the whistleblower. (The whistleblower sought guidance from Schiff's committee before filing their complaint, but Schiff didn't "pick" the whistleblower.)
22. Schiff "will only release doctored transcripts." (Schiff has already released multiple transcripts of testimony from closed-door impeachment inquiry hearings, and there was no sign that any of them had been "doctored." Witnesses and their lawyers were given the opportunity to verify the accuracy of the transcripts prior to release, and Republicans who attended the testimony did not allege that any transcripts had been improperly altered.)
The impeachment process
23. Republicans were not allowed into the closed-door impeachment inquiry hearings. (Republican members of the three committees holding the hearings were allowed into the room and to ask questions of witnesses. Only Republicans who were not on the committees were barred from the room.)
24. Republicans were not allowed to ask questions in the closed-door hearings. (Republicans were allowed to ask questions. Democrats and Republicans alternated questioning.)
25. Nobody else has ever faced closed-door impeachment hearings. (Both the Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton impeachment processes involved some closed-door hearings.)
26. Trump's opponents have committed "illegal acts" related to impeachment. (Trump wasn't clear about who he was talking about, but there is no evidence of illegality by either the whistleblower or Democrats.)
27. The people who have testified in the impeachment inquiry have had "no firsthand knowledge." (Various witnesses have had firsthand knowledge of various components of the story.)
28. Gordon Sondland, ambassador to the European Union, still says there was "no quid pro quo." (Sondland revised his original testimony to effectively acknowledge his belief that there had been a quid pro quo.)
29. Unlike Democrats, former House Speaker Paul Ryan "would never issue a subpoena." (Numerous Republican subpoenas were issued to the Obama administration during Ryan's tenure as speaker.)
30. "Many" of the people who had testified as of October 21 "were put there during Obama, during Clinton, during the Never Trump or Bush era." (FactCheck.org noted that just two of the nine people who had testified at that point had been appointed under Obama. The other seven were appointed by Trump or his appointees.)
The Bidens
31. Joe Biden, along with his son Hunter Biden, has "ripped off at least two countries for millions of dollars." (There is no evidence Joe Biden has profited from his son's business dealings abroad.)
32. A video of Joe Biden speaking in 2018 about his past dealings with Ukraine is evidence of "corruption." (The tape does not show corruption. It shows Biden talking about his effort, in accordance with the policy of the US and its allies, to pressure Ukraine into firing a prosecutor widely considered unwilling to fight corruption.)
33. There is a photo of Joe Biden playing golf with "the company boss" of Burisma, the Ukrainian company for which Hunter Biden sat on the board. (Neither Burisma's owner nor chief executive is in the photo. The person Trump had identified as a "Ukraine gas exec" was Devon Archer, another American board member at Burisma and a longtime business associate of Hunter Biden.)
34. That golf photo contradicts Joe Biden's claim to have "never met the gentleman." (Joe Biden had not claimed to have never met Devon Archer.)
35. Hunter Biden was under investigation by the Ukrainian prosecutor who Joe Biden pressured Ukraine to fire. (There is no public evidence that Hunter Biden was ever himself under investigation. The prosecutor's former deputy has said that the actual investigation, into the owner of Burisma, was dormant at the time of Joe Biden's pressure.)
36. Biden pressured Ukraine to take the prosecutor "off the case." (There is no evidence that Biden ever called on Ukraine to remove the prosecutor from the Burisma case. Rather, Biden, like the US government more broadly, tried to get the prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, fired.)
37. Before Joe Biden denied that he had spoken to Hunter Biden about Hunter's overseas business activities, Joe Biden had said he did speak to Hunter about those business activities. (Joe Biden had not said he did speak to Hunter Biden about those business activities. Hunter Biden said they had one brief conversation in which Joe Biden asked him if he knew what he was doing.)
38. Hunter Biden's acts were "illegal." (Hunter Biden has acknowledged using "poor judgment" in accepting the seat on the Burisma board, but there is no evidence of illegality.)
Dealings with Ukraine
39. Trump "didn't delay" the military aid to Ukraine. (His administration did delay the aid.)
40. Democratic senators sent a letter to Ukraine that threatened to deny US aid if the Ukrainians did not comply with their demands. (The letter did not make any threat to Ukraine. The senators expressed concern about a New York Times report that Ukraine had, to avoid Trump's wrath, stopped cooperating with the Mueller investigation and frozen investigations into former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. The letter urged Ukraine to reverse course if the report was true.)
