------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Feb. 27, 2003 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
WASHINGTON CAN'T DENY IT NOW: WORLD SAYS NO TO BUSH'S WAR By John Catalinotto A worldwide anti-war movement of a size and breadth never seen before has arisen to challenge the aggressive arrogance of U.S. imperialism and its closest allies. On Feb. 15 and 16, millions of people demonstrated worldwide. Ten million had been predicted, but the turnout far exceeded that. They protested in 600 cities in 100 countries, from Antarctica to Iceland, in Africa, Asia and Latin America, in Europe, North America and Oceania. Called last Nov. 10 when the European Social Forum met in Florence, the international day caught fire worldwide as Washington's intransigence showed the world that it, and not Baghdad, is the main threat to world peace. The demonstrators' political message was clear: no war on Iraq, with or without a UN resolution. It is fitting that the largest demonstrations on Feb. 15 took place in the major NATO countries most closely aligned with the Bush administration's pro-war policy. BUSH'S TOADIES TARGETED Two million people, altogether, marched in London and in Glasgow, Scotland, against war and against Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush's war salesman. In Rome, where the rightist Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has buttered up to Bush, nearly 3 million protested Bush's war policy. And in Spain right-wing Prime Minister Juan Maria Aznar--who on Feb. 17 was to meet with Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to repeat his support for U.S. policies--faced an uprising. There a total of something like 5-7 million, or over 10 percent of the people, demonstrated in 70 cities. Some 1.5 million marched in both Madrid and Barcelona, "collapsing" these cities, participants reported. For Blair, Aznar and Berlusconi to continue to back Bush's war puts them on a collision course with the population of their countries. In the smaller European imperialist countries whose regimes supported the U.S. within NATO--the Nether lands, Norway, Denmark--there were also strong demonstrations of between 40,000 and 80,000 people. Protests were about this size in non-NATO Sweden and Switzerland. In Portugal, where the Portuguese Communist Party and the union confederation (CFGT) were the main forces behind the demonstrations, some 100,000 people clogged Lisbon in the largest peace march in Portugal's history. Only the week before the Portuguese workers had held a massive protest of new anti-worker laws the rightist government is trying to put into effect. PROTESTS IN 'NEW EUROPE' AND OLD The Bush administration got no free ride in what it calls the "new Europe," that is, the formerly socialist countries that are now colonies of the West. Bush's war drive has sparked the birth of new anti-war movements in these countries to counter the puppet regimes' policies of providing military aid for the U.S. Tens of thousands demonstrated in Budapest, Hungary, while other thousands protested in Warsaw and other Polish cities and in Prague, Czech Republic. Thousands marched in Sofia, Bulgaria, in Kiev, Ukraine, in Minsk, Belarus. Hundreds more came out in Moscow and in the Baltic states. In Zagreb, Croatia, a surprising 10,000 came out, with marches also taking place in other Croatian cities. Back in what War Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called "old Europe," 500,000 people met at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany. Other hundreds of thousands marched in Paris, joined by large protests in other French cities. In Brussels, Belgium, where the government also had delayed compliance with U.S. orders to NATO, another 80,000 demonstrated. In Ireland, over 100,000 demonstrated in Dublin against the war, and in Belfast, both Irish Republicans and Unionists joined the anti-war protest in what was the largest such demonstration in history. In Greece, where the movement was strongest worldwide during the 1999 U.S.-NATO aggression on Yugoslavia, 200,000 people demonstrated in Athens, and young people clashed with the police. The working class-led Greek movement plans direct actions and job actions to stop the U.S. war machine. DEFYING THE AUTHORITIES In some countries where an anti-imperialist demonstration implicitly confronts the regime, demonstrators faced repression. In Istanbul, Turkey, 10,000 people demonstrated against the U.S. war plans and the Turkish regime's plans to allow the U.S. to use bases in southeastern Turkey to launch air and ground attacks on Iraq. According to a participant, "police were brutal with the demonstrators, especially with the Kurds, and 1,000 were arrested." Other thousands demonstrated in Ankara. In Egypt the Mubarak regime made a preemptive strike on the demonstration, arresting 13 of the organizers in the days before Feb. 15. A letter from former Algerian President Ahmed Ben Bella and British anti-war leaders George Galloway and John Rees reports that 