Protesters to target Bush, Putin in Kennebunkport

KENNEBUNKPORT – A year ago, demonstrators gathered to call for President Bush to bring the troops home from Iraq. This year, Russian President Vladimir Putin will be an object of demonstrators’ ire, as well.

Protesters will take Bush and Putin to task for invading and occupying Muslim countries – Chechnya and Iraq, said Jamilla El-Shafei, one of the organizers.

“Both have invaded small, oil-rich Muslim countries,” she said Monday. “We need to bring that to the attention of the world because they’re equally detestable. They’re breeding terrorism in a Muslim world that’s already outraged.”

The demonstration is scheduled for Kennebunkport’s Village Green on Sunday to coincide with the arrival of Putin to meet with President Bush at the seaside home of Bush’s father, former President George H.W. Bush.

Demonstrators from as far away as Texas and Wisconsin will march from the Village Green down Ocean Avenue to make their point, said El-Shafei, a business owner from Kennebunk who organized a similar event last summer when Bush visited Kennebunkport.

There’ll be music, speakers and drums as well as a 7-foot replica of the Statue of Liberty that will be placed in a coffin for a mock funeral procession that organizers say will mark the loss of liberties under the Bush administration.

“We have grieved over the past six years for the loss of our precious liberty,” said Betsy Garrold of Knox, one of the Lady Liberty organizers.

President Bush arrives Thursday at the three-story, stone-and-shingle home overlooking the ocean that has been in the Bush family for a century.

His father, the former president, has spent at least part of every summer since childhood here, except when he was in the Navy during World War II.