Berlin- Chancellor Angela Merkel urged anti-globalization activists Saturday to abstain from violence during protests against the Group of Eight (G8) summit in Germany early June. "I appeal to all those campaigning for a human face to globalization to help ensure that protests are peaceful, that they are listened to, but that they are non-violent," Merkel said in her weekly podcast.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators are expected when the leaders of Germany, Britain, France, the United States, Italy, Russia, Canada and Japan gather in the beach resort of Heiligendamm from June 6-8.
Merkel said she had nothing against large numbers of people using protests and other activities to draw attention to their desire for a more equitable and human form of globalization.
"But one thing has to be clear," she said. "Violence is not the way to achieve political aims. That is why we have to ensure that it does not come to outbreaks of violence."
Germany is mounting a massive security operation to protect the summit amid an increase in politically motivated arson and vandalism by radicals opposed to globalization.
Some 16,000 police have been drafted in, 1,100 troops will be on duty andwarships will patrol the coastal waters in front of the secluded hotel complex where the G8 will meet.
Demonstrators have been banned from approaching within 200 metres of a 12-kilometre-long barbed wire and metal fence that been erected around the summit venue.
A police ban on unauthorized marches on country lanes within 5 to 10 kilometres of the fence was ruled excessive by the administration tribunal in the city of Schwerin on Friday.
Police said they would appeal the ruling because anti-G8 groups were threatening to block all roads to the meeting.
Mainstream aid and environmentalist groups said this week that the main anti-G8 rally, in the nearby city of Rostock before the summit, would be peaceful.
