Long arm of Australian peacemakers

Mounted police officers pass a "peace" sign on North Cronulla Beach yesterday. Picture / Reuters

Down on the beach someone had spelled out the word "peace" in seaweed.

At the North Cronulla Surf Club, children were having a Christmas party, and diners at the beachside Sea Level restaurant grinned as a Santa scudded past on an electric scooter, ringing a bell as he went.

A banner proclaiming "peace on the beach" fluttered from Joe's Fish Bar. On an idyllic summer day in Sydney, sea and sky an almost impossible blue, you could almost believe the city had found it.

Almost. A force of 2000 police patrolled Sydney's streets, the largest security operation since the Olympics, to prevent a repeat of last Sunday's violence.

By last night seven men had been arrested. Two were caught carrying Molotov cocktails on a bus to Bondi. Later five men were arrested at Brighton in Sydney's south, also in possession of petrol bombs.

Police at roadblocks seized knives, clubs spiked with nails, steel pikes and knuckle-dusters.

On roads to the gleaming white beaches around Cronulla traffic was at a standstill. Police were demanding proof of identity. Anyone who did not live in the area, lacked good cause to be there or looked like a potential troublemaker was turned back.

At the scene of last Sunday's race riot and retaliatory raids, squads with batons, guns and dogs swarmed across almost deserted streets and onto the sand, sometimes marching in units of 10, sometimes patrolling in pairs, or circling in patrol cars and four-wheel-drive vehicles.

Small squadrons of helicopters hovered just out to sea, and on the water a police Zodiac was reinforced regularly by a patrol boat.

Cronulla has been under siege for two days, an island of almost surreal calm at the centre of a racial storm darkening Australia's biggest city and echoing in other major centres.

In Perth, Islamic organisations urged Muslims to stay away from beaches already under increased police protection. In Melbourne, Santas were reportedly beaten in Lygon St by men described as being of Middle Eastern appearance.

To the north and south of Cronulla yesterday, other beaches were under siege. Police cordons sealed off Marouba and iconic Bondi. They shut down Nobby's Beach in Newcastle and Gosford's Terrigal Beach, both to the north of Sydney, and Wollongong's City Beach to the south.

On a normal weekend up to 40,000 day-trippers pack each of the beaches now subject to fears of further violence. At the weekend the number of swimmers and surfers could be counted in the hundreds.

New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma told reporters there was credible intelligence that troublemakers were intent on more violence between Anglos and Lebanese and that he would not give in to thugs.

"This is a war we have to win. Our response to these troublemakers is to meet force with force."

The crackdown has been fast and hard. Using laws passed by an emergency session of the New South Wales Parliament last Thursday, police seized five cars on Friday and Saturday nights, including one containing swords and other weapons.

More than 15 mobile phones, all containing text incitements to racial violence, were also confiscated.

Police have made 20 arrests and warn that more will follow investigations using call lists provided by cellphone companies.

Website calls for action were muted by overwhelming police numbers. A planned anti-Lebanese protest at Cronulla failed to materialise.

The Australian flags used in a declaration of nationalism after the mob attacks on Middle Eastern men and women had all but vanished.

Instead, at Peryman Place, the centre of North Cronulla where a fountain mourns the loss of seven local women in the 2002 Bali bombings, Christian evangelists belted out gospel songs. In the city, two rallies protested against racism.

The cost of the clampdown to both taxpayers and businesses runs to the millions. In Cronulla, the normally lively restaurant and club strip has been almost deserted.

Sutherland Shire Mayor Kevin Schreiber, who appealed for Sydneysiders to ignore the warnings to stay away from Cronulla, was at Peryman Place on Saturday with local business owners to complain at the impact on their livelihood and to demand compensation from the state Government.