A small group chanted ‘We will be back’ as Hong Kong police removed what remained of the Causeway Bay encampment
Hong Kong police pulled down barricades Monday, folded up tents and arrested some protesters at the third and final pro-democracy protest camp, putting an end to demonstrations that have blocked traffic in the southern Chinese city's streets for 2 1/2 months.
A small group of protest leaders chanted "we will be back" and called on Leung Chun-ying, Hong Kong's Beijing-backed chief executive, to step down.
A police negotiator gave the 17 protesters one last chance to leave voluntarily from a short stretch of road in Causeway Bay before officers started taking them away one by one to a waiting bus.
By midday the road had been returned to traffic.
"With the cleanup completed in the Causeway Bay occupied area, the illegal occupation of Hong Kong over the past two months has come to an end," said Leung, adding that tourism, retail, convention and other industries had suffered "very big" economic losses.
This past week authorities shut down the protesters' main camp near the heart of the city's financial and government district and arrested 249 people who refused to leave for unlawful assembly.
The student-led protesters rejected Beijing's plan to screen all candidates in the first-ever elections for Hong Kong's top leader, but failed to win significant concessions from the government.
"I don't think it's a failure. This is not the end," said K.T. Kang, a legal executive. "I hope the next time when we gather in the streets, we will be celebrating, instead of shedding tears for achieving nothing."
However, many say the protest movement sparked a wider political awakening among the city's residents, especially the young. Protest leaders vowed to keep up their campaign of civil disobedience through other methods to continue pressuring the government for genuine democracy.
Protesters at the camp had been resigned to eventually being removed after police on Thursday cleared most of the main protest site in the Admiralty district next to government headquarters, arresting scores of activists in a largely peaceful operation.
That followed the clearance in late November of a site in Mong Kok, a gritty residential across the harbor from the main business district, a move that sparked several nights of running battles between demonstrators and police.
On Monday, there was little for the police to remove because Causeway Bay protesters had already begun packing up their things. About 10 people sat in the front line waiting to be arrested when police arrived.
Fernando Cheung, pro-democracy lawmaker, who was at the site to observe the police operation and arrests, said the closing of the site did not mean the end of the civil disobedience campaign.
"In the legislative council we will do our best to resist through an uncooperative campaign," for example by voting down budget requests and the government's electoral reform package.
"There will be more action," Cheung said.
He said the movement could point to accomplisments even if it did not win any concrete goals.
"The duration and scale of the occupation signifies the determination and the force, the power behind the people who ask for democracy in Hong Kong," Cheung said. " And secondly, it's the awakening of the young generation which has limitless power."
Otto Ng, an 18-year-old student, had been camped out at the main Admiralty protest site and came to Causeway Bay to watch the last moments.
"It feels a bit depressed and hopeless, but at the same time this is just the beginning, it's not the end... . We still haven't got what we wanted.... . It's awakened the Hong Kong people," he said.
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