41. President Barack Obama sent mere "pillows and sheets" in aid to Ukraine. (Trump was correct that Obama refused to provide lethal military assistance, but Obama sent other military assistance: drones, armored Humvees, counter-mortar radars, night vision devices and medical supplies.)
42. The US is the "only" country providing assistance to Ukraine, and "nobody else is there." (European countries have provided billions in grants and loans to Ukraine since Russia's 2014 invasion.)
43. Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike is primarily owned by someone from Ukraine. (CrowdStrike is a publicly traded, US-based company co-founded by Dmitri Alperovitch, an American citizen who was born in Russia.)
44. Impeachment has caused Trump's poll numbers to go "way up" to "higher than they've ever been, ever." (There has been no sign of a significant increase in Trump's poll numbers. His approval rating has fallen slightly since the Ukraine scandal began, according to FiveThirtyEight's poll aggregate.)
45. It was "announced" that a Fox News poll showing majority support for impeaching and removing Trump from office was "incorrect." (Fox News says it stands by the poll.)
https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/16/politics/fact-check-trump-dishonesty-ukraine-and-impeachment/index.html
2019-11-16 14:12:00Z
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Prince Andrew says he ‘let down’ the royal family by his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein - The Washington Post
LONDON — Britain’s Prince Andrew insisted he has “no recollection” of meeting a woman who has accused him of having sexual encounters with her when she was 17 at the behest of the now deceased, convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
In an interview conducted at Buckingham Palace with the BBC Newsnight, to be aired Saturday evening, the third child of Queen Elizabeth II said he had “no recollection of ever meeting this lady, none whatsoever,” when asked about Virginia Roberts, now Virginia Giuffre.
Andrew’s close relationship with Epstein, who committed suicide in a New York jail cell in August, has deeply embarrassed Britain’s royal family. Up until now, Andrew — the Duke of York — and the royal family have only reluctantly addressed the charges in terse statements issued from the palace.
Short excerpts of the prince’s full one-hour interview with the BBC were released early.
Andrew told the broadcaster he failed to live up to the high standards of the royal family by staying at Epstein’s mansion in New York City in 2010, when Epstein was already a registered sex offender.
The senior royal’s friendship with Epstein was thrown back into the spotlight this summer after court documents were released in a related defamation case.
In those documents, Giuffre accused Andrew of having sex with her three times, in London, New York and the U.S. Virgin Islands. She said she was paid by Epstein for those encounters.
Giuffre claimed that in 2001, she dined with the prince, danced with him at a nightclub and had sex with him at the home of a friend of the prince, in the Belgravia neighborhood in London.
Giuffre has produced a photograph of Prince Andrew, who is smiling with his arm around her bare waist.
In the background is Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend who accusers say served as his enabler, procuring teens and young women to give massages to Epstein that became sexual. It was unclear if the photograph was discussed during the interview.
Andrew, the brother of Prince Charles and eighth in line to the British throne, told the BBC that he regrets staying at Epstein’s New York mansion after the financier had been convicted in Florida for two charges of felony prostitution.
Remaining friends with Epstein and staying at his home after his release from prison was something “I kick myself for on a daily basis because it was not something that was becoming of a member of the royal family. And we try and uphold the highest standards and practices and I let the side down, simple as that.”
Saturday’s newspaper front pages in Britain were blazing with headlines about the scandal. “ANDREW: I LET QUEEN DOWN,” was from the Daily Mail.
This summer, British newspapers published video footage taken in 2010 of Andrew peering out from behind a large door at Epstein’s house in New York City and waving goodbye to a woman. Epstein had been convicted in 2008 for child sex offenses.
When pressed on why he was at Epstein’s mansion, Andrew said it was a “convenient place to stay.”
“I mean I’ve gone through this in my mind so many times. At the end of the day, with a benefit of all the hindsight that one can have, it was definitely the wrong thing to do.
“But at the time I felt it was the honorable and right thing to do, and I admit fully that my judgment was probably colored by my tendency to be too honorable, but that’s just the way it is,” he said.
In a previous statement, Andrew said he met Epstein in 1999 and saw him “infrequently,” saying that meant “probably no more than only once or twice a year.”
