-Caveat Lector-
http://truthout.org/docs_03/031803B.shtml
Demonstrations in Spain and Around the World Against an Iraq War
By Emma Daly
New York Times
Sunday 15 March 2003
MADRID, March 15 Angered at their government's unwavering
support for United States policy on Iraq, Spaniards took to the
streets here today, one of hundreds of antiwar demonstrations
around the world.
For the second time in a month, crowds of demonstrators jammed
the center of Madrid, waving antiwar placards and chanting insults
against President Bush and one of his strongest allies, Prime
Minister Jos� Mar�a Aznar of Spain.
"We are marching against the law of the jungle that the United
States and its acolytes old and new want to impose on the world,"
Jos� Saramago, the Portuguese writer and Nobel laureate, told the
crowd, estimated by news organizations at about half a million,
gathered in Madrid's Puerta del Sol. Another demonstration was held
in Barcelona, where the police said 300,000 people demonstrated,
some of them forming a three-mile human chain.
The events were part of a largely coordinated worldwide effort
to rally support against the war.
While the Spanish demonstrations drew large crowds, some
others were more sparsely attended. In Seoul, South Korea, 3,000
protesters held towering candles as they paraded through the
capital. About 15,000 rallied in Athens, accompanied by a giant
reproduction of "Gu�rnica," Picasso's antiwar painting. And in
Moscow, 1,000 people demonstrated in front of the American Embassy.
In London, where an estimated one million people marched
against the war in January, there were protests in several
residential neighborhoods and a scheduled concert tonight for 2,000
people aimed at raising money for the Stop the War coalition.
Muslims in London organized walk-bys at the embassies of Saudi
Arabia, Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Qatar and Pakistan, countries they
accuse of collaborating with the United States. "The governments of
the Muslim world have the power to stop this war by disallowing
America and its allies from using their land, airspace, waterways
and logistics to perpetrate it," said one of the organizers, Dr.
Imran Waheed.
In Montreal, about 250,000 people marched through the streets
shouting antiwar slogans, in the largest of 30 demonstrations in
Canada.
About 100,000 people demonstrated in Berlin, according to
police estimates, while 50,000 demonstrators gathered in the Place
de la Nation in Paris.
More than 5,000 people marched in Marseille, France's second
largest city.
In central Tokyo, an estimated 10,000 people filed through
downtown streets to applause from passers-by. According to polls,
more than 80 percent of the Japanese people oppose an attack on
Iraq, but the government has supported the United States demand
that Baghdad disarm or face military action.
In Madrid, few demonstrators saw much hope of persuading Mr.
Aznar to change course. "Hope is the last thing to go," said
Ernesto Cano, a student attending with his parents and family
friends. "If we keep making an effort there is still a possibility
to avoid war."
But Maria Conde, marching with her three labrador dogs, was
pessimistic. "I don't think this will change anything," she said.
In the Middle East, some of the demonstrations were in support
of Saddam Hussein. In Khan Yunis, in the Gaza Strip, for example,
10 men in black hoods, wearing mock versions of the explosives
belts of suicide bombers, led a march in support of the Iraqi
leader.
In Cairo, several hundred people, surrounded by 1,500 police
officers, protested outside the University of Cairo chanting, "With
our blood, with our soul, we will defend Baghdad."
In Nicosia, 2,000 people marched on the American Embassy
demanding "no more blood for oil." They also condemned the presence
on the island of the largest Royal Air Force base outside Britain,
at Akiroti, which is scheduled to play a support and logistics role
in any attack on Iraq.
______________________________________________________________
Go to Original
Hundreds of Thousands March Against Iraq War
By Eric Lichtbau
New York Times
Sunday 16 March 2003
Antiwar demonstrators gathered yesterday near the Washington
Monument before marching to the White House. Similar actions were
staged in other cities, including San Francisco, Los Angeles and
Portland, Ore.
WASHINGTON, March 15 In what many saw as a last chance to head
off military action, tens of thousands of antiwar protesters
marched in several demonstrations around the country today in
opposition to the Bush administration's policy on Iraq.
In Washington, just hours after President Bush said in his
weekly radio address that he saw little chance that Iraq would
disarm without the use of force, throngs of protesters armed with
banners and bullhorns implored Mr. Bush to abandon a possible war.
"The people can stop the war," Congressman John Conyers Jr.,
Democrat of Michigan, told thousands of cheering supporters near
the Washington Monument on a mild, sunny but breezy afternoon. He
urged people to continue to protest "until this madness is ended."
