Republican News · Thursday 27 March 2002

Millions swell anti-war protests

ti-war demonstrators marched in cities around the world on Saturday 22 March, with over 200,000 attending protests in Madrid and New York and twice that in London, at just two days notice.

In Britain there were minor clashes between protesters and police and a small number of arrests. Police in riot gear were called into central London on the night of 22 March when anti-war protesters blocked Oxford Street after leaving a big rally demonstration in Hyde Park.

Demonstrators at the US base at Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire were forced back by riot police and officers, with about a dozen arrests reported, while in Glasgow 400 people were penned in on Sauchiehall Street for several hours by police, some on horseback, and two demonstrators were arrested for minor offences. There were also five arrests for minor offences at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, where US B52 bombers are based. The crowd laid flowers at the main gate for 'the death of democracy'; above them, eight more of the long-range bombers took off for Iraq in high sunshine. Rallies were also held in Tony Blair's constituency of Sedgefield, and in Manchester and Bristol.

Opposition to war in the United States is growing, and even the Oscars became an anti-war platform for many of those who won awards on the night of Sunday 23 March. Most prominent of threse was radical activist and filmmaker Michael Moore, who was deservingly but surprisingly awarded the Oscar for best documentary feature for his anti-gun documentary Bowling for Columbine. Concluding a passionate speech against the war, to a mixture of applause and booing from the Hollywood glitterati, Moore quipped about George Bush: "Any time you get the Pope and the Dixie Chicks afgaist you, your time is up."

In Los Angeles on Sunday, 20,000 anti-war demonstrators flooded the streets of downtown Hollywood and marched on CNN. Declaring that the mainstream media has let down the people of America, and by extension the people of the world, with its distorted coverage and biased pro-war commentary, the demonstrators held a rally at the CNN building on Sunset Boulevard. And what's a Hollywood event without stars: Eddie Vedder sang an a-capella song, while Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins and Oscar winning director Pedro Almodovar spoke to the overflowing crowd, declaring their solidarity with the international peace movement. At the end of the day, 78 people were arrested, 40 for non-violent civil disobedience in the Hollywood and Vine intersection, 38 as a result of police overreaction.

The previous day, tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in cities across the United States. Marchers stretched more than three miles down Broadway in New York City. Unofficial estimates put the crowd at 150,000 to 250,000, while streets in the centre of San Francisco were closed for a third day as tens of thousands of demonstrators rallied in front of city hall before marching through the city in a parade that extended the length of ten blocks.

The day closed without incidents, in contrast to the arrests of more than 2,100 people since Thursday 20 March in daily anti-war demonstrations in the city. Most of those arrested had simply staged anti-war sit-downs on San Francisco's main roads.

Tens of thousands of people demonstrated on Saturday in cities in France, Germany, Finland, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and other European countries.

In Spain, police fired rubber bullets to disperse protesters in the capital, Madrid, for the second day running. Around one million people took to the streets throughout Spain, calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, who has strongly supported the military intervention against Baghdad.

They included about a quarter of a million people who joined a peaceful march though Madrid, crying "No to war!" "Aznar resign!" and "Murderers!"

About half a million people demonstrated in the north-eastern city of Barcelona and tens of thousands more attended anti-war rallies in Valencia, Bilbao, Santander, Granada, Pamplona and Seville.

In Brussels, riot police tried to prevent protesters who hurled rocks and sticks at the US embassy from getting too close to the building, later using water cannon on a small number who split from the main protest.

Protests in the Swiss capital, Bern, were tense after police used water cannon, rubber bullets and tear gas against a group of demonstrators.

In Athens, Greece, demonstrators outside the US embassy threw two Molotov cocktails onto the embassy lawn.

In Sudan, anti-riot police reportedly shot dead a 19-year-old university student during a protest in the capital, Khartoum.

In Asia, the largest demonstrations were in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, but only a few thousand people took part, some burning US flags and photos of George Bush. "Fight back, Americans are killers," protesters chanted outside the US embassy in Jakarta.

Protests continued for a second day in the Middle East after violent anti-US clashes on Friday 21 March. Riot police used tear gas against some 200 high-school students who threw stones near the US embassy in Bahrain. Some 5,000 students gathered at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, calling on Arab nations to send troops to support Iraq. In Yemen, three people were shot dead and dozens injured as police clashed with demonstrators attempting to storm the US Embassy.

In the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, 50,000 protesters marched through the streets, some chanting 'God is great' while others burnt effigies of the American president. The chief cleric of India's biggest mosque, the Jama Masjid in New Delhi, led more than 4,000 Muslims in a march through the capital.

In Afghanistan, about 1,000 people demonstrated in Metalam, the capital of Lagman province following the decision of their government to back the military action.

In Australia, whose government has deployed about 2,000 military personnel to the Gulf, demonstrations continued for a third day on Sunday 23 March. In Sydney, traffic was bought to a standstill by about 30,000 people blowing whistles and banging drums. In the capital Canberra, about 5,000 people assembled in front of parliament to scatter flower petals in the shape of peace signs and to encourage drivers to "honk for peace".

In Argentina, marches took place in the main cities, like Rosario and Córdoba. In the capital, Buenos Aires, a thousand people marched to the US embassy, where they were confronted by the police, who used rubber bullets, water cannon and tear gas.