VICTORIA - A demonstration against the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games disrupted the torch relay route on its first day and created traffic chaos in downtown Victoria for three hours, leaving disappointed spectators and frustrated commuters in its wake.

"There are five-year-olds here waving their Canada flags, all excited to see the torch down here and they couldn't see it because of this - it's absolutely disgusting," said Randy Marsh as a noisy march of 400 demonstrators passed by.

Mr. Marsh said he had been waiting in the rain with a friend's child who had been ready to carry the torch. Instead, the torch was moved by van to avoid the protestors who wended their way through the city streets before arriving at the lawns of the legislature where a children's choir was performing as a torch ceremony before thousands of spectators.

The demonstrators cheered when they learned they had disrupted the torch relay, but families who had lined up to watch the torch were instead treated to profanity-laden chants. One couple angrily turned their backs on the protest. "It's a shame they would spoil something like this," said Sally Durno. "We've waited a long time for this."

While police tried to stay ahead of the protest to stop traffic, buses were directed to pull u-turns on a downtown street. One woman, waiting at a bus stop, watched the zombie-themed demonstration as she waited to get home. "We're not ‘the man', we're just ‘the people' trying to take the bus," said Christie Scott.

About 400 anti-Olympic demonstrators wound through the downtown core. The zombie-themed march zig-zagged unpredictably through the streets, keeping police on the move to keep rush-hour traffic at bay.

A cheering crowd of more than 5,000 gathered at the B.C. Legislature to welcome the Olympic flame to Canada, but a handful of dissenters jeered Prime Minister Stephen Harper under the watchful eye of a mounted police squad.

Organizers of the Anti-Olympic Festival promised a peaceful protest, and events proved to be muted.

From an 87-year-old who resisted the Nazi occupation in the Second World War to veterans of anti-globalization riots, the start of the torch relay in Victoria was a rallying point for opponents of the Games preparing their own "circus" events.

Inger Kronseth stood alone with her protest banner with families waving their Coca-Cola "happiness" pennants around her. Jailed as a teenager in Denmark for singing Nazi protest songs, the hundreds of police on the streets around her were not intimidating, she said. "They were all nice." As for the Games themselves, she is protesting against the "terrible" waste of tax dollars that would be better spent helping the homeless.

Jennifer Conklin, carrying a protest sign, stood near the stage where the cauldron was lit and looked at the sea of Games supporters. "We are not going to change the world here," she said. "But if we can change one person's mind, it will be worth it."

While celebrity athletes carried the torch past the Legislature, some well-known leaders of the anti-globalization movement were on hand.

Marla Renn, a member of the Vancouver-based Olympic Resistance Network, estimated that 200 people connected with her group had travelled to Victoria to show dissent.

"What's amazing about organizing the anti-Olympics is what an umbrella it has become for creating solidarity between different groups," she said. She added that the sense that civil rights are being trampled has been a rallying point. "Even holding signs is a political act," she said. "We see this as an attack on our civil liberties in the extreme."'

Underscoring that point, members of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association patrolled the scene wearing bright orange "legal observer" t-shirts.
Alissa Westergard-Thorpe and Garth Mullin, veterans of the demonstrations that disrupted the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle in 1999, and the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation session in Vancouver, 1997, were in the crowd too.

Ms. Westergard-Thorpe was asked what theme linked those demonstrations to the Olympics. Just then, three CF-18 Hornets roared overhead as part of the celebrations. "There's your connection right there," she said.

Whether it is the $6-billion cost of holding the Games, or the fears for civil liberties, the protesters have a range of complaints. But Ms. Westergard-Thorpe said it is harder to crystallize the protesters' message to the public in this case. "It is easier to understand why we are opposing free trade, but the image-making around the Olympics - it's about family and athletes and nationalism - is harder to resist."

The police presence was low-key but obvious. Fears that protesters would try to disrupt the torch relay, or the ceremonies, meant hundreds of police from Vancouver and across Southern Vancouver Island were dispersed through the streets. High-profile sponsors of the Games had private security on hand as well. And less obvious security measures included snipers positioned on rooftops around the downtown stretch cordoned off for the torch relay.