A private investigator has told the press that Epstein had an address book that contained more than a dozen telephone numbers for Prince Andrew.
BBC’s royal correspondent, Jonny Dymond, wrote on Saturday, “There is of course a lot more to come — so far we’ve had two short excerpts from an hour-long interview. But on the biggest question facing the prince — the allegation that he had sex with the 17-year-old Virginia Roberts, now Giuffre — the categorical denial that some might have expected or hoped for simply isn’t there.”
Read more
Duchess Meghan: ‘Not many people have asked if I’m okay’
Hillary Clinton slams British treatment of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, as ‘heartbreaking and wrong’
Prince Andrew ‘appalled’ by Epstein reports after footage emerges linking royal with sex offender
Britain’s Prince Andrew issues new statement to ‘clarify’ his ties to Epstein
The prince and the sex offender: Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein’s mysterious relationship
Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/prince-andrew-says-he-let-down-the-royal-family-by-his-friendship-with-jeffrey-epstein/2019/11/16/d0988a48-07d0-11ea-ae28-7d1898012861_story.html
2019-11-16 13:59:00Z
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Impeachment Hearing Highlights: 7 Lessons From Yovanovitch, Taylor, Kent - NPR
Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs George Kent and top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine William Taylor are sworn in prior to testifying before the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday. Pool/Getty Images hide caption
The first week of Trump impeachment inquiry hearings is in the books.
If you were paying attention to the thousands of pages of closed-door testimonies, you would recognize some of the details that emerged.
But there were some new and important wrinkles from the public hearings with acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor; George Kent, a top State Department official with oversight of Ukraine affairs; and Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, who described a plot to oust her led by President Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.
Here are seven takeaways from this historic and potentially consequential week:
1. It's clear impeachment is shaping up to be a partisan affair
The two sides are pretty dug in. Nothing that got said in the public hearings seemed to move anyone. In fact, one of the more surprising developments might have been the stridency of New York Rep. Elise Stefanik's defense in support of President Trump.
"[N]othing in that room today, and nothing in that room earlier this week, nothing rises to the level of impeachable offenses," Stefanik contended after Yovanovitch's hearing Friday, dismissing a question about the president's tweet criticizing Yovanovitch. "This is wishful political thinking by the Democrats."
Stefanik — with Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, a member of the arch-conservative Freedom Caucus — emerged as the president's staunchest and clearest defenders during the two days of testimony. What made Stefanik's role so eye-opening is that Stefanik has frequently criticized Trump as a candidate and as president.
2. President Trump continues to be his own worst enemy
Nothing sums up Trump's volatility more than the hour between 9 a.m. ET and 10 a.m. ET Friday. A little after 9 a.m. ET, just as Friday's hearing was beginning, the White House released a record of an anodyne April call between President Trump and President Zelenskiy of Ukraine.
Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes read it into the record live on TV, and it appeared the White House and House Republicans had finally gotten on the same messaging page. That is until an hour later, when Trump fired off a tweet hotly critical of Yovanovitch as she was testifying.
Trump claimed "everywhere" she went "turned bad." He even seemed to blame her for unrest in Somalia, a country she served in as a junior Foreign Service Officer that has a long history of political problems, violence and terrorism.
Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in Somalia, how did that go? Then fast forward to Ukraine, where the new Ukrainian President spoke unfavorably about her in my second phone call with him. It is a U.S. President’s absolute right to appoint ambassadors.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2019
Some conservatives criticized Trump for it. Ken Starr, the independent counsel whose investigation led to President Bill Clinton's impeachment, said on Fox News that Trump's tweet showed "extraordinarily poor judgment" and was "quite injurious."
Trump later defended himself, saying he has "freedom of speech."
Yovanovitch, responding in almost real time, said the president's attacks were "very intimidating." House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff chalked it up to "witness intimidation," something he said he takes "very, very seriously."
3. "Witness intimidation" and "bribery" emerge as potential articles of impeachment
The president's tweet gives Democrats another arrow in their impeachment quiver. They very well could add witness intimidation or witness tampering to their growing list of potential articles of impeachment.
Another word that emerged this week was "bribery."
"What the President has admitted to and says it's 'perfect,' I've said it's perfectly wrong. It's bribery," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said during her weekly news conference. She was referring to the president saying his now-infamous July 25 call with Zelenskiy was "perfect."
