FUI groups several hardline Islamic groups, including the Indonesian Mujahedin Council, chaired by firebrand cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, and the Front for the Defenders of Islam, known for its raids on nightclubs.

"Yudhoyono was elected by the people and if he ignores the wish of the people, then it is only appropriate that he gets a vote of no confidence," he added.

He said if the government did not change its mind over the visit, which has prompted daily protests across the country, the FUI would initiate a no-confidence vote by seeking the signatures of as many Muslim leaders as possible.

"The essence is that Bush and his regime have their hands bloodied and the conclusion is that most Indonesians do not want his visit," Khaththath said.

He said the main Muslim leaders in the country had already said they were opposed to the Bush visit and would not deign to meet him.

He cited the leaders of Indonesia's two largest Islamic mainstream organisations, the Nahdlatul Ulama and the Muhammadiyah, as well as leaders of the Indonesian Council of Ulemas (MUI), the highest authority on Islam in the country.

"We also see the daily protests everywhere demanding that Indonesian cancels the invitation to Bush," Khaththath said.

As he spoke, hundreds protested at the Kujang Memorial in nearby Bogor, a resort town where Yudhoyono will meet and entertain Bush for a few hours Monday.

The protesters included about 500 veiled Muslim women from the popular Islamic Prosperous Justice Party, many protesting Bush's visit by carrying black paper flowers and posters depicting the US head of state as a devil.

The women, many of them carrying children, held aloft placards which read "We are offering our condolences for Bush's visit, the one with the venomous mouth and the cold-blooded killer."

Students from two organisations -- one Christian and the other Muslim -- were also among the protesters.

In Semarang, Central Java, about 100 Muslim students also protested the visit in front of their university, the ElShinta radio reported.

In Southeast Sulawesi province, dozens of students also staged a rally outside the town's parliamentary building and urged funds spent for the preparation of Bush's visit be allocated to the poor.

"The government should better concentrate on improving the public and regions that still need assistance rather than spending billions of rupiah" for Bush, a protest leader who identified himself as Hadrin was quoted by the state Antara news agency as saying.

More than 90 percent of Indonesia's 220 million people follow Islam.

The survivors have given accounts of villages subjected to repeated assaults in which many women and girls were serially raped and men killed.

Although there are no comprehensive statistics, in one province alone, South Kivu, about 42,000 women were treated in health clinics for serious sexual assaults last year, according to statistics collected by the human rights group, Global Rights.

While rape has been a product of many conflicts, its scale and systematic nature in eastern Congo has led some human rights groups to describe it as a "weapon of war" used to punish communities for their political loyalties or as a form of ethnic cleansing. On occasions men and boys have also been raped.

Doctors and women's groups working with the victims say the attacks are notable not only for their scale but also their brutality.

Among those receiving treatment in the relative safety of the town of Goma in eastern Congo is a woman from Kindu who was repeatedly raped in May 2005 but was only able to reach a hospital for treatment earlier this year.

The 54-year-old woman, bent double over a stick after surgery to save her womb, said her village first came under attack from a group of Mai Mai, an ethnic militia recognisable by a preference for wearing animal skins and amulets believed to give magical powers.

"There were Mai Mai in the area. They came in the morning and raped me, two of them. That didn't disturb me so much after what happened later," she said. "In the afternoon five men came into the house. They told my husband to put three kinds of money on the table: dollars, shillings, francs. But we didn't have any of that kind of money. We are poor. We don't even know what dollars look like. So they shot him. My children were screaming and so they shot them. After that they raped me, all of them."

As she lay bleeding the attackers thrust the barrels of their guns into her vagina.

The woman identified the second group of armed men as members of the interahamwe, the extremist Hutu militia that fled into Congo 12 years ago after leading the genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda. The interahamwe used rape as a tool of genocide, telling women that they would bear Hutu children and that would be the end of the Tutsis. Thousands still hide out in the forests of eastern Congo.

