WASHINGTON - With the help of an expected 20,000 security forces and $25 million in federal money, Georgia will be prepared to protect President Bush and other world leaders when they meet this summer at the state's Sea Island resort, Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue said Monday.
Perdue said he doesn't know whether this year's Group of Eight summit of the world's leading industrial countries and Russia would attract a few thousand protesters or hundreds of thousands of demonstrators. Whatever the figure, he said, authorities will be prepared.
"There are people who should have a forum to dissent and speak their minds," he said. "We will insist that they have that forum, but that they utilize that forum in a lawful way."
Perdue said 16 different organizations ranging from the Georgia Highway Patrol to National Guard troops would help provide security under direction of the federal Secret Service. He said training sessions had been under way since last November.
In addition to the $25 million in federal money expected to be spent on security, Perdue said it was estimated that another $42 million would be needed to hold the meetings. He said organizers hoped to raise $16 million of that amount from private donations.
The protesters will be confined to official demonstration areas in Savannah, Ga., some 90 miles down the Georgia coast from Sea Island, where Bush and the other leaders will hold their summit.
The five-mile barrier island is accessible by car from a causeway that will be closed to all but official vehicles and residents of the island during the June 8-10 summit.
Selection of G-8 sites that can be easily closed off to demonstrators has become the norm since the Genoa, Italy, summit in the summer of 2001. That meeting was marred by violent clashes between police in which a demonstrator was killed.
The 2002 summit, in the ultrastrict security that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, was staged at a remote resort in the Canadian Rockies accessible only by one two-lane road. Last year's summit was at an exclusive hotel in Evian, France, where French authorities also were able to establish an extensive security area.
Perdue, in Washington to attend the National Governors Association conference, said he assured Bush during a brief conversation at the White House that the preparations were on schedule for the summer meeting.
Perdue, a Republican, said he told Bush that "we were making great progress and great plans for the G-8." He said Bush repeated his belief that the location offered a great place for relaxed conversation. Bush's parents had their honeymoon at Sea Island in 1945 and also celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on the island.
In addition to the leaders of the G-8 countries — the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Canada and Russia — the United States will invite leaders of some 40 developing countries for discussions on the sidelines of the G-8 sessions, Perdue said.
He said those nations will include some of the 34 countries involved in negotiating a Free Trade Agreement of the Americas. Perdue said he will take the opportunity to inform those countries of Atlanta's bid to become the home of the headquarters of the FTAA , which is scheduled to be completed in 2005.
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