Thousands demonstrating against the expansion of a US military base in Vicenza, northern Italy, yesterday. (REUTERS)

vicenza, Italy • Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Vicenza, Italy, yesterday to protest the planned expansion of a US military base here, a divisive issue for Italy’s center-left government.

Swirling the red flag of the Refoundation Communist party, the rainbow flag of the pacifist movement, and the environmentalists’ green standard, the marchers set out in mid-afternoon to encircle the small city of some 100,000 people as police helicopters hovered close overhead.

Organisers estimated the turnout at more than 100,000, while police quoted by the Ansa news agency said some 40,000 were taking part.

Banners read “America, No Thanks” and “Bases Go Home,” while some sported images of Che Guevara.

An influx that began on Friday surged early yesterday as dozens of chartered trains and buses arrived in Vicenza, known as the home of Palladian architecture.

Prime Minister Romano Prodi, elected narrowly last April, faces virulent opposition to the base expansion plan from the communists and Greens within his wide-ranging coalition.

Last month, after great hesitation, Prodi decided not to renege on a pledge by his staunchly pro-US conservative predecessor Silvio Berlusconi to allow the expansion of the base.

The prime minister asked party leaders to stay away from yesterday’s protest, saying “you don’t demonstrate against yourself,” but added that if communists and Greens take part it would “not break the solidarity of the government.”

Protester Gino Del Ferraro, 23, said the demonstration would be “the new government’s first big challenge. ... We students, young people don’t feel represented by the Prodi government,” he said.

Franco Marchesani, selling T-shirts for the Refoundation Communist party at the march,said: “If you see a protest of this size in such a small city, it must be about a big problem.”

The US 173rd Airborne Brigade is currently spread across two sites in Germany and Camp Ederle, on the east side of Vicenza, and Washington wants to consolidate the Brigade here, adding another 1,800 to a contingent of some 2,750 US troops.

Authorities warned that yesterday’s march may see violence fomented by “extremists”— drawing scorn from activists. “The mass media are calling us extremists,” boomed Oscar Mancini at a pre-march rally late on Friday. “They haven’t understood anything about Vicenza.”

In December, Mancini recalled, more than 20,000 people held a peaceful protest here against the base expansion. “Tomorrow it will be the same,” said Mancini, the Vicenza regional representative for Italy’s largest labor union, the left-wing CGIL.

The air space above the city was closed, and some 1,500 police were on hand for the march.

Under the base expansion plan, the 173rd Airborne Brigade will consolidate in Italy by taking in a former military airfield at Dal Molin, on the opposite side of Vicenza from Camp Ederle, at a cost of some $500m.

Local and regional authorities are in favour of the plan, but it is fiercely opposed by pacifists, environmentalists and residents, despite the some 1,200 local jobs provided by the base, one of seven US bases in Italy.