Protesters urge Blair to curb wood imports
Copyright 2001 The Herald (Glasgow)
August 1, 2001
Demonstrators burst through security lines and got within feet of Tony Blair as he visited Sao Paolo in Brazil yesterday.
The protesters, from environmental pressure group Greenpeace, were pulled away from the prime minister by security guards as they unfurled a banner calling on him to end British importation of wood from the Amazon rainforest.
Greenpeace had earlier handed Mr Blair a letter calling on him to keep a promise made at the G8 summit last year to import wood only from sustainable sources.
David Logie, a Scottish Greenpeace activist working for the group in the Amazon, said: "We handed the letter to Tony Blair, and he seemed happy to accept it.
"A little later, two Greenpeace activists broke through the cordon with a big banner and were unveiling it a couple of feet from him when they were forcibly and very quickly removed by security guards.
"The cordon was just a piece of tape. We were surprised at how easy it was to get close to Mr Blair."
The incident occurred as Mr Blair met Geraldo Alckmin, the Sao Paolo governor, in the city's botanical gardens.
Speaking from the Brazilian city, Mr Logie stressed that the demonstrators had had no intention of harming the prime minister, who remained calm and composed throughout the protest. He said: "Our protests are always peaceful and we were not moving in a violent manner, just unfurling a banner.
"The banner read 'Tony Blair - Keep Your Promises', because last year he said he would only buy sustainable wood from legal and sustainable sources, and Greenpeace has evidence that the UK is importing wood from the Amazon from illegal and uncertified sources."
Downing Street declined to comment on the incident. Tomorrow, nearly two decades after the Falklands conflict, Mr Blair will seek to recruit Argentina as a key ally in his campaign to drive down tariff barriers and open up world trade.
When he becomes the first serving British prime minister to set foot on Argentine soil, it will be with a mission to enlist president Fernando de la Rua in his pro-globalisation crusade.
Both countries have already agreed they will not discuss the 1982 conflict. Instead, he wants to align Argentina with Brazil and Mexico, which he visits later this week, in a common Anglo-Latin American front to carry the banner for economic liberalisation.
Mr Blair, whose tour of the region marks the first visit to each of the three countries by a British premier, is already looking to develop further high level contacts with them in the run-up to the next round of world trade talks in November.
The Prime Minister's official spokesman said he saw the arguments for trade liberalisation being expounded by nations such as Argentina as a useful counter -balance to the anti-globalisation movement.
"The Prime Minister believes the people at the sharp end of the globalisation debate have a much more realistic view of the benefits of globalisation than was seen in the caricature of the debate from some of the demonstrators in Genoa," the spokesman said.
Meanwhile. Cherie Blair spent yesterday morning visiting a home for street girls in Rio de Janeiro.
She spent 90 minutes in the Girls' House in the Brazilian city's notoriously rough north zone. The home, which has been going for 18 years, was visited by the late Diana, Princess of Wales in 1991 and is currently supported by the Department for International Development.