June 10, 2007	Sunday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 24, 1428

ROME, June 9: An otherwise peaceful protest march by tens of thousands against the visit of US President George W. Bush to Rome turned violent on Saturday as police clashed with stick-wielding demonstrators.

Protesters wearing hoods and helmets and brandishing sticks were seen throwing bottles and other projectiles at police in the Campo dei Fiori, close to the end point of the protest march at Piazza Navona, according to a reporter at the scene.

A dozen armoured police vehicles were seen heading to the area, sirens blaring, from the nearby Piazza Venezia.

When police began surrounding the demonstrators, the march organisers called on them to disperse, but about 100 stayed on to resist.

The ground-floor windows of a bank and a McDonald's restaurant were damaged in the unrest, the first incident to mar an otherwise peaceful march by a crowd estimated at more than 150,000 by organisers.

The anti-globalisation activists, anarchists and left-wing radicals staged the noisy march in a festive atmosphere, chanting “No Bush, No War,” while also slamming Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi for hosting Bush “with honours.” A separate protest at Rome's vast Piazza del Popolo gathered supporters and lawmakers of the far left flank of Prodi's fractious centre-left coalition government for a rally and pop concert.

The event pointed up divisions within Prodi's government, which ranges from communists, pacifists and Greens on the left to centrist Catholics such as Prodi himself.

One marcher wore a Superman costume saying he wanted to “save the world, which is going badly, very badly.” “Bush, I know you, your father was a killer too,” said one poster, while a banner called for “walls to build houses, not to separate people.” The marchers included anti-globalisation activists, anarchists and left-wing radicals who seemed as angry with Prodi as they were with Bush.

Stephanie Westbrook of the Rome-based US Citizens for Peace and Justice told AFP the group wanted “to express our feelings regarding both the Bush administration policies as well as what we see as the Italian government's support of these policies.” She listed as examples Prodi's approval of the expansion of a US air base in the northeastern city of Vicenza, support for the US plan for a missile defence system to be deployed in eastern Europe, and a recent contract to buy 122 F35 jet fighters from the United States.

The deal was never debated in parliament, she noted.

“We are against the visit by Bush, who is a real danger for the world, but also against Prodi, who hasn't changed at all compared with (his right-wing predecessor Silvio) Berlusconi in his foreign policy,” one marcher from Naples said.

Many other marchers were from Vicenza, where some 80,000 people demonstrated against the base expansion plan in February.

Leading the march were leftist lawmakers including Senator Franco Turigliatto of the Refoundation Communist party, who helped bring down the government briefly in February by opposing its foreign policy in a vote in the upper house.

“In Afghanistan, Italy is participating in this policy of recolonising the world advocated by the United States with the support of Europe,” Turigliatto said.

“We are against imperialist policies that have already made Iraq an endless nightmare,” he said.

Some 10,000 police including hundreds in riot gear were providing security for Bush's visit.—AFP