Ottawa enjoys silence after protest sites cleared

OTTAWA－The last big rigs were being towed out of Canada's capital, where the streets were quiet for the first time in three weeks after a massive police operation ended a drawn-out siege over COVID-19 health rules on Sunday.

During a major cleanup in Ottawa's snowy downtown, police in riot gear faced off with trucker-led demonstrators for two full days, finally driving them out of their protest hub outside parliament.

The last few protesters stayed late into Saturday night, singing protest anthems and setting off fireworks at a 4-meter-high security fence hastily erected around the parliamentary precinct.

But the last gasp, in which the protest turned into a street party, fizzled as a deep freeze gripped the city.

On Sunday morning, police were manning checkpoints restricting access to a 200-hectare downtown area, while a sizable force remained on standby to defend the ground reclaimed from the truckers.

A journalist from Agence France-Presse saw only a handful of protesters in the area, testing the perimeter.

Ottawa police issued a reminder that the core area remains off-limits except to local residents and workers.

Police tweeted midmorning that two people had just been arrested－and a total of 191 since police moved in on Friday.

It also said 57 vehicles have so far been towed out of the city－paralyzed since Jan 29 when hundreds of trucks, vans, and other vehicles parked there in protest.

Crews took down the last tents, food stands, and other makeshift structures erected by demonstrators, and cleared heaps of snow from the streets in preparation for a reopening of local businesses.

And for the first time in weeks, Ottawa residents were not startled awake by incessant honking that had become a defining feature of the protests.

Refusing to admit defeat after being dislodged, many protesters told AFP they would keep pressing their cause.

Full lifting of curbs

Though pandemic rules in Canada have eased as case numbers trend downward, protesters have vowed to press for a full lifting of restrictions, which have been among the world's strictest.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government is facing a lawsuit from a civil liberties group and pushback from political rivals over the decision to invoke rarely-used emergency powers to crack down on unlawful protests.

This is despite polls showing Canadians, once sympathetic to the trucker-led movement, have turned against them.

Trudeau himself kept his distance as the police operation unfolded, refraining from public comment.

The convoy began a month ago as a protest against mandatory COVID-19 vaccines to cross the United States border.

The Canada convoy triggered economically damaging blockades at the US border, which police cleared a week ago.

Dozens there were arrested, including at least three protest leaders, while C$32 million ($25 million) in donations and bank accounts linked to the trucker movement were frozen.

Agencies via Xinhua