TWO Lancaster men have given their first hand accounts of the rioting which engulfed the summit of world leaders in Genoa this weekend.

The Bishop of Lancaster, Patrick O' Donoghue, was there as a representative of CAFOD, campaigning to 'drop the debt' of third world nations.

Meanwhile, local socialist Paddy Shannon was among the protesters who joined the ranks of peaceful demonstrators campaigning against globalisation.

Both men saw first hand the scenes which rocked the summit as violent clashes developed between demonstrators and police.

Paddy Shannon joined up to 100,000 other people who converged on the Italian city to make a protest.

He said: "The coach driver was too frightened to take us into the city, and left us at the outskirts. The Convergence Centre was five hours' walk away. We had no maps, no money, and no idea where we were. All the shops were closed, and the banks. The buses were not running their full routes, there were no taxis, and the government had ordered the mobile phone networks to close down. An hour walking in ferocious heat and we encountered the steel barricades of the 'Red Zone', fenced by ranks of heavily armed carabinieri in battle formation. It looked like a scene from Gladiator, apart from the incongruous armoured cars and gas grenade launchers."

After trudging around Genoa in the scorching heat, Paddy found himself at a spot where their had been rioting earlier in the day.

"The streets were deserted, silent, horrific. Cars lay upside down, burned. Shops, banks, bottle bins, all smashed and laid waste. It was like a cyclone had swept through the centre of town and left an eerie calm in its wake."

But surprisingly, despite the damage to their city, Paddy discovered that most of the ordinary local people were in favour of the demonstrations. During a march the following day. local people cheered the protesters and waved red handkerchiefs.

"An enormous sign read: Workers of the World, Welcome to Genova. After everything that had happened to their town, they still were on our side. The Black Bloc had not won. The police agents had not succeeded. People understood that the spirit of resistance to capitalism and to global poverty was alive, and stronger than we thought."

The Bishop of Lancaster and the Drop the Debt protesters chose not to take part in the main march because of fears over safety and the agendas of some other protesters.

Bishop Patrick explained: "We were there because there were promises in 1999 to drop the debts but only a third have so far been dropped. We want to put pressure on the IMF and World Bank, who have done little so far with lots of third world countries still spending a large percentage of their gross domestic product on debt repayments instead of health and education."

He added: "Because the main march was infiltrated by anarchists and people with their own agenda we in our group withdrew from that march and held our own vigil. The Italian police were very naive. Many of them were only 18 or 19 years old.

"I think our police would have made snatches and picked out the ringleaders, whereas they attacked the group and pushed the troublemakers in with everyone else."