Protesters clash with police in fortress city Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Times of London - May 23, 2002 Protesters clash with police in fortress city From Allan Hall in Berlin HOODED youths and pro-Palestinian demonstrators clashed with police as President Bush flew into a fortress city when he touched down in Berlin last night. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators waving banners bearing the face of Yassir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, and wearing chequered Arab keffiyeh headdresses burnt American flags where earlier demonstrators had sunbathed in a picnic-like atmosphere. Near by, youths attacked police in riot gear with bottles. Moments after President Bush stepped off Air Force One on to the red carpet at Tegel airport, Gerhard Schr=F6der, the Chancellor, had swept hi= m across the city towards the heavily guarded Unter den Linden boulevard, and the renowned Caf=E9 Touchier. The novelty of the restaurant is that it is lined with books, including a volume of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, which the President is reading in preparation for his Russian visit. On the menu was fried asparagus with rucola salad, crayfish stew and lemon mousse, all tasted beforehand by a member of the Secret Service stationed in the kitchen. In the calm of the restaurant, President Bush was some distance from the several thousand protesters who had surged into the capital by bus, train and convoys of cars. Their mission was mixed, but the message was clear: President Bush is a warmongering menace who has no business peddling Iraqi invasion plans and selling more US business franchises. The hostility towards Mr Bush is a far cry from the visit made by John F. Kennedy in 1963 to the Brandenburg Gate, then in East Berlin, at the height of the Cold War. People who wanted to get to the gate yesterday afternoon would have been disappointed; phalanxes of 10,000 police officers had sealed off the area and underground trains failed to stop at the Unter den Linden station near by. Yesterday was a blisteringly hot late spring day, but by the time President Bush had touched down tempers were remarkably cool. Beating drums and carrying banners reading "War is Terror" and "Jobs instead of Military Operations," protesters said they aimed to send a message to Mr Bush that they oppose any expansion of the US-led war on terrorism to countries such as Iraq. "We can show our support to Americans as friends and allies without agreeing with everything they do," said Elizabeth, 53, a biologist. Yesterday's protesters followed the route of a mass march on Tuesday by at least 17,000 environmentalists, pacifists and anti-globalisation demonstrators allied in an "axis of peace." J=FCrgen Fischer, 24, a student, was among a crowd of several hundred gathered near Tiergarten Park a few hundred yards from the Brandenburg Gate. Speaking of the President, he said: "The guy is an intellectual moron, a pathetic testosterone-fuelled vacuum who cannot think beyond making money and making war. He is coming to sell bankrupt policies and we should make it clear we are not buying. "It's so much horseshit to talk about America saving us in the Cold War. Now is now and this guy is Dr Strangelove taking us to Armageddon. We want to show him the way out of town." At Checkpoint Charlie, the most famous of the Cold War East-West crossings, Transvestites for Peace strutted their stuff in protest at the visit. Katrina said from his 4in heels: "This man is dangerous. He is on a mission to bring down the world. It's up to us girls to stop him." Herr Schroeder issued a sharp warning to demonstrators to keep the protests peaceful and said Mr Bush should be made to feel welcome in the city the Americans protected during the Cold War. "The Americans were there for Berlin in critical times to stand up for its rights," Herr Schroeder told a meeting of business leaders, referring to the thousands of US troops protecting West Berlin when the city was divided by the Berlin Wall. "Those who are enjoying those rights (to protest) now should remember that." ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytrad-05.23.02-01:14:42-13471