Italy PM suffers anti-U.S. protest before Bush visit

TRENTO, Italy (Reuters) - Italy's Prime Minister Romano Prodi was berated by angry voters on Sunday who want him to stop the United States expanding an air base near their homes.

Less than a week ahead of a visit by U.S. President George W. Bush, which is expected to be met with large anti-war demonstrations, the Italian leader was heckled into silence as he tried to address an economic conference.

A visibly uncomfortable Prodi then had to listen to one demonstrator who was allowed by the conference chairman to address the meeting as a way of appeasing the audience, many members of which were holding banners and shouting "shame".

"We are being treated despicably, and this really bothers me, President, because I voted for you," said the protester, a smartly dressed middle-aged woman who said the expansion of the base in Vicenza, northern Italy, would ruin the town.

"We voted for you on the basis of a manifesto which spoke of less servitude towards the military and of participatory democracy. Where are those words?" she said, her voice breaking with emotion as Prodi avoided her gaze.

Many members of Prodi's centre-left coalition also oppose the expansion of the Vicenza base, which has come to represent the tensions between pacifist elements on the left of his coalition and centrists keen on good relations with Washington.

Prodi did not address the issue in his speech, which was on economic matters, but told reporters as he left: "On the U.S. base at Vicenza, the government has made its decision, a decision we are sticking to."

Dissent from the left wing of his Catholics-to-communists coalition is a constant threat to Prodi's political survival. In February he resigned briefly after losing a foreign policy vote in parliament due to the left's opposition to Italy's military role in Afghanistan.

Huge demonstrations are expected when Bush visits Rome after attending a Group of Eight meeting in Germany. He is due to arrive on Friday and meet Prodi and Pope Benedict on Saturday.