Hundreds of protesters staged their own welcome for United States President George Bush on Wednesday with a noisy and colourful mock royal procession in London that included a pink ”love tank” and demonstrators dressed up as United Nations weapons inspectors and Guantanamo Bay detainees.
Aiden Hutton and Maxine Narburgh, from Suffolk, southeast England, played the roles of Bush and Queen Elizabeth II as they sat in a horse-drawn carriage at the head of the midday march, waving to TV cameras and good-spirited onlookers.
Due to security concerns, Bush broke from the traditional protocol of state visits and did not ride with the queen down The Mall to the palace in a carriage.
”It should have been George Bush and Queen Elizabeth themselves doing this procession,” said Tansy Hoskins of the Stop the War Coalition, which is planning a 100 000-strong demonstration Thursday against Bush and the Iraq war.
”But because of their fear of peace protesters we have decided to carry out the state procession ourselves,” Hoskins said.
Flanked by dozens of police, the estimated 350 protesters — some with Bush face masks, others in royal garb — blew whistles and chanted as they made their way over the River Thames and into Trafalgar Square.
”What do we want? Bush out! When do we want it? Now!” they shouted.
Excited office workers were seen rushing to their windows to catch a glimpse of the ”alternative royal procession” passing by.
Juan Stone, a youngster from the English Midlands, rode the ”love tank” that was armoured with biodegradable heart-shaped balloons, and blew green smoke from its cannon.
”I don’t like George Bush, I wish he hadn’t come here,” he said.
Behind the mock ”royal” carriage were protesters dressed as UN weapons inspectors, carrying a blow-up nuclear missile.
”We have come here to inform President Bush that while he was unable to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq we have found them here instead,” said Kate Hudson, chairperson of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament peace group.
”This is a little event in the long British political tradition of satire,” she said. ”We are here to make a very serious point in a humorous way.”
Equally, she added, ”it is just a warm-up ahead of the huge, more serious demonstration that will be taking place” on Thursday.
Organisers expect 100 000 to turn out for Thursday’s march past Parliament and Downing Street, amid unprecedented security in the British capital to guard Bush and thwart a feared terrorist incident.
Stop the War was behind two huge anti-war marches, last September and February, with the latter bringing one million people on to London’s streets. Both events went off peacefully.
Towards the back of Wednesday’s procession, 60-year-old Tony Caccavone drove a taxi emblazoned with the Cuban flag.
”I’ve donated the whole of the outside of this cab to promoting tourism for Cuba,” Caccavone said. ”Go away Bush. You’re not wanted.”
Bringing up the rear, and chased up by seven police vans and a police car, was one of three London buses that travelled to Baghdad before the Iraq war taking a group of ”human shields”.
”Bush and his merry gang are holed up in Buckingham Palace and they can’t go out on the streets of London as we can,” said driver Joe Letts.
”We are freer than he is and it just shows what a pathetic policy he has had. We need to get our troops out of Iraq and he needs to get his out.” — Sapa-AFP