DONETSK, Ukraine, Dec 21 (AFP) - Opposition activists trying to spread their message in eastern Ukraine ahead of a rerun presidential vote were turned away Tuesday by angry government supporters who surrounded their "peace train" convoy, pounded their cars and forced them back, witnesses said.
The incident occurred outside this eastern city, when a convoy of around 50 vehicles carrying supporters of opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko was halted and surrounded by around 300 cars packed with supporters of his rival, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, they said.
"They surrounded our cars, began to beat on the cars and scream, swearing," said Oksana Laka, one of around 150 people participating in the Yushchenko convoy that left Kiev on December 14 and has been travelling through regions where Yanukovich's support is strongest.
"It was so scary, we didn't know what to do," Laka told AFP. When the convoy turned down another road to leave, the way was found to be littered with nails that punctured the tires of several of the vehicles, she said.
Participants said they regretted not being permitted to enter Donetsk, Yanukovich's home region.
"It's really a shame," Laka said. "It's a friendship rally after all."
Organizers of the peace train convoy said before it left Kiev that they hoped to explain Yushchenko's positions and dispel misconceptions about his intentions in mainly Russian-speaking parts of eastern and southern Ukraine ahead of a repeat presidential election Sunday.
Prior to the confrontation with the convoy, around 300 mostly university students burned effigies of Yushchenko and his allies Yulia Timoshenko and Petro Poroshenko in downtown Donetsk as they waited for the rally, an AFP reporter at the scene said.
As the pro-Russian Yanukovich scrambled to recover following a bruising in a live television debate with Yushchenko, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who openly backed Yanukovich in an earlier and now discredited election, said he would have no problem working with whoever won.
With the hint of a smile on his face, Putin told reporters after talks in Germany with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder that he had worked with the Western-leaning Yushchenko in the past and said "our cooperation was not bad at all."
However Putin, whose credibility was hit hard by his support for Yanukovich in an election riddled with fraud, was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying that opposition leader Yushchenko "is, like Yanukovich, a member of (outgoing leader Leonid) Kuchma's current team."
Yushchenko has been a fierce opponent of Kuchma ever since 2001, when the latter fired him from the spot of prime minister.
Seen as a moderate reformer when elected a decade ago, Kuchma, a Soviet-era technocrat, has recently moved closer to the Kremlin and also backed Yanukovich prior to the earlier November 21 election dispute.
Ukrainian election officials meanwhile said they had registered another 3,735 representatives of foreign governments and international institutions Tuesday to monitor the repeat election, bringing the total number of foreign observers to over 12,000, Interfax said.
The observers represent key western and eastern European institutions including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the NATO parliamentary assembly, the European parliament and the Russia-dominated Commonwealth of Independent States, the news agency said.
A number of foreign governments have also registered their own representatives to monitor the election, including the United States, Britain, Poland and Canada.
Yanukovich, a prime minister of two years who has gone on leave during the campaign, meanwhile denied he was trying to inflame divisive tendencies among his supporters ahead of his rematch with Yushchenko.
"I will not tolerate attempts to divide Ukraine, to separate my people from their territory, their language or their religion," he told diplomats early Tuesday.
"The unity of our country, its independence and sovereignty is for me a supreme value that I will defend in no matter which posts and no matter what conditions," he said.
The two rivals are in very different positions than they were before their contest in November. Western-leaning Yushchenko is now seen as the frontrunner while the Moscow-friendly prime minister is casting himself as an outsider fighting the ruling regime.

12/21/2004 17:21 GMT - AFP