Lobbyists for the cancellation of debt owed by the world's 52 poorest nations were dismayed and enraged yesterday when the Group of Seven industrialised nations meeting in Okinawa failed to offer new steps towards loan forgiveness. The G-7 met to discuss economic issues ahead of the Group of Eight nations' three-day summit, which began later in the day.
About 200 debt-forgiveness protesters marched through the small town of Nago, where the seven leaders met.
According to the umbrella campaign group, Jubilee 2000, about half of the $376 billion debt is owed directly to individual governments, mainly to G7 members. Last year the G7 promised to write off $100 billion in debt but has only cancelled less than $12 billion so far.
The G7 statement issued after the meeting was to leave the demonstrators extremely disappointed. The statement, which struck an optimistic note on overall global economic growth, called on debtor nations to do more to qualify themselves for loan forgiveness.
Mr Adrian Lovett, of Jubilee 2000, who took part in the Nago march, said the statement was an "insult" that offered nothing new. Mr Lovett said the G7 merely "repeated promises made last year".
Despite deep anger at the G7 stance, Mr Lovett said there was little chance of NGO protests in Okinawa turning violent. "It's not a Seattle situation," he said, referring to last December's anti-WTO demonstrations in the US city, which ended in a riot.
Security is extremely tight. Eight warships and 20 planes are patrolling the coast and diving in some parts of the surrounding tropical ocean has been banned since June. More than 22,000 extra police have also been drafted into Okinawa.
Earlier in the day, President Clinton threw a sop to opponents of the US military bases in Japan's most southern prefecture. Sweating under the blazing sun, Mr Clinton told a crowd at a peace memorial commemorating the 234,000 people killed during the Battle of Okinawa in 1945, "we will continue to do what we can to reduce our footprint on the island".
Over half of the 50,000 US military personnel in Japan is stationed in Okinawa, which makes up just 0.6 per cent of the nation's land mass.
But Mr Clinton was careful to make no specific commitments on any base reductions.
Instead, he focused on Okinawa's unfair share of the base burden - a subtle shifting of responsibility toward Tokyo for failing to take any politically unpopular initiatives to move bases to other parts of Japan.
Anti-base feeling among locals has heightened in recent weeks after a hit-and-run incident involving a serviceman and an alleged drunken assault by a Marine on a 14-year-old girl as she lay sleeping, evoking memories of the rape of a 12-year-old girl by three servicemen in 1995.
As Mr Clinton spoke, more than 100 enthusiastic helmeted anti-base protesters were kept at bay by riot police.
Later, Mr Clinton talked to the Russian President, Mr Vladimir Putin, in a one-to-one meeting in which the US President criticised Russia's war in Chechnya and a Kremlin-inspired clampdown on press freedom.
Mr Putin reiterated his opposition to Washington's planned National Missile Defence system. But Mr Clinton was non-committal on the question, saying that a final decision on the system had not yet been made. Both Presidents also agreed to work together on controlling intermediate-range missiles.
As with other controversial issues, the Japanese government is anxious to keep talk of the defence system firmly off the official agenda. But that may be difficult to achieve. The US plan has caused deep misgivings among Washington's allies. The German Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schroder, and the French President, Mr Jacques Chirac, say they fear it could provoke another nuclear arms race.
At a working dinner yesterday evening, the G8 leaders stuck with issues they could agree on - the desire for peace and stability in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa and support for the recent thawing in inter-Korean relations.
G8 talks today will concentrate on ways to tackle infectious diseases such as AIDS and tuberculosis and how to bridge the so-called digital divide - between those countries which have gone online and those which have not.
Some 50 Japanese coastguards boarded the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior II late yesterday and detained it, a Greenpeace official said.
"They've occupied us, and they've tied one of their vessels alongside," Greenpeace's international co-ordinator, Ms Michelle Sheather, said.