LONDON, Feb 14: With war clouds looming over Iraq, final plans were being made for anti-war rallies across the globe on Saturday in what organizers hope will be the biggest day of pacifist protest in history.
Millions of people are expected to turn out in cities across Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas amid speculation that a war on Iraq, led by the United States and Britain, is just weeks away.
“This is a tough political movement,” said John Rees from the Stop The War Coalition — one of the groups behind Saturday’s demonstration in London that could be the biggest seen in the capital since World War II.
“People have not been fooled by the months of sophisticated propaganda. The more governments around the world have tried to coerce people intellectually into agreeing to the war, the stronger public opinion has moved against it,” he said.
The weekend protests kicked off early in Melbourne, Australia, on Friday, where at least 150,000 people demonstrated against Canberra’s staunch support for Washington’s threats of war against Baghdad.
“This war is not Australia’s war,” the leader of Australia’s Green party, Bob Brown, told the crowd.
The turnout for the rally exceeded the expectations of organizers, who said it was the country’s biggest peace march since the Vietnam war, claiming almost 200,000 people had taken part.
Police estimated that about 150,000 people attended the protest, the first of a series of events planned around the country that are expected to be the biggest anti-war protests in the Asia-Pacific region over the weekend.
“We will bring together people from different political viewpoints and comprehensions, but they will be united because they have a strong sense of disquiet about what is going on,” said Peter Garrett, former lead singer for Aussie rock band Midnight Oil, who took part in the Melbourne protest.
Protesters chanted anti-war slogans and waved placards reading “No War for Oil” and “Will the Pollies’ (politicians’) Kids Go to War?”
Australian Prime Minister John Howard has already committed 2,000 troops to a possible war against Iraq.
However, opinion polls show only six percent of Australians support war against Iraq without United Nations backing and one in three oppose war under any circumstances.
British police said they were preparing for a crowd of 500,000 in London’s Hyde Park as anti-globalization activists, trade unionists and left-wing campaigners were expected to hear speeches from a bevy of celebrities.
US activist Jesse Jackson, the head of Britain’s Liberal Democrat party Charles Kennedy, veteran left-winger and former actress Glenda Jackson, and outspoken playwright Harold Pinter are all due to address the rally.
Elsewhere in Europe, rallies are planned for Rome — with a million expected to answer the summons of pacifist, Catholic, union and left-wing organizations — as well as Madrid, Athens, Istanbul, Berlin and Paris.
“Whether or not the war takes place under the aegis of the United Nations, it will be catastrophic for the Iraqi and Kurdish peoples,” French organizers said in a statement.
Protesters will be hoping to weigh on the deliberations under way at the United Nations in New York. The city is the focus of the main American anti-war demonstration, with hundreds of thousands expected at a rally near UN headquarters. Protesters will be brought in from up and down the US east coast.
Celebrities expected include actors Danny Glover and Susan Sarandon, South African Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and singer Harry Belafonte — who has bitterly attacked the US administration.
Relatives of victims of the Sept 11, 2001, attacks are also expected to take part in the rally.
Middle East demonstrations are expected in Tel Aviv and Cairo.
In Germany, which has led European opposition to US President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s push for war, tens of thousands have already taken to the streets since the Iraqi crisis began.
Estimates said around 17,000 people demonstrated in different German cities on Thursday alone.
ASIA: In Japan, a demonstration is planned in front of the US embassy at noon on Saturday and a parade from Tokyo’s trendy Shibuya district was scheduled for later in the day.
At noon on Sunday about 30 protesters, including high school students, will gather at Tokyo’s Narita airport before flying to Iraq, where they hope to act as human shields against any attack.
“I’ve seen many people there laughing and smiling. They do not hope for a war,” said Masaaki Kozaki, a member of the group who has already visited Iraq once. “I wonder, do we have to attack them again?”
In Thailand, about 5,000 people are expected to take part in demonstrations at a downtown Bangkok park, from where they will march to the US embassy.
“The main objective is to oppose war and aggression against other countries, and to find peaceful solutions to the conflict,” organizer Niti Hasan said.
Anti-war sentiment has even reached the tiny South Pacific island nation of Fiji, where the Fiji Anti-War Movement (FAWM) sent floral messages to foreign embassies imploring them to pressure the US and its allies to avoid war.
“These flowers are our determined reminder to leaders (US President) George Bush, (Australian premier) John Howard and especially (British premier) Tony Blair: Don’t sacrifice beautiful young lives for your own interests,” said FAWM spokesperson Stanley Simpson of the protest in the capital Suva.
The bouquets contained the message “Don’t kill love by making war”.
In New Zealand, the environmental group Greenpeace said it would fly anti-war banners over yachting’s America’s Cup in Auckland, which starts on Saturday.
Several organizations in Hong Kong, including the Beijing-backed party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong, staged protests on Friday outside the US consulate. A larger rally outside the US and British consulates was planned for Saturday.
Asia’s Muslim countries are also due to mark their opposition to the war. On Saturday, hundreds of Malaysian activists are expected to protest in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, and on the island state of Penang.
Arutchelvan Subramaniam, of rights group Voice of the Malaysian People, said organizers would collect anti-war signatures during the gathering to be presented to Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. —AFP
LONDON, Feb 14: With war clouds looming over Iraq, final plans were being made for anti-war rallies across the globe on Saturday in what organizers hope will be the biggest day of pacifist protest in history.
