Thousands in Ireland protest Bush visit

(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-06-26 14:03

Thousands of activists marched through the Irish capital Friday to protest the arrival of U.S. President George W. Bush for a brief summit with European Union chiefs.

Rallying under the "Stop Bush Campaign" banner, the crowd of about 10,000 waved signs denouncing Bush as a warmonger and calling for an end to American military flights though Shannon Airport, a strategic refueling point used by thousands of U.S. troops each month.

Demonstrators protest outside the entrance to Shannon Airport, Friday June 25, 2004, at the arrivial of U.S. President George Bush's visit to Ireland for a U.S.-European Union Summit. [AP]

The protesters marched from north Dublin to the south-side office of Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, whose decision to keep Shannon available for Iraq-bound forces has angered many in this officially neutral nation.

"Good people of America," read one placard, "vote that son of a Bush out."

"If we don't speak out, our silence will be taken as consent," Dublin Mayor Andrew Montague told the crowd. "This president lied to the world about the reasons for invading Iraq."

In an interview with state broadcaster RTE, Ahern said Ireland's open airport policy didn't amount to support for the U.S. war effort. However, he stressed that those opposed to the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq should recognize that times were changing, and European Union cooperation with Bush over Iraq was essential.

Ahern, the current president of the 25-nation EU, said the latest U.N. resolution on Iraq called on world body members to "help the coalition forces in Iraq. So whatever the arguments of last year were, those arguments are dead."

But few in the crowd wanted to forget the war in Iraq. Leaders of Green Party handed out copies of a mock set of instructions advising protesters how to make a "citizen's arrest" of Bush if they meet him.

That prospect appeared remote as, 150 miles west on the far coast of Ireland, more than 6,000 police and soldiers set up checkpoints and shut down key roads near the summit site in the biggest security operation ever mounted in Ireland.

The Irish security forces' primary goal was to prevent protesters from breaching perimeter security at Shannon, where Air Force One landed Friday evening, or the nearby Dromoland Castle, a luxury hotel hosting the summit Saturday.

Hundreds of officers from Ireland's national police force, the Garda Siochana, formed a cordon about 100 yards from the airport entrance and blocked about 1,200 protesters.

Riot police were on standby, but the protest was peaceful. Some demonstrators said the police presence was heavy-handed.

An Irish Navy vessel intercepted a boatload of protesters on the Shannon estuary Friday. Among three people arrested was one of Ireland's most prominent peace campaigners, former Irish army officer Ed Horgan, who last year sued the government in a failed bid to make Ahern close Shannon Airport to U.S. military flights.

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