Ireland, Turkey
Mass protests greet Bush at NATO summit
By John Catalinotto
The Bush administration faced potential
setbacks on two levels at the NATO summit in Istanbul, Turkey,
June 28-29: mass protests in the streets and lukewarm support
from imperialist rivals in the alliance.
The mass mood against the U.S. occupation of Iraq was first
made clear on June 25 in Dublin, Ireland. There, over 10,000
demonstrators, many wearing Bush masks, protested the U.S.
president's visit.
Rallying under the "Stop Bush Campaign" banner, the crowd
waved signs denouncing Bush as a warmonger. In particular, they
called for an end to U.S. military flights through Dublin's
Shannon Airport, a refueling point and layover for thousands of
U.S. troops each month.
One group of 2,000 protesters tried to get closer to the
castle where George W. Bush was meeting European leaders.
Though police and military held them miles away from Bush, they
still managed to delay his news conference by holding up
reporters for an hour.
In Turkey, the demonstrators were determined not to let
23,000 police and troops stop them from waging an effective
protest demanding an end to the occupation of neighboring Iraq.
Already on June 26 several cities saw protest actions, from
Diyarbakir in Turkish Kurdistan, to the capital, Ankara, where
police attacked 5,000 NATO opponents with tear gas and
clubs.
Solidarity protests took place the same day in London;
Cologne, Munich, Stutt gart and Berlin, Germany; Amster dam,
Netherlands; Vienna, Austria; Paris and Strassbourg,
France.
Istanbul's 15 million residents are split by the Bosporus
strait into a European and Asian half. Police refused to let
the protest march in the European half, where the NATO summit
was being held. On June 27, some 50,000 people marched in the
Asian part of Istanbul. The Alli ance Against NATO and Bush-- a
coalition including labor union confederations, the Turkish Com
mun ist Party, the Freedom and Soli darity Party, and other
communist and anarchist groups--called the action.
The Berlin Daily Junge Welt of June 27 quoted Sami Evren,
chair of the Public Service Workers of Turkey, telling the
crowd, "Today Istanbul is the center of anti-imperialism."
The crowd carried banners reading, "Yankees go home," "This
is our country," and "United States murderers, leave the Middle
East."
Protesters burned an effigy of the U.S. president. They wore
anti-Bush and anti-NATO T-shirts.
As the NATO summit opened the following day, some 2,000
demonstrators bravely challenged thousands of police armed with
tanks, as Turkish gunboats plied the Bosporus and helicopters
and warplanes crisscrossed Istanbul's skies.
Police launched heavy tear-gas attacks on the
protesters.
Uneasy alliance
The NATO meeting did underwrite the new Iraqi government and
authorize additional NATO troops for Afghanistan. But help for
the United States in Iraq will have its limitations.
The main continental European powers, France and Germany,
had opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq last year. While the
U.S. bombs were dropped on Iraqis, U.S. imperialism's monopoly
control of Iraq's oil resources also threatened French and
German economic interests. This could be seen when the
occupation regime effectively cut French and German companies
out of oil and construction contracts in Iraq.
Then reality struck. The Iraqi resistance showed that
unilateral U.S. rule of Iraq is impossible. This forced Bush to
seek international support for a failed occupation. Bush's
original plan for the summit was to ask NATO to send troops to
support the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq. When this was headed
for failure, Bush pulled back.
France's President Jacques Chirac made this coldly clear on
June 28. "I do not believe it is the purpose of NATO to be in
or intervene in Iraq," he told journalists at Istanbul's
military museum. "I believe there would be tremendous negative
consequences of this." Chirac also attacked Bush for urging
that the European Union admit Turkey as a member, calling this
not part of Bush's "domain."
German Chancellor Gerhardt Schroeder and Spanish Prime
Minister Juan Zap atero also made it clear they would not be
sending troops to Iraq. It has become apparent that after U.S.
imperialism attempted to cut out French and German interests
completely, the European imperialists are not so quick to pull
the U.S. irons out of the fire.
Even Bush's scaled-down request for NATO trainers of Iraqi
security forces got only limited backing, though France,
Germany and Spain did offer to train Iraqis outside Iraq.
Bush is trying to put a happy face on these results, as
relations inside NATO have also become an issue in the U.S.
national election. Democrat John Kerry claims he could get more
help from the Europeans with the Iraq occupation.
"Today's papers are filled with stories about how angry
these countries are at the way they've been treated by this
administration," Kerry said on June 28. "It may well be that it
takes a new president to be able to reestablish the
relationships that wehad in the past."
The anti-imperialist demonstrators in Istanbul made it clear
they had no confidence in either the U.S. or Western European
imperialists. One big banner read, "Imperialism and NATO are
the biggest enemies of peace."
Reprinted from the July 8, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
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