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AUCHTERARDER, Scotland - Riot police with attack dogs beat back demonstrators Wednesday as thousands marched near the site of the Group of Eight summit, demanding action from the world's leaders on poverty reduction and climate change.
The protesters - banging drums, blowing whistles and led by a bagpiper dressed in a kilt - marched through the narrow streets of Auchterarder, a village of about 4,000 people, to the nearby fenced-off perimeter of the Gleneagles resort.
A few hundred broke off from the main demonstration and pushed through a small barrier along the route, running across a field and surrounding a wooden police watchtower on the edge of the resort, where the G-8 leaders were to meet. Although protesters didn't manage to scale the resort's main perimeter fence, riot police chased after them with batons.
A small number of people were beaten back by police with dogs, as reinforcements were ferried in on helicopters. Protesters eventually retreated as the police advanced.
Authorities said 10 people were arrested, and there were reports of only minor injuries. By dusk, many of the demonstrators had retreated to pubs and cafes away from the summit site.
Earlier in the day, Tayside Police had called off the march, after demonstrators southwest of Gleneagles smashed car windows, threw rocks and attempted to blockade one of the main roads approaching the summit venue.
The decision to prevent the march outraged protesters. Organizer G-8 Alternatives accused police of "disgraceful behavior" in denying thousands of people the right to stage a peaceful demonstration.
George Galloway, a politician recently re-elected to the House of Commons, despite being thrown out of Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour Party, criticized the decision.
"The most violent people on earth are not the demonstrators, not even the anarchists. The most violent criminals in the world today are in the Gleneagles Hotel, and they're called the G-8," he said. "They're responsible for the deaths of millions of people around the world by the system of globalized capitalism, by their war, by their exploitation."
As they arrived at the perimeter of Gleneagles, protesters waved their hands in the air and shouted "blood on your hands!" - a reference to the Iraq war and poverty in Africa - before heading back. Tayside Police said about 5,000 to 6,000 people participated in the march, although organizers put the figure at 15,000.
Margaret Chisholm, 60, a retiree from Dundee, Scotland, said she was marching to demand "some sort of fairness to those less fortunate than ourselves, who don't have a voice." She said she would like the G-8 leaders to cancel Africa's debt.
Her views were echoed by Joyce Ketteles, a social worker from Dundee. "They can find the money to go and fight wars, no problem," she said. "They have the resources, but they don't seem to be able to do anything to save people's lives."
In Edinburgh, the Scottish capital, around 300 protesters who had been turned back from Auchterarder massed on the main shopping street and blocked traffic. Around 50 others staged a sit-in protest in front of a fleet of buses.
"Eight people should not have the right to control everything," said Michael Pacitti, 19, of Aberdeen, Scotland. "There's not enough democracy when it's eight people making decisions for everybody."
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