On Saturday evening, the Eritrean Association was to organize a celebration to mark the beginning of the liberation from Ethiopia in 1993. But already during the preparations in the center of Bergen, counter-demonstrators appeared. It ended with the parties throwing stones and objects at each other and at the police. Five were arrested. Chief of Staff Gustav Landro in the West police district says that they were in contact with PST in advance, but had no indication that there would be such an extensive and violent counter-demonstration. – We had no intelligence about the type of resistance and capacity for violence, that they came hidden and disguised, we were not prepared for at all, says chief of staff Gustav Landro. Photo: Kaja Hauge / news – It was more organised, more targeted and it was led. It was quite obvious that someone was behind it. They had a strong motivation for violence and the capacity to commit violence, says Landro. According to him, the police had dimensioned their efforts according to the intelligence information they had. Low basic staffing Landro now believes there is reason to look at the basic preparedness of the police at weekends. – In relation to what happened, there were obviously not enough people in place beforehand. I think we need to look at the basic preparedness we have, so we have greater resilience in the emergency phase when we have to protect such events. The police were prepared for the celebration at 6 p.m. Landro acknowledges that there were not enough people to face the first wave of violence before they called in more. He believes that it is vulnerable to rely on calling in people at the weekend who actually have time off. He would not say how many people are usually at work on weekends, but after people were called in, between 70 and 80 police officers were involved on Saturday. They were armed with a gun, stun gun, pepper spray, club and dog. Surprised by the use of violence – We are not surprised that people from Eritrea have different views on things. But we are surprised by the motivation for violence and the use of violence that they seem to want to use against their own countrymen when they are unable to agree on something, says Landro. The police will now evaluate and investigate the violence. Do you fear that it could escalate in the future in Bergen? – It may well happen, but the police are now making an effort to enter into a dialogue with both of these environments and find out who are the leading figures. This way we can tell them what it’s like to protest in a liberal democracy, Landro replies. The police had to use pepper spray against the demonstrators. Photo: Stian Sørum Røkenes / news news has contacted the Eritrean embassy in Stockholm and offered them to comment on the incident. So far they have not done that.
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The police say they did not have enough people at work before the riots in Bergen on Saturday – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
