Thousands of anti-globalization protestors drew heavy fire from several world leaders Friday well before they got their first whiff of tear gas at a Group of Eight summit here.
Ahead of his maiden appearance at the annual gathering of the richest nations and Russia, US President George W. Bush tarred foes of free trade as "no friends of the poor" in a Washington speech.
And as he wrapped up a two-day visit to Britain Friday, Bush upbraided them more directly, saying: "you embrace policies that lock poor people into poverty, and that's unacceptable to the United States."
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, referring to the demonstrators as "hooligans" declared "we should not make concessions to those who choose violence" in an interview with Le Figaro earlier this week.
Blair also blamed the media for fanning the embers of discontent, helping to feed protests that first flared up at a December 1999 World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle, and have become a loud fixture of such summits ever since.
As world leaders converged on this port city and sought refuge in the no-go "red zone" where summit delegates were guarded by some 20,000 security forces, their host, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, called drew cheers from protestors after saying the gathering "could be the last" of its kind.
"The summit of the great powers should be re-thought, this one could be the last," Berlusconi told union leaders in Genoa, a port town and popular tourist destination turned city besieged.
The Italian leader said he had asked for the next G8, "if there is another G8", to be more open and provide the chance for meetings with trade unions and other social groups.
"We have already won, because Berlusconi said there would never be another G8 summit," Arturo Beretti, 29, said outside a sports stadium where many anarchists and leftists were staying.
Meanwhile, in Genoa's streets, activists clashed with police as they tried to break through a ring of steel barriers guarded by thousands of Italian riot police using water cannons.
Bush has repeatedly emphasized that the protestors will have no sway over this G8's priorities -- reviving its members' ailing economies and alleviating poverty in the developing world, both of which he says are best served by expanding free trade.
"Trade has been the best avenue for economic growth for all countries and I reject the isolationism and protectionism that dominates those who will try to disrupt the meetings in Genoa," he said early Friday.
But anti-globalization clashes at a European summit in Gothenburg last month and the Genoa security preparations also prompted EU Commission President Romano Prodi to urge world leaders to return to the spirit of the earliest summits in the mid-1970s.
"This atmosphere of siege and tension certainly does not help the summit to face up to the biggest and most widespread tragedies of humanity in the appropriate way," he told Genoa daily Il Secolo XIX -- GENOA, Italy (AFP)
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