Occupy protesters' weekend events challenging G8
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E-mail Xinhua, May 19, 2012
Activists of the U.S. Occupy movement kicked off on Friday their weekend protests against the Group of Eight (G8) summit in Frederick, Maryland, some 20 miles away from the heavily-guarded Camp David presidential retreat where the G8 leaders will meet later in the day.
Unlike those large and sometimes violent protests seen at the previous G8 summits, an audience of several dozens joined a local library speech and discussion event, as part of the scheduled weekend protests titled "The Occupy G8 People's Summit."
The event, organized by Occupy Frederick and Occupy Washington D.C. members, was aimed at countering some of the forthcoming discussions among G8 leaders at Camp David in Thurmont.
"From its founding, the G8 has existed to represent the wealthiest people and financial institutions in a handful of nations and has been in conflict with everyone else," said Kevin Zeese, one of the organizers of Occupy Frederick. "The international community has called for these types of changes since the early 1970s and again recently, but has been ignored."
Margaret Flowers, an organizer of Occupy D.C., argued that it's time "to expose the truth about the G8," which she said favors wealthy corporations rather than representing the needs of the majority.
"Our vision is a political system that actually represents and benefits the variety and diversity of our societies," she added.
The prolonged and worsening debt crisis in the eurozone is expected to top the agenda of the two-day G8 summit.
"Governments are being thrown out of office in Europe and there are protests around the world against austerity," noted Flowers.
Some protesters also held small demonstrations with banners and signs in Thurmont, just miles away from Camp David. So far there has been no report of violence or arrests related to the summit.
U.S. President Barack Obama decided in March to separate the May 18-19 G8 summit from the May 20-21 NATO summit, which will be hosted by Chicago. The G8 summit usually draws protesters against globalization, and Camp David of Maryland is believed to be an ideal location to protect the participating leaders from distraction.
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