Protesters take to Edinburgh streets
EDINBURGH, Scotland -- Tens of thousands of protesters clad in white streamed through the cobbled streets of Scotland's medieval capital and formed a human bracelet around the city yesterday, demanding that the leaders of the world's richest nations act to better the lives of the poorest.
Organizers hoped that the demonstrations, kicking off a week of antipoverty activism, would send a peaceful but powerful message to politicians gathering for the summit of the G-8 group of rich countries at the nearby Gleneagles resort next week.
Their protest coincided with Live 8 concerts around the world and a rally in Kenya to push for an end to poverty in Africa.
The ''Make Poverty History" marchers in Edinburgh said the world must no longer tolerate the extreme poverty that blights the lives of millions in Africa and elsewhere. ''We're not here to march for charity; we are here to march for justice," said Walden Bello, of the advocacy group Focus on the Global South.
The demonstrators urged the G-8 leaders to heed a call by Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain to erase Africa's debt, pony up for a massive boost in aid, and eliminate trade barriers that make it difficult for impoverished nations to sell their goods overseas.
The atmosphere in Edinburgh was festive, with an African percussion band playing and some demonstrators wearing masks depicting the faces of G-8 leaders including Blair, President Bush, and President Vladimir Putin of Russia. Police were out in force, but had little to do.
However, about 150 anarchists and antiglobalization protesters dressed in black joined the march, many wearing hoods or covering their faces with bandanas. Some had T-shirts bearing the anarchist symbol, of the letter ''A" inside a circle; one had a placard that said ''No nation, no order." Some pushed over a barricade and charged a line of police before running away down side streets. Police described the incident as minor and said no one had been arrested.
Organizers said more than 200,000 people took part in the march, a figure backed up by estimates by Edinburgh city council. Unofficial police estimates put the figure at 120,000.
At 3 p.m., the crowds held a minute's silence to remember the thousands of people who die every day in the developing world from preventable causes -- before erupting into a cacophony of spontaneous cheers and blowing of whistles.
Britain's two main Roman Catholic leaders headed the procession and Cardinal Keith O'Brien, the leader of Scotland's Catholics, read a message from the Vatican. He said Pope Benedict XVI urged those in rich countries to bear the burden of reducing debt for the poor and call on their leaders to fight poverty.
''His Holiness prays for the participants in the rally and for the world leaders soon to gather at Gleneagles, that they may all play their part in ensuring a more just distribution of the world's good," said the message from Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican secretary of state. He conveyed the pope's ''ardent hope that the scourge of global poverty may one day be consigned to history."
The marchers, orderly and good-spirited, jammed streets in Edinburgh's ancient center and its modern commercial districts. Some banged drums or blew whistles as they walked. Police were out in force but had little to do.
At a rally before the march began, tens of thousands turned the Meadows, Edinburgh's main park, into a sea of white, the antipoverty movement's trademark color.
Police and Edinburgh merchants -- anxious to avoid a repeat of violence that marred demonstrations at the 2001 G-8 summit in Genoa, Italy, where an officer shot and killed a protester -- had mounted a huge security operation. Scottish Parliament and Holyrood House, Queen Elizabeth II's official residence in Edinburgh, were ringed with steel barricades.
Blair has been playing down his chances of success at the summit, which opens Wednesday. But his decision to put Africa and the environment at the top of the agenda has generated enormous expectation among activists who have waited for years to see their causes at center stage.
