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Violence Accompanies Haider Visit To Vatican
by Gunther Kern
VATICAN CITY (AFP) - Police and scores of protesters clashed Saturday as Austria's controversial far-right leader Joerg Haider made a visit to the Vatican, where he officially presented Pope John Paul II with his home region's Christmas tree.
An Italian newspaper journalist, a policeman and two youths were slightly injured in scuffles, as Italian police held two people, ANSA news agency reported.
Italian security forces used tear gas to stop demonstrators from breaking through a police cordon while other protesters tried to raise barricades.
Haider, who is governor of the Austrian state of Carinthia, left his hotel, a few hundred meters [yards] from the square, through a back door to attend the festivity and was met with shouts of "fascist" and "racist" when he arrived at the Vatican.
Earlier in the day, Haider had a brief audience with Pope John Paul II, and received a stern papal reminder condemning racism and xenophobia.
The pontiff's statement was contained in a document that was also given to members of Haider's 250-strong delegation from Carinthia.
The document was issued to mark the Day of World Peace on January 1st, and calls on people to avoid "pathological manifestations," such as "forms of nationalism, racism and xenophobia."
"Immigrants must always be treated with the respect due to the dignity of every human person," the message said.
Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said no pictures were taken during a brief one-on-one meeting between the pope and Haider, and no television cameras were allowed to film the encounter.
In a short speech before the delegation, the pope dwelled on the significance of the Christmas tree as a symbol of Christian spirituality.
He noted that the Vatican accepted the offer of a Christmas tree from Carinthia in 1997 - at a time when Haider was not governor there.
"With the Christmas tree, you have brought a very special gift for all of us from your home region to Rome," John Paul II said.
Different world regions traditionally provide trees put up in Saint Peter’s Square during the Christmas season.
Speaking in Italian during the afternoon ceremony in Saint Peter's Square, Haider said, "all people should find a dignified life in their homeland" in a world in which many leaders "often forget that so many stricken people suffer from hunger and misery."
The Carinthian tree was "a sign of peace, conciliation, solidarity and common Christian responsibility."
Haider has long been criticized for remarks sympathetic to Hitler's Waffen SS and his reference to Nazi concentration camps as "punishment camps".
His Freedom Party is the junior ally in a coalition government with the conservative People's Party of Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel.
When told by journalists before the meeting with the pope that Jewish-owned businesses were planning to turn off the lights in their stores Saturday evening in protest at his visit, Haider said: "If they want to save electricity, it's their business."
Between 1,500 and 5,000 students and left-wing demonstrators marched through Rome early Saturday, calling the visit "a provocation and an offense to the city's history".
Protesters at Castel San Angelo near the Vatican later unfurled a large banner, hanging from red balloons, reading: "Haider, how does it feel to be rejected?"
Demonstrators said they would ask the pope to replace Haider's Carinthian conifer with an "anti-Fascist Christmas tree".
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