Berlin Wall protesters taunt guards

Press, 12 August 1986, Page 10

Berlin Wall protesters taunt guards

West Berlin

Protests prompted by tomorrow’s twenty-fifth anniversary of the Berlin wall flared last week-end, with young demonstrators scaling the 3m high concrete barrier and taunting armed communist border guards with West German flags and slogans. The West Berlin police said a 30-year-old man started two fires on a wooden stretch of the 160 km wall in front of the historic Brandenburg Gate early yesterday. The blaze was put out by border guards and the man was held briefly by British military police.

The incidents .drew a stiff protest from the East German authorities.

They came just days before East and West are <

due to engage in ideological battle about the wall, where 74 people have been killed in attempts to cross to the western side. The East German leader, Erich Honecker, will speak in East Berlin tomorrow, after a marchpast by the uniformed Workers Militia.

In West Berlin, Chancel- ? lor Helmut Kohl will de- « nounce the wall at a memorial rally to those killed. « - The East German f authorities sent out the militia in the early hours of August 13, 1961, to

draw a line of barbed wire and brick across streets, at a time when an exodus of highly-skilled people was bleeding the East German economy. Some 50,000 people living in East Berlin were then making their living in West Berlin. Since the first barbed wire was laid dividing the western post-World War II occupation sectors — administered by the United States, Britain and France — from the Soviet eastern sector, the wall has become a formidable barrier. ■ ' ' - ' Last week-end’s events began when small groups of anti-communist pro-

testers mounted the wall near the Brandenburg Gate and waved West

German flags on communist territory.

An East German flag was tom down. One man hacked stones ’ from the wall and threw . them at approaching communist guards. Other demonstrators ■ assembled for a bid to " form a symbolic human chain, which failed. Instead, they clapped,

sang the West German national anthem and chanted “Deutschland, Deutschland.” The Communist guards did not intervene, although up to 16 people weredon East Berlin territory A any one time.