‘Stop financing wars’: Protesters at G7 demand concrete action

Organizers of the G7 Summit protest said they are disappointed of the low turnout this year as the world leaders are expected to attend the G7 Summit in Germany.

About 4,000 protesters gathered in Munich as the Group of Seven leading economic powers prepared Saturday to hold their annual gathering in the Bavarian Alps in Germany, which holds the G7 rotating presidency this year.

Organizers had hoped to mobilize up to 20,000 protesters in the Bavarian city and were disappointed by the low turnout at Munich’s Theresienwiese park, German news agency dpa reported.

Uwe Hiksch, one of the protest organizers, theorized said that potential participants might consider it inappropriate to challenge the world’s wealthiest democracies during Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“We have the impression that many people are unsettled by the war in Ukraine,” Hiksch told dpa.

Seven years ago, 35,000 people participated in protests when the G-7 held a summit at the same site in Bavaria.

The G-7 leaders — from the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan — are expected to start arriving in Germany on Saturday afternoon. Their summit agenda includes issues such as Russia’s war on Ukraine, climate change, energy and a looming food security crisis.

“Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine is also having an impact here,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in a video podcast Saturday, referring to rising prices for groceries, gas and energy.

Fifteen groups critical of globalization, from the international Attac network to the environmental organization WWF, called on people to participate in demonstrations for this weekend’s summit.