The Washington Post
GENOA, Italy -- Leaders of the world's major industrial powers began their annual summit Friday competing to deliver a message of economic growth and help for AIDS-ravaged Africa against the fury of protesters who turned parts of this seaside city into a battlefield.
The seven heads of government pledged cooperative efforts to reverse the economic downturn in the United States, Europe and Japan and expressed confidence that lower interest rates and tax cuts are helping to speed growth. They backed plans to launch a new round of global trade negotiations this autumn as a way to stimulate world commerce.
The three-day summit began under siege conditions. As 20,000 police and security forces struggled to seal off the port area of this northern Italian city, some demonstrators managed to get within 200 yards of the 13th-century Palazzo Ducale where the leaders were meeting. One protester was killed, and dozens of demonstrators and police were injured.
The man who died was shot in the head by Italian paramilitary troops as he joined in a mob attack on a vehicle in which the troops were sitting, according to photos and witnesses. Italian President Carlo Ciampi said he was shocked by the death and urged protesters "to immediately cease this blind violence."
The majority of demonstrators, who police said numbered in the tens of thousands, expressed their views peacefully.
Several summit participants voiced anger and frustration with the methods of the demonstrators, who have made a ritual of attacking international gatherings in recent years in the name of fighting global capitalism and neglect of the world's poor.
Prime Minister Jean Chretien of Canada said the format of future summits should be radically changed to cope with the violent trend. He refused to disclose the location of next year's summit, which Canada will host, and promised to use more effective tactics to foil the protesters.
Italian troops blocked all approaches to the port area by creating a massive security fortress that at times made the leaders and their delegations seem like hostages. "We'd much prefer to be out there in a normal setting being able to meet people," said British Prime Minister Tony Blair. "But we can't because some of the demonstrators are so violent."
President Bush was staying at a hotel in the city's secure zone and went to the palace by motorcade. The other leaders stayed on a cruise ship, the European Vision, anchored in the harbor. They were close enough to walk to the palace, the ornate former residence of the Genoese doges, or governors.
In response to their critics, the industrial powers declared that attacking global poverty would be the central theme of this year's meeting. They spoke extensively of the Global AIDS and Health Fund, a new fund being set up to battle AIDS, but they disappointed many African leaders because only $1.3 billion has been pledged to the fund. The United Nations has said that $10 billion a year might have to be spent on AIDS in poor countries if the pandemic is to be reversed.
In addition, the Group of Seven -- the United States, Britain, France, Canada, Japan, Italy and Germany -- has fallen behind on implementing promises made two years ago to dramatically reduce the debts of the world's poorest nations.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, who was invited by the summit's host, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, to attend the launch of the fund, praised the initiative but said that the rich countries should not become complacent.
"For the first time, we are seeing the emergence of a response to this deadly disease that begins to match the scale of the epidemic itself," Annan said. "But the battle against AIDS will not be won without the necessary resources. We need to mobilize an additional $7 [billion] to $10 billion . . . to fight this disease."
Thirty-six million people now live with HIV and AIDS, 70 percent of them in sub-Saharan Africa, where AIDS is the leading cause of death. The global fund is also supposed to help poor countries overcome the spread of malaria and tuberculosis, diseases that each kill more than a million people every year, mainly children in Africa.
AIDS activists said the failure to act on debt cancellation will undermine any good intentions behind the global fund. "With many of these developing countries already spending twice the amount on debt servicing as they do on health, these miserly donations will be gone almost before they are received," said Julie Davids of the Health GAP Coalition, a Philadelphia-based coalition of AIDS activists.
As a gesture to rebut claims that they are primarily a rich man's club, the heads of the seven major industrial democracies invited several African leaders to join them for further talks over dinner Friday about how to bolster living standards among poor countries. They also welcomed Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, who joined them for dinner and will participate in discussions about foreign and security issues. Putin's presence turned the gathering into the Group of Eight.
The most contentious subjects were likely to arise in Saturday's sessions, when Bush might confront sharp questioning from the other leaders over his rejection of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to fight global warming and his plans to abrogate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to pursue a missile defense network.
Much of Friday's discussion was devoted to a review of the global economy, which the leaders acknowledged has slowed much more than expected over the past year. They attributed the deep slump to high and volatile oil prices, but stressed their belief that a combination of tax cuts, structural reforms and lower interest rates should bolster economic growth in the United States, Japan and Europe over the coming year.
"It's now clear that there is no longer any reason to talk about the dangers of a recession," said Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany, whose country's sagging economic fortunes have dragged down much of Europe.
He said the leaders were particularly heartened by Bush's comments that the United States is showing "slight signs of improvement" that should translate into a better economic climate for the rest of the world, especially once $40 billion in U.S. tax cuts start to take effect.
The leaders lamented recent financial turmoil in emerging markets of the developing world and urged further steps to fortify the international financial system against future crises. They praised recent fiscal measures taken in Argentina and Turkey -- where enormous debt burdens have raised fears of an economic breakdown -- to restore confidence.
Despite rising anxiety in the United States and Europe about the impact of a strong dollar, the leaders refrained from discussing ways to establish a new equilibrium among the world's major currencies.
While the dollar's strength has helped dampen inflation in the United States, it has started to cause serious problems for U.S. exporters, because it makes their products more expensive to foreign buyers. Exporters appealed to Bush this week to press his fellow leaders to help him bring down the dollar's value in relation to the yen and the euro.
European and Japanese exporters have benefited from the weakness of their currencies by gaining a substantial pricing advantage over their American commercial competitors. But economies in Europe and Japan have also suffered more from rising energy prices because they pay for oil in dollars.