During that call, Trump asks Zelenskiy for a "favor" to investigate a conspiracy theory about Ukraine's involvement in the 2016 election and former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma.
"Bribery" is important as a word, because it happens to be in the Constitution when referring to reasons a president could be removed from office.
4. A new witness says Trump didn't give a "s***" about Ukraine, only about "big stuff" like the "Biden investigation"
Republicans dismissed the witnesses brought forward as not having first-hand knowledge of presidential wrongdoing and that their testimonies were solely "hearsay." That's not exactly true — Taylor, for example, noted that he witnessed European Union ambassador Gordon Sondland telling a Ukrainian aide to Zelenskiy that military funding was unlikely to come unless the country made a public statement in support of investigations important to President Trump.
But a new witness, David Holmes, a political counselor in the U.S. embassy in Ukraine, emerged in Taylor's testimony. Holmes testified behind closed doors Friday. CNN obtained a copy of his opening statement, which NPR has confirmed.
The statement says Holmes heard Trump ask Sondland in a phone call at a Ukrainian restaurant, "So, he's [Zelenskiy] going to do the investigation?"
Sondland reportedly replied, yes, Zelenskiy will do "anything you ask him to."
Holmes also reportedly testified that Sondland said Trump didn't give a "s***" about Ukraine. He only cares about the "big stuff." And the big stuff, according to Sondland, is what "benefits the president" — like the "Biden investigation that Mr. Giuliani was pushing."
5. These were very credible witnesses
It's not uncommon in political brawls for someone's character to be impugned. But that was tough to do with the three witnesses who came forward this week.
They came across as dedicated and serious public servants with deep wells of experience — two U.S. ambassadors to Ukraine, one of whom is a decorated Vietnam veteran and West Point graduate, and a top State Department official with oversight over the country, who, for the past seven years, has overseen efforts to fight corruption in a multi-pronged way.
Republicans didn't try to attack their character. Instead, they focused on the relevance of the witnesses, given they didn't talk to or know the president. But the inability to dent their character gave the witnesses more credibility.
6. Democrats and Republicans will feel that they accomplished their goals
Democrats can say that the Democratic lawmakers on the committee and the witnesses came across as sober and serious. The witnesses corroborated each other and the whistleblower complaint and showed they had reason for concern about what the official U.S. foreign policy was toward Ukraine. And the witnesses testimony raised serious questions about the president's conduct.
Republicans were able to give their base points to rally around. They were able to sow some doubt about how much the witnesses knew first hand about Trump's role. The GOP effort also tried to show Trump might have reason to be skeptical of Ukrainians after some Ukrainian officials said negative things about him during the 2016 campaign and that corruption has been rampant in Ukraine, including, and perhaps especially, at Burisma. And Republicans repeatedly hammered home the point that a president can fire an ambassador at will.
7. This is "the beginning of the story"
This was just the first week of public hearings. Schiff stressed there is lots more to come.
"You are the beginning of this story," Schiff said toward the end of Yovanovitch's testimony. "You're not the end of it, but, nonetheless, the beginning is important, because the beginning of the story is an effort to get you out of the way ... because they felt you were an impediment to these political investigations the president so desperately wanted."
And next week, seven more key officials are scheduled to testify publicly. On Tuesday, it will be Jennifer Williams, an aide to Vice President Pence; Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman; U.S. special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker; and former National Security Council official Tim Morrison. (Republicans requested that Volker and Morrison testify.)
On Wednesday, it's Sondland and GOP-requested witness Laura Cooper, a Defense Department official. And on Thursday, Fiona Hill, a former NSC official close to former national security adviser John Bolton, will appear before the committee.
https://www.npr.org/2019/11/16/779967058/what-we-learned-from-the-1st-week-of-impeachment-hearings
2019-11-16 12:50:00Z
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New book describes President Trump as a 'complete amateur' - CBS This Morning
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_4CyL5vzwI
2019-11-16 12:33:24Z
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Mainland Chinese Soldiers Take to Hong Kong Streets for First Time During Protests - The Wall Street Journal
HONG KONG—In a highly symbolic action, mainland Chinese soldiers in black shorts and olive drab T-shirts jogged out of a barracks here to clear streets of bricks, metal bars and other debris left by demonstrators after one of the most violent weeks in five months of pro-democracy protests.
