PROTESTERS DRIVE DELEGATES TO DISTRACTION

LOS ANGELES - Delegates were greeted by gridlock yesterday as some 10,000
protesters and thousands of cops converged outside the Democratic National
Convention.

The chanting throng - whose objects of protest ranged from corporate greed
and oil-company abuses to the latest missile-defense programs - so clogged
the streets surrounding the Staples Center that some delegate buses were
unable to reach the convention entrances for an hour or more.

"How could organizers allow this?" complained a delegate's wife, harried
over being 90 minutes late for the evening's historic moments.

"Every time a bus tried to get across the streets, we were told to go to
another entrance," the wife could be heard muttering to her husband as she
rushed through the crowd.

"And when we got there, we were told to go to another one. It was just very
frustrating."

Twelve protesters were arrested in clashes with cops. Those busted had sat
down to block traffic in a busy intersection 10 blocks from the convention
site - in protest of Vice President Al Gore's ties to the Occidental
Petroleum Corp.

Occidental has come under fire from environmentalists for its plans to drill
for oil on land claimed by the U'wa Indian tribe in northeastern Colombia.
Gore has family shares in Occidental valued at up to $1 million.

Cops also used pepper-spray pellets against a protester attending a free
concert by the group Rage Against the Machine outside the center.

The protester was trying to scale the 13-foot security fence separating the
Staples Center from the protest zone.

But most demonstrators spent the day without skirmishing with cops.

L.A. cops, in riot gear, strutted past the protesters. Others rode bicycles,
horses and motorbikes. One cop admitted they were under strict instruction
not to overreact.

"We are playing this 1,000 percent cool," said one officer.

"We don't want to look like we are confronting them."

So far, the crowds of demonstrators have been far larger than the ones that
gathered for the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, where
protests were also generally peaceful for the first two days. But on the
third day, hundreds were arrested and five cops injured in street violence.