My First Riot Experience

Today Isaac messaged us warning not to go into town because of a riot and tear gas. So of course I quickly got ready and went with one of the staff, Lillian. Apparently, a few days ago some guy was trying to steal timber from some company and the forestry guards shot him 4 times and he died. The government response to this excessive force was unsatisfactory so the people started a riot. 

Some children running from the scene

Unfortunately, by the time I reached the outskirts of the town it was mostly over. We saw the road littered with large rocks, bricks, signs and anything the people could find to slow / block the police. Some fires were also burning on the road for the same reason. People were actually encouraging me to take photos and post them on the internet so this made me feel safe as long as the riot police didn’t see. There was large gathering of people shouting and waving sticks and bats. 

The sign on the road is priceless

The road was littered with debris for around 1km

At this point, we hadn’t seen any police but all of a sudden people started running away and I could see a riot truck and police slowly walking towards us from a distance. As they got closer, people started to throw stones and we then heard really loud explosions of tear gas can and / or just blank firings. Unfortunately, I never got to smell the tear gas… 

My 20x zoom came in very handy in snapping the approaching riot police

We decided to go into an adjacent street while the protesters cleared out and then walked back. We then just chose to walk directly through the advancing police on the main road. Reasoning was that we were not throwing stones or holding any weapons so they wouldn't be concerned as long as I wasn’t pulling out my camera. Some locals said it would be fine especially since i was a foreigner. Naturally, I set my phone to take photos discreetly every 10 seconds and we walked past the advancing riot police and trucks. One guy about 15 meters behind us was thrown to the ground and arrested because he was holding rocks. I also saw the firing blanks into some side streets. We just walked on calmly past the police towards the town centre without incident.

Walking past the advancing riot police

In the town centre, there were also a large group of onlookers looking down the road at the police walking away. That was really the end of it. We went to the super market to buy some groceries and gin. Then headed back on a boda boda (motorcycle taxi) passing several groups of riot police along the a slightly damaged road with several black remains of burned out debris.

Throughout the whole experience, I felt quite safe and relaxed. I trusted that since the people were angry at the government and not me, I wouldn't be touched. Especially after they encouraged me to take photos and even posed near a fire. I got a bit scared when I saw the people start throwing rocks as I didn't want to get stuck between the rioters and the police. I also got a bit of a shock when I heard the tear gas guns being fired but I got used to it pretty quick. Otherwise it was all good and quite interesting.

It is sad to see people so frustrated with the government which has been in power for almost 30 years and has failed to really help the country sufficiently. This is the only way to affect change these days as anyone in the developed world knows, all the polls and newspaper comments in the world have no influence on our captured politicians. In Australia, housing affordability is one of, if not the most important issues and yet there is no mention of it before the election.