Protesters converge on German port for G8 demo

ROSTOCK, Germany, June 2 (Reuters) Anti-globalisation protesters converged on the Baltic port of Rostock today to demonstrate against the policies of the world's leading industrial countries ahead of a Group of Eight summit next week.

Police expect up to 100,000 demonstrators to pack the city and to attend 40 separate gatherings planned over the weekend in protest against the G8 summit to be hosted by German Chancellor Angela Merkel in nearby Heiligendamm.

''We expect a peaceful but politically charged atmosphere,'' said demo organiser Werner Raetz, as small groups of demonstrators gathered on the city's harbour front under grey skies for a day of rallies, concerts and speeches.

Ships decked out with Greenpeace banners sat in the harbour while demonstrators put finishing touches to a range of floats, including one with a giant inflatable pill calling for medicines for all and another featuring models of starving children.

Church groups, environmental activists, cultural societies and feminists will all take part in the demonstrations, joining traditional anti-G8 protesters who say globalisation and capitalism perpetuate poverty in the developing world.

Organisers said makeshift camps on the outskirts of the harbour city, 200 km north of Berlin, had filled up overnight and that packed buses and trains, some from the south of Germany, were flooding into the renovated town.

There were no reports of trouble in Rostock overnight, but shopkeepers in the main commercial district took precautions against vandalism by boarding up storefronts.

The police presence in the town was noticeable and officers were monitoring arrivals to weed out potential troublemakers.

''We want to filter out those who are not interested in demonstrating but who have just come to go on the rampage,'' a police spokesman said.

Raetz said the stringent checks could anger protesters.

''What we do fear is the police's actions in the next few days could anger people to the extent that they do things which are not planned,'' he said.

BOISTEROUS CROWD Organisers expect a larger, more boisterous crowd in Rostock after a series of police raids on leftist activists and police orders to prevent them coming too close to Heiligendamm, a village 25 kms west of Rostock.

A 12-km security fence has been built around the resort where Merkel will host G8 leaders on June 6-8 for talks about climate change, aid and financial markets.

Eager to avert the violence that has accompanied past G8 summits, German leaders including Merkel have issued pleas for peaceful demonstrations.

In 2001, a demonstrator was shot by police at a G8 meeting in Genoa. Since then, G8 summits have been surrounded by heavy security. Around 16,000 police officers are on duty in the week leading up to the meeting, Germany's biggest security operation since after World War Two.

Protesters are expected to block roads leading to Heiligendamm during the summit. They may also disrupt the arrival of some delegates with their plan to blockade the nearby military airport at Rostock-Laage early next week.

Trouble may also flare after authorities refused permission for a demonstration by the far-right National Democrats (NPD) to go ahead in nearby Schwerin.

Organisers of the main anti-G8 demonstrations expressed concern that protesters who had planned to take part in the Schwerin rally might descend on Rostock instead.

REUTERS SG VV1531