GENEVA (AFP) - About 3,000 anti-globalization protestors limbered up outside the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva as thousands of others began arriving for Sunday's cross-border anti-G8 rally.
The Swiss city has battened down the hatches ahead of a G8 summit across the border in the French spa town of Evian, with many banks and shops shut or boarded up.
But Friday's protest was largely peaceful, with only a handful of renegade protestors picking the unlikely target of the World Meteorological Organization to hurl stones and smash its glass facade.
Britons, Germans, Swiss and various other nationalities marched under the banner "No Borders", shouting slogans such as "No Border, No Deportation" and "No to the Occupation of Iraq."
"We are here to defend asylum-seekers. Why can money pass through borders but not asylum-seekers," said one British demonstrator, who declined to be named.
Criticizing the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a non-UN agency, Franck Duvell, from Germany, said: "The IOM is a natural enemy of any migrant, an enemy of freedom of movement."
After protesting outside the World Trade Organization (WTO), which has shut down till the G8 summit ends next Tuesday, they marched towards the UN, with some protestors throwing stones en route at the Russian mission.
Tens of thousands of other protestors were meanwhile arriving in both Geneva and in the nearby French town of Annemasse to join the main protest on Sunday, the opening day of the Group of Eight (G8) summit in Evian that will gather world leaders including presidents George W. Bush and Jacques Chirac.
They are mostly staying in "alternative" tent villages in France and will be marching simultaneously on either side of the border and meeting up at a border-crossing.
Swiss border police said Friday they had since May 22 intercepted three small groups of what they called "professional trouble-makers" heading for this weekend's protests.
Iron bars, fireworks, balaclavas and various weapons were confiscated, they said, adding that 13 of those stopped had been handed over to the French police.
The first anti-G8 demonstration took place late Thursday in the Swiss city of Lausanne, which lies on Lake Geneva opposite Evian and which will host leaders of 11 developing countries from Saturday, attending on the sidelines of the G8.
The Lausanne rally took place largely peacefully and in a party-like atmosphere despite heavy rain, with just a small black-clad group among the some 5,000 participants provoking the police by throwing cans and other objects.
"It's a victory against the small idiots who believe you can resolve things by smashing everything up," said Aristides Pedreza, one of the anti-G8 organizers from the Vaud region where Lausanne is located.
Swiss French-language newspapers expressed relief Friday at the peaceful nature of the rally, with Le Matin newspaper calling it a "victory against hysteria" which has taken a grip of Geneva.
Many banks, shops and businesses in Geneva's chic downtown have been boarded up for several days as a precaution against violent demonstrations, and many intend to remain closed until early next week.
The area where the United Nations and international organizations such as the WTO are situated will be off-limits Sunday when up to 100,000 people are expected to take part in the dual protests.
Initial estimates had spoken of about 300,000 people, but have gradually been adjusted downwards.
Sunday's action is expected to begin with symbolic blockades of bridges in Geneva and across roads in Annemasse to try to hold up delegates headed for Evian.
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