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'Mbeki, do not embrace Bush'
05/07/2003 18:26 - (SA)
Johannesburg - About 500 people staged a protest at the Library Gardens in Johannesburg on Saturday, calling on President Thabo Mbeki not to host his United States counterpart George Bush.
"Bush, you're not welcome here," one poster held aloft by some of the demonstrators read.
Another one held the legend: "Mbeki, do not embrace Bush."
Bush is scheduled to visit South Africa on Tuesday and Wednesday next week during his first tour of Africa since he took over as president of the United States in 2001.
He is expected to meet Mbeki at the Union Buildings on Wednesday, and the demonstrators planned to picket at the venue while the two leaders are meeting behind closed doors.
The United States president would visit Botswana, Uganda, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa during his tour, which starts on Monday and ends on Friday.
Protesting under the banner of the Anti-War Coalition, some of the demonstrators said Bush was coming to South Africa to solicit Mbeki's support in his domination of the world.
"He (Bush) is coming to South Africa to spread the power, the domination and the imperialist agenda of the United States," Jubilee 2000 patron Dennis Brutus said.
"He is inviting President Mbeki to embrace the plans for Washington to dominate the world. We must resist those plans.
"We will resist, we will oppose those plans. A people united will never be defeated," he said to the applause of the crowd.
Mauritian national Ram Seegobin said Bush delayed his first visit to the continent because he was "busy planning to murder people in Iraq".
"Bush is the naked (and) ugly face of American imperialism. In Iraq, in Afghanistan children died, what did Bush do?" Seegobin asked.
"That is why we must say to our governments 'Bush is not welcome here'," he said.
Kenyan native Wahoo Kara added: "We must stand up against this monster who has no respect for life. We must 'Bush you are not welcome to Africa'."
Anti-war Coalition spokesperson Salim Vally said the Bush administration replaced the "dictatorship of Saddam Hussein with an equally ruthless occupation of Iraq with US troops".
"Bush is a warmonger," Vally said. "Bush represents a group of people who are undemocratic."
Before Vally spoke, the protesters' observed a moment of silence remembering "all victims of the US administration".
The group then moved to Luthuli House, the headquarters of the African National Congress, to deliver a memorandum.
However, the memorandum was not handed over to ANC officials as there no one was there.
ANC security personnel informed some journalists that there was nobody in the building except them to received the document.
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