The Doctors On Call Service (DOCS) hospital in Goma has seen close to 4,000 women for rape over the past four years. One in four required major surgery. More than a third are under 18. "They really come with very bad wounds," said Justin Paluku, a doctor. "For example some have their vaginas pulled out. Most of them have been raped by four, five or six or even 10 men. A village will be attacked and all the women are raped. They kill the men and rape the women."

Immaculee Birhaheka, head of a women's rights group in Goma, Paif, said those women who make it to hospital are just a fraction of those attacked. "It's impossible to know how many women have been raped in the war but it is hundreds of thousands," she said.

Some human rights groups are calling for the leaders of groups responsible for the tide of rape to be brought before the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

One militia leader, Thomas Lubanga, founder of the Union of Congolese Patriots, went on trial before the the ICC last week for the forced recruitment of child soldiers, although his troops were also involved in the systematic rape of civilians.

Mrs Birhaheka says the Congolese authorities must act where the international court does not. Her women's rights group was at the forefront of a campaign that persuaded the DRC parliament to pass a new tougher law on rape earlier this year.

"There have already been 10 prosecutions in Goma under the new law, some were soldiers and some civilians," she said. "Before it was the women who were regarded as the criminals and condemned. That's changing. Now at least there is a recognition that rape is a crime."

Case study

Among the thousands of women attacked was a 23-year-old from Walikali who travelled more than 90 miles (150km) to hospital in Goma, where she had surgery after being assaulted by members of the Rwandan Hutu militia, the interahamwe.

"Where I lived they were in the forest ... we had to go there to find food. There were four of us and we were stopped by seven interahamwe," she said.

Two of us tried to run away. One was shot dead. The other got a bullet in the leg. They still raped her. I fainted because there were seven of them.

"I really got damaged. I couldn't hold in my urine. I heard those people came back and killed my father."

"There were 27 dead at the last count," Botha said.

Metrorail, the company operating the commuter train, said the accident happened at 7.16am "when a truck and trailer carrying about 30 farm workers collided with Cape Town-bound train 3208" just outside the suburb of Somerset West.

"According to eyewitnesses, the truck stalled at the crossing," it said in a statement.

No rail commuters were injured in the accident, the rail company said.

It said the level crossing did not have barriers, but conformed to legal requirements for warning signs.

Hundreds of opponents of the ordinances gathered in the City Hall lobby and a parking lot outside, waving American flags and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in English before the votes were taken.

Inside, supporters clapped as the votes were tallied in favor of the measures and later thanked council members for their action.

Attorneys with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, a civil rights advocacy group, told council members before the vote that the proposals could violate federal housing laws preventing discrimination and the First Amendment.

One of the ordinances would force untrained business owners and landlords to evaluate a wide array of immigration documents to determine if the person carrying them is legally in the country, said Marisol L. Perez, a defense fund staff attorney.

"It puts the landlord in a very difficult position. You're putting them in the shoes of an immigration officer," Perez said.

The group said it would evaluate the measures to determine their legality.

"We passed this expecting to be sued," council member Tim O'Hare said after the vote.

Since 1970, Farmers Branch has changed from a small, predominantly white bedroom community with a declining population to a city of almost 28,000 people, about 37 percent of them Hispanic, according to the census. It also is home to more than 80 corporate headquarters and more than 2,600 small and mid-size firms, many of them minority-owned.

"They're afraid that Farmers Branch is becoming Hispanic," said Christopher McGuire, a resident of the city and spokesman for a group called United Farmers Branch. "It's going to happen, and that's not a bad thing."

More than 50 municipalities nationwide have considered, passed or rejected similar laws, but until now that trend hasn't been matched in the Lone Star State.

A vote this year in Hazleton, Pa., approved fining landlords who rent to illegal immigrants, denying business permits to companies that employ them and requiring tenants to register and pay for a rental permit.

However, a federal judge temporarily blocked enforcement of the Hazleton ordinance while he considers a lawsuit against the town by the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups.