JENNIFER CRICHTON

ANARCHISTS are planning to use a variety of tactics to win over Scots to their cause during the G8 summit in Gleneagles this summer.

In the face of what they label "anti-anarchist hysteria", they aim to launch a charm offensive to counteract their reputation as violent protesters, hoping that organising positive, community based events will help them to attract positive attention to their cause.

The Dissent network has this week been holding its Festival of Dissent planning event in Lanarkshire. One project being planned was Cre8 Summat, a project that aims to help communities across Scotland. Similar projects in the US proved a great success during the last G8 summit in Savannah, Georgia.

Dissent say that the American projects "saw crews of anarchists armed with hammers and crowbars engaged in cleaning and repairing housing".

The Cre8 organisers wish to so the same, saying: "We have a strength and depth of skills and imagination within our movement to do some really good stuff and to start to build the world we want."

They hope that the projects organised by Cre8 will "provide a field of activity for people who may not be attracted by confrontational actions or passive mass demonstrations.

This will bring anti G8 protest from the abstract global level to the local and tangible."

Suggestions for suitable projects range from housing repair operations in Edinburgh to helping with conservation projects in Perthshire.

The only prerequisite is that "projects should work directly with communities already suffering from corporate globalisation".

Edinburgh Council leader Donald Anderson faced criticism last week when he said demonstrations should have a feel of Fringe Festival events.

The Cre8 project is one of a number of peaceful protest initiatives currently being organised for this year's G8 summit in Gleneagles.

Tayside Police's chief constable, John Vine, said "Peaceful protest is a right that I strongly support... I am always delighted when a protest group gives a commitment to non-violent peaceful protest."