Marching on streets that pass within a block or two of the
White House, which they were not allowed to approach more closely,
the protesters flooded nearly a dozen blocks of city streets in a
sea of colorful and often angry antiwar banners and chanted
slogans.
Although police gave no official crowd count, a park police
supervisor working the scene estimated that the protesters totaled
50,000 people. It was hard to be sure if there were that many, as
some came and went, while others milled around in clusters on side
streets. Protesters gathered to listen to speeches, then marched
around the White House.
If the crowd was smaller than some recent antiwar protests, it
might have been because organizers called the "emergency" action
only a few weeks ago.
Police said the crowd was generally peaceful, although about a
half-dozen people were arrested for illegally entering the lobby of
the World Bank, a target of past economic protests. Hundreds of
police enforced barricades and massed at intersections.
In San Francisco, demonstrators filled Civic Center Plaza,
ignoring forecasts for heavy rain and possible unruly acts by
splinter protest marchers. Police and organizers declined to
provide a crowd estimate.
Some protesters described the mood of the marchers there as
less festive than at a February rally. But many demonstrators
remained hopeful for a peaceful resolution. "It's worth it to march
to make the numbers count and be counted," said Sarah Warnock, 41,
a biologist.
A splinter protest at the February rally turned violent. San
Francisco officials rerouted today's rally to avoid the downtown
shopping area where rioters vandalized stores.
Today the police said they had arrested more than 150 of
several hundred people in splinter marches away from the main
protest. There was one arrest for throwing a smoke bomb at a police
officer, and others were charged with failure to disperse and
illegal assembly.
In Los Angeles, the Reverend Jesse Jackson led a noisy and
soaking wet procession of about 2,500 people through downtown.
Tama Winograd, a music executive from Hollywood, said the
weather was not a hindrance. "I would be here today, even if there
was an earthquake," Ms. Winograd said.
About 30,000 protesters converged on the banks of the
Willamette River in Portland, Ore. Representative John Lewis, a
Democrat from Georgia who marched alongside Martin Luther King,
told the crowd, "People around the world will not be inspired by
our missiles and our guns; they will be inspired by our ideas."
Separately, a group of 41 Nobel laureates in science, medicine
and economics who signed a declaration in January opposing war with
Iraq said today that eight more laureates, all winners of the Peace
Prize, have joined their cause. The eight include Desmond Tutu and
the Dalai Lama.
Today's Washington protest was organized by a group called
Answer, which stands for Act Now to Stop War and End Racism. The
group, formed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, has drawn
criticism from some people inside and out of the antiwar movement
because some of its chief organizers are active in radical
socialist causes and because it has taken controversial positions
on issues not directly related to Iraq. At today's rally, speakers
addressed a wide range of issues, including Palestinian statehood,
pollution, affirmative action and world hunger.
"We don't police our speakers at all," said Larry Holmes, a
spokesman for Answer. "People here raise Palestine, Colombia,
everything, but it's all basically about peace."
Mr. Holmes said that if war with Iraq breaks out, the group
plans more severe acts of civil disobedience around the country,
including mass sit-ins.
While a New York Times/CBS News Poll last week found that 55
percent of Americans would support an American invasion of Iraq
even in defiance of the United Nations, there was near unanimity at
today's demonstration in opposition to the war.
Organizers of the protest sought to present a diverse face to
emphasize the breadth of dissatisfaction with the administration's
Iraq policy.
There were students in tie-dyed shirts playing hacky sack and
grandmothers selling antiwar pins. Local residents were joined by
out-of-towners. And veteran activists, some who protested the
Vietnam War, mingled with novice protesters.
Fred Gregory, a retired Army captain, said he came from
Maryland with his wife, Charlotte, to join the protests because he
did not believe that Iraq posed the significant threat that the
administration says it does.
At 68, Mr. Gregory said, "this is the first time I've ever
protested anything in my life."
President Bush was the target of criticism in speeches and on
antiwar placards, with numerous handmade signs mocking him. Ramsey
Clark, the former attorney general who was one of more than 50
speakers to address the rally, told protesters that Mr. Bush should
be impeached.
Mr. Conyers, the Michigan congressman, urged Mr. Bush to pay
close attention to the rising tide of discontent over Iraq. "People
have stopped wars before ordinary people," he said later. "It can
happen again here."
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