By Jeff Israely | Boston Globe
ROME - Security forces in Genoa scrambled yesterday to put the last measures in place for this week's G-8 summit meeting even as a letter bomb exploded at one of the city's police stations, injuring an officer and raising tensions before what promises to be the largest antiglobalization protest to date.
The leaders of the world's seven richest nations and Russia, along with several thousand government staff members and journalists, are expected to start arriving Thursday.
The summit could prove to be President Bush's most demanding excursion so far, with the three-day meeting set to take up proposals to fight AIDS and to launch a new round of trade talks, before it ends Sunday.
But the news from the meeting of world leaders could easily be dominated by the actions of tens of thousands of antiglobalization demonstrators who have vowed to protest, and in some cases try to disrupt, the proceedings.
"Our objective is to stop the G-8," declared Carlo Schenone, a spokesman for the Genoa Social Forum, an umbrella group of mostly peaceful activists seeking to draw attention to what they call the negative effects of globalization on the poor and the environment. "It is a giant lie - 20 percent of the world deciding for everyone else."
Protest leaders predicted that at least 100,000 demonstrators would show up, which would far surpass the 45,000 at the World Trade Organization conference in Seattle, where the movement began in 1999, or at protests this year in Quebec and Sweden.
The rapid growth of the anti-global market movement has turned the choice of Christopher Columbus's hometown for the site of the meeting from a nice symbolic touch into a security nightmare. Wedged between the Apennine mountains and the Mediterranean Sea, the northern city's labyrinth of winding, narrow streets is difficult to patrol on a good day.
Officials have been preparing for the worst - even considering moving the entire summit to an inland location near the Swiss border or onto a cruise ship in the Mediterranean.
Ultimately, they decided to stick with the original plan to hold key events at the 13th-century Palazzo Ducale in the heart of the historic center and to house some of the dignitaries on ships docked in Genoa's harbor.
"We will do everything necessary to protect the safety of the world leaders," said an Interior Ministry official, who did not want to be identified. "That is our first responsibility."
Yesterday, workers began installing concrete barriers on the edge of downtown and raising 30-foot-high steel gratings to block off alleyways. Residents, interviewed on Italian state television, complained of being forced "to live in a cage" and wondered how the disabled will manage.
Over the next 72 hours, authorities plan to deploy up to 16,000 police; stockpile tear gas canisters, water hoses, and batons; and place army and navy personnel on high alert.
Yesterday's letter bomb attack at the Carabinieri police station on the outskirts of the city added an unexpected air of edginess. The officer who opened the package underwent eye surgery, and there were condemnations from all quarters - including leaders of a hard-line group who promise to challenge police blockades over the weekend. No one took responsibility for the blast.
Later, police exploded a crude time bomb made with gasoline that was found under a van parked near a Genoa soccer stadium being used as a staging ground by protesters.
The leading Italian police union said the letter bomb "closes, maybe definitively, the diplomatic phase on the eve of the G-8, effectively militarizing the summit."
Authorities have been negotiating with protest groups over the past month - though similar talks before last month's European Union meeting in Sweden did not prevent widespread violence that led to police shooting a demonstrator and a pair of officers being seriously injured.
Protest leaders like Schenone have spared little in the way of rhetoric, but they are not the chief worry of authorities. The Genoa native is part of the vast majority who are not expected to try to breach the sealed-off "red zone" in the city's historic center, where the meetings will be held.
Police, instead, will be watching out for people like Matteo Jade. The 30-year-old law student is part of the "white overalls" brigade - equipped with hockey helmets, gas masks, and giant shields - that plans to challenge the barricades.
"We will attempt to break into the red zone," said Jade, in a telephone interview. "We will violate their restrictions, and ignore the illegitimate borders created inside the city."
Jade said the group will not ransack the city or attack police, but, he added, "we will try to reach the summit." Over the past six weeks, the government has used a "good cop-bad cop" approach, offering concessions to demonstrators one day and reversing them the next. Over the weekend, Italy enraged protest organizers by suspending the 11-nation Schengen treaty, which allows passport-free travel between European countries.
By midweek, central Genoa will be largely sealed off. The principal train stations will be shut down tomorrow morning, the airport will close Thursday, and the historic center will be cleared of anyone who does not have identification as a resident, summit participant, or journalist.
"The government has been provoking, making promises and then reversing them," said Schenone. "They're taking us all for fools. And that will only lead to more problems and clashes."
c Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper CompanyBy Jeff Israely:
