WSF organisers declare war against Bush

Activists declared war on Bush on the eve of the top anti-globalisation meet, vowing the six-day WSF will denounce the US President on everything.

Activists declared war on Thursday on George W Bush on the eve of the top anti-globalisation meet, vowing the six-day World Social Forum will denounce the US president on everything from the Iraq war to trade policies.

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Organisers of the forum which opens Friday said the annual get-together would provide a common ground for diverse movements that led protests against last year's invasion of Iraq.

"Bush has to be stopped. His country's policies are creating devastation around the world, militarily and economically," said Chico Whitaker, who spearheaded the forum which was held between 2001 and 2003 in his native Brazil.

"We had rallied against him last year before the war and we will oppose him at the forum this year also," Whitaker told reporters.

More than 78,000 people have registered to attend the forum, but thousands more were coming in and the total attendance could top 100,000, said Nandita Shah, an Indian feminist on the organising committee for the forum.

She said the forum cost 2.4 million dollars and that organisers were running a deficit, although she did not specify by how much.

Organisers declined funding from the Ford Foundation, which provided about half of the money to hold the 2003 forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

But Shah said the forum still received more than 25 percent of its funding from individual Americans or US-based activist groups.

"A lot of people in the US are interested in what is happening in the country. The US itself saw the largest demonstrations against the war" in Iraq, Shah said.

The anti-Bush tone already permeated the forum, with banners reading "Stop the USA" and "Kill Bush the Enemy" set up throughout the venue off a highway in industrial northern Mumbai.

Stern-faced Indian labour organisers, Western university students with dyed hair and backpacks, and shaven Tibetan nuns mingled on the wooden exhibition grounds, swapping news about the upcoming sessions and the practicalities of navigating the city of 18 million people.

Women in red saris swept dust away from the last-minute construction work as barefooted workers hopped onto the tables at the packed press centre to lay wires.

More than half of the participants at the World Social Forum are from host India, as the anti-globalisation movement tries to branch out from its European and Latin American roots.

The forum is hoping to win more supporters in Asia, which has half of the world's population and gaping inequalities.

But the international audience will also be exposed as never before to Indian social issues, particularly the centuries-old caste system.

More than 138 million Indians belong to the lowest caste, the Dalits, and by tradition are not allowed even to use the same dishes as the upper castes.

"Over 30,000 Dalits are attending the event and they will be the most visible force at the forum," said Ashok Bharti, head of the National Conference of Dalit Organisations.

Among the scheduled speakers at the World Social Forum are Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian rights campaigner and 2003 Nobel Peace laureate, Yossi Beilin and Yasser Abed Rabbo, the Israeli-Palestinian team that drafted the unofficial Geneva peace plan, and Jose Bove, the radical French sheep farmer and symbol of the anti-globalisation movement.

Several activist groups plan attention-grabbing arrivals, including Japanese pacifists whose "peace boat" is due to dock in Mumbai Thursday and hundreds of Dalits whose nationwide march is expected to culminate at the WSF grounds Friday.