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G8 SUMMIT: Gleneagles Was Never This Far

Sanjay Suri

GLENEAGLES, Scotland, Jul 5 2005 (IPS) - "Not every train stops in Gleneagles," the kindly Scotswoman said. "But there’s the odd one that does." She produced a timetable that showed a train calling at the central Scotland destination about once an hour.

Good enough, and understandable enough. Not many people want to travel to the little but luxurious golf resort by train. But there are many who would like to reach the Gleneagles Hotel this week to mark their protest over the G8 summit.

Leaders from the Group of Eight most powerful industrialised nations (United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia) are meeting there July 6-8. Activists from around the world have come to voice their protests against the tack the G8 is taking on the main agenda items – poverty in Africa and global climate change – and other issues.

The quick ten-minute train ride from Perth town was never to be. "No trains stopping at Gleneagles this week," the officer at the little station at Perth said. Not surprising, perhaps, but certainly not in tune with all the announcements by leaders and officials in recent months that they would not stand in the way of peaceful protests at Gleneagles over the G8 summit.

No, the protesters had not been physically blocked from the place. It was just decided to get trains to run right through Gleneagles. Welcome to Gleneagles, but you can’t get off here.

"What’s the other way to Gleneagles?" I asked the railway officer. "Don’t know," he said. It sounded like "Don’t go." I asked some policemen standing by and listening. "Don’t know," one said. "We are from England." Which is most of what Britain is about, even though Britain comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

I walked to the bus station round the corner. "No buses to Gleneagles," said the clerk. It would be polite to say she was just unfriendly. "You can’t get to Gleneagles this week at all."

A passenger knew better. "Try the number 17," he said. "From Stagecoach." That is the giant bus company based in Perth, the great local economic success to show off to world business taking a close look at Perthshire, the county in which Gleneagles is located, during the G8 meet.

"Try, but it may run or it may not," said another woman at the counter. It seemed as though the fate of the number 17 this week would depend at least partly on the nature of passengers it carries – or does not. A first for Scotland, certainly.

As it turned out, the 17 came, and on time, displaying a board that said "Gleneagles Hotel", a picture of innocence, an announcement of "business as usual". A little bus that runs every two hours. Sitting 20, standing 20, it said at the front. Which meant a maximum of 40 demonstrators every two hours from Perth to Gleneagles. Again, no one was saying "no" to demonstrators; there just did not seem a real way to get to Gleneagles.

No one tried – not on that bus anyway. It never did get to Gleneagles, but was diverted to nearby Auchterarder. There was not a single demonstrator on board; only some local Scots going in and out of the villages en route. How very different the "regular" Scot looks to a demonstrator in the eyes of this reporter. I was the only passenger who got off the bus at Auchterarder.

Local Scots were clearly not keen on any demonstration. And to outsiders Gleneagles hotel had become almost a fortress. The hotel always had the look of one; but this week few will get even to see it.

In Auchterarder, bus 17 was to get only up to a far corner, but did not manage that either. The high road was blocked because of a bomb scare reported at the branch of The Bank of Scotland. The local bus to Gleneagles was not running. In other words, a two-mile detour up to Gleneagles Hotel, to a barrier on the way to the hotel, that is.

"No way in from here," a policeman on duty said. "Just go round." He pointed to the media centre straight ahead, and then to the opposite direction for getting to it. So that from getting from 11 to 12 on a clock, you would need to go counter-clockwise all the way round. He forgot to say it would be a five-mile walk, an hour or so.

The position on that Gleneagles "clock" between 11 and 12 was being keenly watched over by police perched on a constructed tower, of the kind we usually associate with concentration camps.

Vanloads of police passed by every minute or two. No one offered further directions. "I don’t know," said one policeman. "I am from England." The police from Scotland might have known, but they would not say. And no directions, no signposts.

"I’ve seen some people go one way, and some go the other way," another policeman offered. "That doesn’t help," I said. He agreed, and then added that he too was from England.

"Why didn’t you take the coach from Glasgow or Edinburgh?" said someone I finally called at the media centre. "Because I’ve come from Perth," I said. The only sure way to get to the media centre seemed by coach from those two cities. I’d seen the flip side of that. Anyone trying to get to Gleneagles on his own is going to have a pretty hard time of it.

No way to Gleneagles; from the nearest town a walk of five to seven miles, with no signs to guide you. And certainly the government is not providing special buses to demonstrators who might want to get to Gleneagles. Usual transport arrangements provide for just a trickle. And a trickle of demonstrators is the most that will get to Auchterarder, and certainly nowhere near Gleneagles.

The constrictions seemed just short of a curfew. A farmer on a small field outside Auchterarder has permitted some demonstrators on his field. But he could accommodate only some. And on Tuesday there were more police than demonstrators gathering there.

Gleneagles is no place these days for the wandering individual. And certainly no place for the individual who might look like an angry demonstrator. But finally, past several security inspections of a media pass appeared the board: "Welcome to G8." Such a British welcome.