- ROME -- He is coming to receive
the grateful thanks, 60 years on, of a liberated Italy, but President Bush's
visit to Rome on Friday has prompted the biggest security blitz here for
years.
-
- Intelligence sources believe that about 2,000 hard-line
anti-American militants are making their way to Rome from all over the
country, intending to disrupt the US President's visit in any way they
can.
-
- The possibility that the mayhem of the G8 meeting in
Genoa three years ago could recur in Rome is probably being exaggerated
for political reasons on both sides, but a leader of the Disobbedienti,
a direct action group prominent in Genoa, made no secret of his group's
intention to kick up a stink.
-
- "I hope the American President gets the same welcome
in Rome as his colleague Richard Nixon received in 1969," said Luca
Casarini, a Disobbedienti member from the north-east. Arriving at the height
of protests against the Vietnam War, President Nixon was greeted by violent
demonstrations.
-
- Mr Casarini said: "If a criminal of Bush's calibre
is received with every honour rage is the right reaction ... In the face
of the Iraqi massacre, I don't give a damn if some glass gets broken."
-
- One demonstrator was shot dead and hundreds were wounded
in Genoa after violent clashes between carabinieri and demonstrators. Shop
windows and cash machines were smashed by rampaging protesters.
-
- Yesterday authorities in Rome gave formal consent to
a peace march that will cross the centre of the capital while Mr Bush is
on the outskirts of the city at the Ardeatine caves, honouring hundreds
of Italian civilians executed there by the Nazis in 1944. When the President
crosses central Rome, at least 10,000 soldiers, police and carabinieri
will be on duty to guard him. The precise route is secret, but it will
take in the Qurinale, official residence of President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi;
Palazzo Chigi, office of the Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, and the
Vatican, where Mr Bush will have his second audience with Pope John Paul
II, himself a vigorous opponent of the war in Iraq.
-
- Army snipers and bomb disposal squads will be posted
at strategic points, firemen will work double shifts, hundreds of kilometres
of sewers and tunnels under Rome's ancient centre are being checked, and
all drain covers in the city will be sealed shut. Air space within 10 miles
of Villa Taverna, the American ambassador's residence where Mr Bush will
stay on Friday night, will be closed for the duration of his visit, and
Rome's two airports, Fiumicino and Ciampino, may also be closed for several
hours.
-
- Anti-war campaigners hope that at least 100,000 people
will take to the streets in protest at President Bush's visit, even though
Friday is a normal working day. Since last weekend, dress rehearsals for
Friday have been held by protesters, some hooded like the Abu Ghraib detainee
whose photograph alerted the world to abuse in the Iraqi jail, or dressed
in orange and tightly bound like the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
-
- While the Disobbedienti threaten mayhem, organisers of
the protest including Piero Bernocchi, a member of Italy's Committee to
Stop the War, pledged a peaceful demonstration in which "grandparents
and children and all Italians who don't want the war" will take part.
-
- © 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=527254
|