-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 José María 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,
José 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 Guérnica, 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.
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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