11 of the 13 were tortured while in custody; it asked for messages of protest to the Egyptian government. Despite the repression, more than a thousand people openly protested in Cairo on Feb. 15, representing the vast majority of Egyptians. In Arab countries where the governments have spoken openly against a U.S. attack on Iraq, the popular protests were massive. Some 200,000 people demonstrated in Damascus, Syria. Over 100,000 Iraqis in Baghdad demonstrated their determination, rifles in hand, to defend their country against a U.S. invasion. There were also protests in Bahrain, in Beirut, Lebanon, in Amman, Jordan, and in Ramallah and other cities of occupied Palestine. In Tel Aviv, some 2,000 Israelis and Palestinians marched together to demand no war on Iraq. Though these protests were not as massive as those in Europe, North America and Australia, they represented strong anti-imperialist feelings in the masses and forced the regimes to act. On Feb. 16, a meeting of Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo began making proposals to avoid a war in the region. The international day of protest also sparked actions in Lahore, Islamabad and other Pakistani cities as well as in Bombay, Delhi and Calcutta in India and in Dhaka, Bangladesh. AFRICA, LATIN AMERICA SPEAK Before this round of demonstrations, Nelson Mandela and others from the prestigious leadership of the anti-apartheid struggle weighed in against U.S. aggression and sparked demonstrations in South Africa. Led by the African National Congress, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the South African Communist Party and other anti-imperialist organizations, thousands of people demonstrated in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Bloemfontein and Durban. They carried South African, Palestinian and Iraqi flags. Cape Town's placards carried the slogans: "By George, Bush is Just an Empty Warhead," "Blix Start Searching Israel," "Let's Make War Against Poverty" and "Behind Every Bush is a Terrorist." Africa's people stand to suffer from a war on Iraq even if they are not drawn into it, as a rise in the price of oil will further impoverish a population devastated by the collapse of the price of Africa's raw materials in the imperialist-controlled world market. There were also demonstrations in Nigeria, Kenya and Rwanda. Throughout Latin America, where the workers and farmers have many reasons to protest against U.S. imperialist intervention--like the Free Trade Area of the Americas scheme and Plan Colombia--tens of thousands joined the anti-war day. The largest actions were in Mexico City, Mexico, and Montevideo, Uruguay, with a reported 50,000 in each. In Brazil more than 100,000 protested altogether in San Paolo, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador da Bahia and other cities. There were also major actions in Argentina, Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia, Honduras, Guatemala, Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. In Cuba some 10,000 took part in a "tribunal" discussing U.S. crimes, and in Puerto Rico 1,000 people protested both the Iraq war and the U.S. Navy's continued use of Vieques to train its bomber pilots. EAST ASIA, OCEANIA, NORTH AMERICA In Southeast Asia, thousands in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, defied police to protest at the U.S. Embassy. Three thousand protested in Bangkok, Thailand, and another 10,000 in Pattani in the south. In Hong Kong, China, and in Taipei in Taiwan, hundreds of Chinese joined with expatriates to say "no war." In still-occupied South Korea, the anti-war movement brought out 10,000 to Seoul, where they also called for no U.S. war moves against North Korea. In still-occupied Japan, 25,000 people protested the threats against Iraq on Jan. 14, with thousands taking to the streets of Tokyo the next day. Two thousand in Manila protested U.S. imperialism's attempt to return its military bases to the Philippines, burning a U.S. flag at the demonstration. Feb. 15 began in New Zealand and Australia, where Prime Minister John Howard is a Bush supporter and has promised Australian ships and troops for the war on Iraq. In Melbourne, 200,000 demonstrated, only to be one- upped by Sydney the following day when 250,000 took to the streets. Other actions took place in Perth, Adelaide, Canberra and other Australian cities, and in Wellington and Auckland in New Zealand. In North America, 150,000 people made it a record-setting protest in Montreal, with other tens of thousands protesting in dozens of Canadian cities from the Maritime Provinces to Toronto and Edmonton, Calgary and on to Vancouver in the West. Here, in the belly of the beast, over a million people demonstrated altogether in New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago and a hundred other cities from Hawaii and Alaska to Texas and Florida on Feb. 15 and on the next day in San Francisco. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. 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