China has garrisoned People’s Liberation Army troops in Hong Kong since the 1997 handover of the former British colony. The soldiers here mostly keep to their barracks and are broadly meant to operate in the city only if the local government asks for assistance.
The presence of the soldiers, even dressed in what amounted to jogging attire, undertaking a brief but politically charged act of removing roadblocks left by Hong Kong’s protesters fueled speculation about the extent of their future role in the semiautonomous city.
The possibility that mainland China might use its military to crush Hong Kong’s protest movement has hung over the demonstrations for months. On Thursday, China’s leader personally commented on the unrest for the first time, exhorting Hong Kong to restore order. The Hong Kong government didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday.
The soldiers’ cleanup effort, captured at least in part on local television, took place near a barracks in the Kowloon Tong neighborhood, close to one of the city’s universities, a number of which have been protest hot spots in the past week.
The Chinese Communist Party-run People’s Daily newspaper tweeted about the PLA soldiers joining the cleanup effort, posting three pictures of the event.
The men, who wore their hair military-style short, ran from one cleanup spot to the next, carrying buckets of bricks and other debris, local television showed. A few wore basketball uniforms.
Article 14 of the Basic Law—Hong Kong’s mini-constitution—says military forces stationed by Beijing in the region for defense shouldn’t interfere with local affairs. However, local authorities can ask Beijing for assistance from the garrison for public order and disaster relief. Hong Kong doesn’t have its own military. Last year, hundreds of Chinese soldiers were deployed in Hong Kong to help with cleanup efforts following a massive typhoon.
Most people in the city associate China’s army with its deployment at Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989.
A video circulating on social media Saturday showed a PLA soldier saying their cleanup didn’t have anything to do with the Hong Kong government. “We initiated this. Stopping violence and ending chaos is our responsibility,” he said, highlighting a phrase that Chinese President Xi Jinping has previously used.
At one point, a group of 20 or so soldiers arrived running in formation with brooms and other gear. They scraped off soot, and emptied buckets of debris into dumpsters.
In addition to the PLA, local residents pitched in during the cleanup, according to several students at Baptist University who witnessed the scene. Hong Kong police mostly just watched, the students said.
About a dozen students observed the street-clearing from the university’s Communication and Visual Art building overlooking Baptist University Road, the focus of the cleaning efforts for most of the afternoon.
One student in the building at the time, who asked to be identified only by his surname, Tse, said he saw Chinese soldiers in matching outfits walk out of the PLA barracks Saturday afternoon. Mr. Tse said he was upset to see the roadblocks being cleared away, but couldn’t do anything about it because the students were outnumbered.
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Many students and protesters here went to other universities Monday night because there wasn’t much action at Baptist University, he said. Mr. Tse said he stuck around, though, just in case.
The cleanup effort in Kowloon was one of several that took place across Hong Kong on Saturday, including in areas near the University of Hong Kong that were previously the scene of tense standoffs between protesters and police. On Saturday, local residents near HKU helped clear the area by dismantling the protesters’ barriers and removing bricks from the road.
The protests were sparked earlier this year by a contentious extradition bill that would have allowed suspects to be sent to mainland China for trial. Though the bill has been withdrawn, the protests have grown in an antigovernment movement opposed to mainland China’s encroachment on the semiautonomous territory.
Some of the ugliest incidents between protesters and police occurred during the most recent workweek, leaving the city’s leaders scrambling for a way to restore order under increasing pressure from Beijing.
A 70-year-old man died Thursday night after being hit in the head with a brick during a clash a day earlier. A 15-year-old boy who was in critical condition as of Wednesday reportedly suffered injuries after appearing to be hit in the head by a tear-gas canister. On Monday, police shot a 21-year-old protester; later, pro-democracy demonstrators set a man who argued with them on fire.
—Rachel Yeo contributed to this article.
Write to John Lyons at john.lyons@wsj.com, Steven Russolillo at steven.russolillo@wsj.com and Eun-Young Jeong at Eun-Young.Jeong@wsj.com
Copyright ©2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
https://www.wsj.com/articles/mainland-chinese-soldiers-take-to-hong-kong-streets-for-first-time-since-protests-began-11573907250
2019-11-16 12:27:00Z
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