Agence France Presse | By KATE MILLAR | May 29, 2003
The first demonstration against the G8 summit due to take place in Evian, France this weekend got off to a largely peaceful start under driving rain and thunder in the nearby Swiss city of Lausanne on Thursday.
About 5,000 anti-globalisation protestors marched through the heavily policed city three days before political leaders of Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States, meet in the French alpine resort.
Huge containers capped by barbed wire marked a security barrier around lakeside hotels in Lausanne, where heads of state from developing countries are due to stay while they meet the leaders of industralised countries just across Lake Geneva in Evian on Sunday.
Earlier, the antiglobalisation movement's alternative summit opened in the French town of Annemasse, near Evian, with a challenge to the legitimacy of the summit.
Barricades, barbed wire, boarded-up shop windows and a heavy police and military presence shut down this corner of Switzerland for a long weekend, as it braced for the main demonstrations on the Swiss-French border near Geneva on Sunday.
Soldiers were stationed on all the bridges across the 60 kilometres (40 miles) motorway between Lausanne and Geneva, amid heavy security also designed to ward off the threat of a terror attack on the heads of state, including US President George W. Bush and French President Jacques Chirac, across the lake.
Shops, banks and petrol stations closed down for a long weekend and boarded up their windows to avoid attracting the anger of a few opponents of big money.
In Geneva, the calm was only broken by a swarm of military helicopters.
Germany sent 900 police to help out their Swiss colleagues by standing guard over Geneva's airport, where most of the heads of state are due to arrive over the weekend.
But in Lausanne, police in riot gear kept a low profile despite a brief clash with about 100 masked protestors throwing bottles or cans.
Carrying banners including "no to G8 colonialists", or "Bush is not sustainable" the crowd of families, trade unions, and left-wing parties gathered in the city centre.
They were accompanied by observers from the human rights group Amnesty International, and a 100 strong "self-protection" group were in direct touch with police by radio to guard against trouble, organisers said.
Earlier, police said anti-globalisation protestors vandalised carriages in two scheduled trains on their way to Lausanne.
About 1,000 young German protestors arrived in Geneva on a specially-hired train on Thursday, but headed straight for the antiglobalisation movement's alternative summit across the border in Annemasse, France.
About 3,000 people were in "alternative villages" in Annemasse according to the organisers. But French police said only 1,000 were camped there.
The "Summit for Another World" -- known as SPAM under its French acronym -- aims to match the agenda of the Group of Eight most industralised countries with debates on alternative proposals for world governance and development.
The organisers said they had arranged to hand over their proposals to the French President's delegation in Evian on Monday, the second day of the G8 summit.
The head of the French branch of Greenpeace, Bruno Rebelle highlighted three indicators as proof that "the world is standing on its head".
"One euro a day, that's what one third of humanity, or two billion people, are living with," he said.
"Two euros a day, that's what a European cow gets on average from the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (farm subsidies)."
"Three euros a day, that's the contribution of each American citizen towards the US military budget," Rebelle added.Agence France Presse:
