Protests build in lead-up to G8

[Tami]

Associated Press

In the build up to Wednesday\'s meeting between the eight leaders of the world\'s richest nations, Scottish police on Tuesday threatened a zero tolerance policy for trouble makers.

Meanwhile, [url=\"http://www.live8live.com/\"][u]Live8[/u][/url] organizer Bob Geldof, who was heading to Scotland on Tuesday, said it would be “grotesquely irresponsible” for politicians to back down from promises of aid for impoverished Africa.

Mr. Geldof, who masterminded the Live Aid concerts 20 years ago, has called for a million people to take a “Long Walk to Justice” and converge on Edinburgh, where rock acts including Texas and Annie Lennox will take part in a concert on Wednesday titled: “Edinburgh 50,000: The Final Push.” Organizers say the figure refers to the number of people who will die that day from extreme poverty.

On Monday, protests got off to a rocky start when participants in an anarchist demonstration scuffled with Scottish police in Edinburgh on Monday, and about 100 were arrested.

Police wearing body armour and equipped with shields blocked entire streets in the capital Monday, penning in protesters with the help of officers mounted on horseback. Authorities said more than 20 police and protesters suffered minor injuries.

The majority of those arrested were to appear at Edinburgh Sheriff\'s court on Tuesday, a spokesman for the force said.
Mr. Geldof on Tuesday condemned the G-8 protest violence in Scotland\'s capital.

Monday\'s clash \"was just stupid and unnecessary and to be condemned,\" Mr. Geldof said. \"We should look at what happens in Africa and what happens to the poor, the extreme violence visited upon them by poverty.\"

Hundreds of black-clad anarchists and other protesters fought with police in Edinburgh on Monday, leaving 20 police and demonstrators slightly injured. About 100 people were arrested and to appear in court Tuesday.

Protests continued throughout Scotland on Tuesday, as campaigners stepped up the pressure ahead of the summit of leaders from the Group of Eight industrialized nations.

Three campaigners from the World Development Movement climbed a crane towering above Edinburgh\'s Waverley railway station. One of the protesters spoke from the crane by mobile phone and criticized international efforts to lift African nations out of poverty.

Environmental activists planned to protest later Tuesday at an oil refinery in Grangemouth, about 30 kilometres west of Edinburgh.

Pressure groups Friends of the Earth Scotland and People and Planet said campaigners would dress as mermaids in a peaceful protest to highlight the dangers posed by global warming.

In Auchterarder, the village closest to the Gleneagles resort where the world leaders will gather, Chief Constable John Vine of the Tayside police said officers would be firm if they encounter similar problems at a protest planned to coincide with the summit\'s start on Wednesday.

“We want to allow the peaceful protest of the majority to take place unhindered by any rogue elements who are set on disruption and confrontation,” he said. “We will not flinch where we encounter such behaviour and will deal with it in a robust and measured way.”

Ten thousand officers from around Britain are in Scotland to police the summit and protests, which began with a peaceful anti-poverty demonstration of about 200,000 people in Edinburgh on Saturday. Some 3,000 police are assigned to Gleneagles itself, including a specialist firearms team, officers mounted on horseback and a guard-dog unit.

As part of a huge security operation for the summit, police have sealed off the Gleneagles golf resort where the leaders will gather behind an almost two-metre-high, steel-mesh fence guarded by a string of watchtowers and a network of surveillance cameras.

Mr. Vine said police will stop any protesters who attempt to cross the fence.

Inside the perimeter, where the leaders of Britain, the United States, France, Germany, Russia, Canada, Japan and Italy will meet Wednesday through Friday, are further extensive security measures, which Mr. Vine declined to describe.

He said he did not expect trouble from members of the group G8 Alternatives, which plans to send 70 buses of protesters to Auchterarder for the Wednesday march, which officials have limited to 5,000 people.

“Unlike those trouble makers in Edinburgh yesterday who appeared set on disruption, G8 Alternatives are coming to the area to make particular protests,” Mr. Vine said Tuesday. “They have told us that their protest will be peaceful.”

Police have been anxious to avoid a repeat of riots that occurred during demonstrations against the 2001 G8 summit in Genoa, Italy, where an officer killed one protester.

The demonstration is likely to include anti-poverty protesters pressing the leaders to aid Africa, as Prime Minister Tony Blair is seeking.

Earlier Tuesday, Britain\'s Treasury chief Gordon Brown warned that anti-poverty campaigners may be disappointed when G8 leaders announce their package of aid to Africa.

Mr. Brown, a driving force behind British Prime Minister Tony Blair\'s efforts to make aid to Africa a G8 priority, said helping the continent is the “greatest moral crusade of our time.”

But Mr. Brown, who has pushed for debt relief, free trade and a doubling of international aid, told the British Broadcasting Corp. on Tuesday that he has warned campaigners that the G8 is unlikely to meet their expectations.

“I know that you will tell us we\'ve got to do more. I know that what you will say is that what we can achieve is perhaps not good enough,” Mr. Brown said he told campaigners.

“But we have got to bring the whole of the world together. What Britain says is one thing; what we can persuade the rest of the world to do together is what we will get as the outcome of Gleneagles,” he said of the golf resort where the summiteers will gather.

Mr. Geldof said he was “not prepared to be disappointed.”

He insisted the British government should not be “lowering the bar” of what the G8 should achieve.

The commission\'s report calls on Africans to improve governance, resolve conflicts and stamp out corruption.

Oxfam\'s head of advocacy, Jo Leadbeater, warned that 2010 would be “five years too late for the 55 million children who will die waiting for the world\'s richest leaders to deliver on their promises.”

With the focus for this week\'s G8 summit set on African aid and meetings with outsiders such as China, India and Brazil, Japan is determined to exploit every opportunity to push for two issues dear to its heart – North Korea and the United Nations.

Japanese officials said they do not expect breakthroughs on either issue. Still, they say it is important to get Japan\'s voice heard during the summit of the Group of Eight wealthy nations in Gleneagles, Scotland. The three-day summit begins Wednesday.

Japan, the only nation to suffer a nuclear attack, considers itself particularly vulnerable to the threat of North Korea, which has said it is making nuclear weapons.

Japan also wants to increase international pressure on the communist state to account for Japanese suspected of being kidnapped by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s.

In an effort to assert itself within the G8 agenda, which will focus on Africa and global warming, Japan last week pledged $5-billion (U.S.) in aid to Africa over the next five years.

Tokyo also vowed to help fight diseases such as polio and AIDS and immunize children for measles, provide assistance to pregnant women and supply clean drinking water.

Since 1993, Japan has given more than $10-billion in aid to Africa.

[url=\"http://www.theglobeandmail.com\"]source: The Globe & Mail[/url]