HONOLULU—The all-encompassing Hawaiian term “Aloha” can mean both hello and goodbye, making it an apt phrase this weekend in Honolulu where the welcome for an Asia-Pacific summit is wearing thin.
The legions of protesters who normally accompany such gatherings are absent in remote, expensive Hawaii, but that hasn’t stopped the authorities from shrouding the tropical island paradise in a tight security blanket.
Honolulu’s tourist playground of Waikiki Beach appeared braced Saturday for an invasion as security kicked in for the summit, hosted by the Pacific idyll’s most famous son, US President Barack Obama.
Secret Service, police and military personnel swarmed over the white sand beaches of Obama’s birthplace as authorities locked down a roughly 1-kilometer stretch of Waikiki and its offshore waters.
Beaches normally filled with bikini-clad tourists were instead shut off by concrete barriers and iron fencing as a pair of Coast Guard cutters cruised offshore. Police patrolled on jet skis and smaller boats.
An orange boom cut across a bay fronting key hotels whose weekend guests include Obama, Chinese President Hu Jintao, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
Tight security
Hawaiian officials had embraced the summit as a chance to showcase the islands’ famed hospitality, but it has brought the heaviest security since the wake of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor nearly 70 years ago.
“This is totally not what Hawaii is about,” local resident Tino Fornas said, gesturing at a roadblock manned by grim-faced police.
“Yeah, welcome to Hawaii. Now please leave,” he said of the assembled Pacific Rim leaders.
Some of the city’s busiest streets were empty due to road closures on routes leading into Waikiki’s forest of resort hotels as federal agents and police barked at any cars or pedestrians that went astray.
“It’s insane. It feels like Communist China,” said Marvin Schuster, a 39-year-old tourist from the US state of Pennsylvania who shelved plans to leave his hotel due to the difficulties getting around.
“It sort of ruins the vacation when you are forced to just stay in the room and watch TV,” he said.
‘Occupy’ protests
Grumbling over traffic snarls caused by road closures has been exacerbated by the killing of a Hawaii man who was shot by a US state department security agent in a late-night altercation last weekend.
Reports indicated both men were inebriated. The agent has been charged with murder.
Local sympathizers with the “Occupy” protests that started on Wall Street and spread to other cities and countries said they planned an antiglobalization march on Waikiki summit venues later on Saturday.
About 150 members of the Falungong spiritual movement held a protest along a two-block stretch from early morning and into the afternoon near the hotel where China’s Hu was staying.
Protesters held banners bearing statements such as “President Hu, stop persecuting Falungong,” and jeered any members of China’s delegation who walked past.
“We want the world to know about the Chinese government’s persecution of Falungong and its murder of our members,” said Cornelia Ritter, a Swiss native who lives in San Francisco.
She said most of the protesters came from abroad, including Japan, Taiwan and Korea. AFP