People worldwide rise up against Bush
By John Catalinotto
Demonstrators in at least 38 countries demanded "No war on
Iraq" on Jan. 18 in response to a call for international
solidarity actions to coincide with mass rallies and marches in
Washington, D.C., and San Francisco organized by the
International ANSWER coalition.
The Dec. 18-19 Cairo Conference supported this initiative
and the Asian Peace Forum, the Stop the War Committee in
England and other anti-war organizations spread the call.
The tremendous response of solidarity actions worldwide,
with the massive turnouts in Washington and San Fran cisco,
dealt a major blow to the Pentagon war machine.
Canada had demonstrations in 30 cities from coast to
coast: 15,000 were reported in Vancouver, 25,000 in Mon treal,
5,000 in Toronto, 7,000 in Saska toon and smaller actions
elsewhere.
In Mexico, mobilizations against the war and the
embargo on Iraq took place in Mexico City and at the
international bridge near Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua,
where U.S. groups met Mexican protesters.
In Argentina, a thousand people led by the Mothers of
the Plaza del Mayo marched to the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires
on Jan. 16.
Mobilizations in other Latin American countries included
Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala and Brazil.
Middle East, South Asia
The main demonstration in Turkey took place in
Ankara, where demonstrators gathered in front of a theater
showing the latest James Bond film. There was also a
demonstration in Istanbul.
In most of the Middle East, as in Turkey, protesters faced
an army of heavily armed riot police. Thousands of
demonstrators in Beirut, Lebanon, carried Palestinian
and Iraqi flags.
Tens of thousands of Syrians marched through the
streets of Dam ascus, blocking traffic for hours, shouting,
"Down with the United States!" The Damascus march ers carried
banners reading: "Iraq: a history and a civilization, not an
oil well."
About 1,000 demonstrators protested in central Cairo,
Egypt, against any U.S.-led strike on Iraq. The
demonstrators called on the Egyptian government to prevent U.S.
and British warships from using the Suez Canal en route for a
possible assault on Iraq.
Others in the Arab world joined the international effort by
demonstrating in Gaza and Nablus in Palestine, in Amman,
Jordan and in Bahrain. In Amman, hundreds of
protesters in the mostly Palestinian Nuzha district burned
U.S., British and Israeli flags.
A protest in Baghdad, Iraq, commemorated the
beginning of the Gulf War 12 years ago.
Demonstrators in Lahore, Pakistan, had to face
soldiers and police as they tried to march to the U.S. Embassy.
Young students and human rights activists marched in the
eastern city of Lahore, while others gathered in the southern
city of Karachi and in Rawalpindi.
Near Islamabad, hundreds of children, women and men formed a
human chain and chanted slogans.
In India, workers were called out by communist
organizations in demonstrations against the Iraq war.
Protesters burned an effigy of George W. Bush.
East Asia and Pacific Islands
A series of demonstrations in the Philippines
protested both the war on Iraq and Washington's attempt to
reoccupy Philippine military bases.
In Japan, thousands demonstrated in Tokyo, Osaka,
Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Okinawa and other cities on Jan. 18-19.
Carry ing toy guns stuffed with flowers and holding banners
aloft, anti-war demonstrators marched through downtown Tokyo's
central shopping district. "We want to unite with people all
over the world on the same issue," said Takashi Uchiyama.
Some 400 protesters turned out in the New Zealand
city of Christchurch.
In Hong Kong, China, about 60 people chanted,
"Inspections, yes! War, no!" and "Yankee, go home!" as they
marched through the financial district to the U.S. and British
consulates.
Demonstrations were also scheduled in Indonesia,
Switzerland, Hungary and South Korea.
Europe
In Spain on Jan. 19, 30,000 people marched from
Madrid to the nearby Torrejón military base. They
demanded, "Stop the war against Iraq," and "NATO no, bases
out," and protested Spanish government participation in the
war.
In Paris, France, 20,000 people joined in a united
march of diverse social, political and union organizations on
Jan. 18. They marched under the slogans: "No to war against
Iraq. Justice, peace and democracy in the Middle East and in
the world." In Marseille, 10,000 chanted, "Bush, Blair, Chirac,
we don't want your dirty war!"
In Italy, Jan. 18 protests took place in Perugia,
Bologna, Genoa, Naples--and in Florence, where U.S. and Iraqi
residents led a human chain of 5,000 people marching along the
Arno river and surrounding the U.S. consulate. A march of 1,000
people to the U.S. airbase Camp Ederle, near Vicenza, was
followed by a march of 3,000 to 5,000 through the city.
In Britain the biggest demonstrations took place in
London. On the outskirts of London, demonstrators surrounded
the British Army headquarters to protest British participation
in aggression against Iraq.
In Scotland on Jan. 19, the Scottish Anglican
Episcopal Church joined the international initiatives by
holding religious meetings against the war in its 50,000
parishes in more than 320 cities and towns.
In Ireland, Jan. 18 actions targeted Shannon airport,
which the British Army has used in recent months to transport
U.S. troops to military bases in the Gulf region.
In the Netherlands there were anti-war actions Jan.
18 in Rotterdam, Nijmegen and Leiden. In Uden, the Dutch police
arrested 90 people who tried to approach the Volkel military
airbase, housing U.S. and German troops, to "carry out an
inspection of U.S. arms of mass destruction." The group
demanded that the Dutch and U.S. governments follow their own
advice for Iraq and publicize details of their nuclear
programs.
Anti-war protesters marched 10,000 strong in Brussels,
Belgium, demanding, "Stop the war against Iraq before it
starts." The Stop USA! (United States of Aggres sion) Coalition
organized the united demonstration whose march route passed the
headquarters of NATO and the Euro pean Union. They raised their
voices to say "10,000 times NO" to the 10,000 U.S. soldiers
scheduled to be transported through the port of Antwerp.
In Vienna, Austria, some 1,000 people, mostly
university and high-school students, marched Jan. 17 from the
university in the center of town to the U.S. Embassy, where
they burned a U.S. flag and chanted, "Stop the war."
On Jan. 18 in Russia, several thousand people
protested at the diplomatic offices of the United States in
Moscow and Leningrad, in response to a call by the Communist
Party. A banner outside the U.S. Embassy in Moscow declared:
"Iraq isn't your ranch, Mr. Bush." Slogans included:
"[President Vladimir] Putin, stop kowtowing to Bush."
In Sweden, more than 6,000 people marched through the
streets of Gothen burg, called out by working-class
organizations.
In Oslo, Norway, 1,000 activists focused on the
Parliament, where a cabinet member and a member of Parliament
spoke at the rally.
In Germany, 2,000 people gathered Jan. 18 near the
U.S. military headquarters in Heidelberg. Protests also took
place in Cologne and Rostock. More than 5,000 turned out in the
small southwestern city of Tuebingen. There were vigils and
public meetings all over the country.
At the poles of the Earth there were protests. In
Nunavut, in Arctic Canada, 500 of the 20,000 people in
the town of Iqualuit held the new Inuit-governed territory's
first-ever anti-war demonstration. And even in uninhabited
Antarctica, people from the scientific team at the
McMurdo Station joined with the millions of others around the
world by forming a peace symbol with their bodies in the
snow.
Reprinted from the Jan. 30, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe to WW by Email: wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Donate to
support pro-labor, anti-war news.
Email
this article
Printable
page