Drums and dance as Africa hosts "anti-Davos" forum

NAIROBI, Jan 21 (Reuters) Glue-sniffing street-boys, men on camels, and women balancing clay pots on their heads marched from one of Africa's biggest slums at the start of an anti-capitalist fest hosted by the continent for the first time.

More than 10,000 people from around the globe descended on the massive Kibera shanty-town -- home for 800,000 of Kenya's poorest -- to dance, beat drums, chant and wave placards at the kick-off of the seventh annual World Social Forum.

The event, mainly held in Latin America in the past, began in 2001 as a challenge to the annual gathering of business and government leaders in Davos, Switzerland.

''We've come to discuss problems that have been here since the time of slavery, the time of colonialism, and are still here now,'' said Zambia's former president, Kenneth Kaunda, before flagging off the walk to Nairobi's Uhuru (Freedom) Park.

Organisers say about 80,000 activists and campaigners have descended on the Kenyan capital to share ideas and advocate against poverty, unfair trade rules, debt and conflict.

Behind Kaunda on a sunny Nairobi morning came a carnival-like crowd of camels, dancing street-boys, drum-beating Indians, guitar-strumming Italians and Kenyan women delicately holding pots on their heads to illustrate the difficulties African women go through to fetch water.

''We are here to give joy and peace,'' said Franciscan brother Ettore Marangi, clad in flowing brown cassock and dusty rubber slippers. ''Let's get violence in the name of religion out.'' ''EQUALITY AND SANITY'' Fifteen youths from Munich joined hands, yelled in German and held aloft their banner: ''We march for Equality and Sanity''.

Brirjit Vollbrecht travelled from Sweden for the forum and stayed up all night making a cloth banner which read: ''We're all in the same boat.'' ''The poverty of the world made me come,'' she said.

Another Swede, Hilkka Salo-Olsen, cradled two stuffed animals which she said represented squatters and which had been to a previous forum at its birth-place of Porto Alegre, Brazil.

Past forums have been attended by left-wing leaders like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

But the star focus this year was on Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai and South African anti-apartheid icon Desmond Tutu, both of whom are Nobel laureates.

Chavez was rumoured to be coming in days, but the Venezuelan Embassy in Nairobi said they had no confirmed plans.

Anti-American feeling was predictably rife yesterday.

''Bush is not a saviour of the world,'' said Thomas Kasdha, a 20-year-old German volunteer in Uganda, as he held up a placard reading ''World's No 1 Terrorist'' above a picture of US leader George W Bush.

Beside him, a man wheeled a bronze statue of a pregnant teenager. Its Danish sculptor, Jens Galschiot, said it was a protest against the Catholic Church's stance against contraception.

Despite all the ideals and political passion, some confessed they were simply there to have a good time.

''I am here to have fun!'' said John Mburu, a 13-year old former Kenyan street-boy under rehabilitation, as he enjoyed reggae belting out from speakers on a truck.

REUTERS MQA BST0455