LONDON, Oct 15 (AFP) - Thousands of European activists opened an annual gathering devoted to challenging what they charge is a system of US-led military and corporate power which fuels war, poverty and ecological disaster.
Nearly 20,000 trade unionists, environmentalists, human rights activists and other delegates were in London for the start of the three-day European Social Forum (ESF), joined by colleagues from developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The gathering was due to culminate Sunday with a protest march in central London against the US- and British-led war in Iraq.
Activists see big oil and other corporate interests as behind the turmoil in Iraq and in other parts of the globe, as well as the reason for US President George W. Bush's refusal to sign the Kyoto protocol on climate change.
"Big business is no longer big business. They have become empires," said Oronto Douglas, an environmental and human rights lawyer from Nigeria, who was sponsored to attend the ESF by green charity Friends of the Earth.
Douglas said such empires dictated their terms to local and national governments worldwide, as well as global institutions such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization, without caring about the impact on ordinary people.
Their effects were devastating, he said, explaining that villages in the oil-rich Niger Delta in Nigeria lacked electricity, even though the region produced vast amounts of energy for the rest of the world.
"But despite its damaging impacts, the oil industry receives public funding from the UK government to support new pipelines and operations via publicly-funded financial bodies, such as the World Bank and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development," Friends of the Earth said in a statement.
Berenice Celeyta, a trade unionist from Colombia, urged delegates to examine the support that European governments and corporations allegedly give to efforts in her country to smash the trade union movement and impose privatization.
She said she had been targeted for assassination for her political activism.
Alex Callinicos, a member of the Globalise Resistance group, stressed the importance of resisting US military and corporate power.
"Today the United States is militarily more powerful than any other country. They use this supremacy to set their hegemony," Callinicos said.
"Our priority is the defeat of the project of American hegemony."
The ESF -- like its sister forums in Africa, Asia and the Americas -- was born out of the World Social Forum, held in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 2001.
The first ESF was staged in Florence, Italy in 2002, followed by Paris in 2003.
Despite the wide range of subjects to be covered during the forum, covering virtually every left-leaning, anti-corporate and pro-green arena possible, one debate looked set to dominate -- the war in Iraq.
Activists' feelings over last year's conflict were highlighted Friday evening when an Iraqi trade unionist was forced to abandon a debate on the future of the country as angry militants labelled him a "collaborator".
Subhi al Mashadani decided not to participate in the debate even after a vote of the 500 or so people attending showed overwhelming support for his presence.
An ESF spokesman said the Forum condemned the actions of the vocal minority, calling it "completely opposed to the philosophy of the ESF".