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LONDON, Feb 15: As many as 10 million protesters joined forces around the globe on Saturday to deliver a blunt message to US President George Bush: “Give peace a chance and do not rush into war against Iraq.”
From Canberra to Sofia, from Cape Town to Karachi, they took to the streets to pillory Bush as a bloodthirsty warmonger.
In the biggest demonstrations of “people power” since the Vietnam war, they poured scorn on President Bush’s hawkish stance.
“This war is solely about oil. George Bush has never given a damn about human rights,” London mayor Ken Livingstone told reporters at a giant rally in London.
The day’s biggest rally took place in Rome where, under a sea of rainbow peace banners, demonstrators marched through the streets. Greying pensioners to dreadlocked teenagers marched side-by-side in a carnival-like atmosphere.
After over five hours into the demonstration, organizers claimed there were more than three million people at the rally.
Hundreds of thousands of people from veteran peaceniks to first-time marchers crammed into central London demanding that Britain and the United States pull back from the brink of war with Iraq.
Wrapped against the biting cold, chanting, blowing whistles and under a multi-coloured sea of banners with slogans such as “No to war”, “Don’t attack Iraq” and “Not in my name”, they marched through central London to a mass rally in Hyde Park.
Organisers put the numbers at over 1.5 million in what they said was the biggest political protest march in British history.
“My son, Sion, is in the Royal Engineers. He was suddenly sent to Kuwait this morning. I was supposed to see him off but it was more important to me to come on this march,” Rhian Jones said at the rally.
“I hope this demonstration will show Muslims it is our government that wants the war, not the British people,” said Richard Shirres who travelled to London from eastern England, with his six-year-old son to take part in his first ever march.
Prominent American peace campaigner Jesse Jackson, who addressed the rally at the end of the march, warned that war on Iraq could trigger a long and bloody feud.
“If Mr Blair will hear his people he can alter the direction of the rush to war. I am very inspired by this. It could change global opinion,” he told reporters.
“This war is the best recruiting agent for the terrorists. The civilians, or those of them that are left alive, will hate us more than they do now,” former Labour minister Mo Mowlam told the crowd.
Lending a truly British tone to the march, one placard read: “Make Tea, Not War”.
More than 3,000 police were on duty with the capital already on high security alert for possible terror attacks.
ROMAN WAY: Drummers, whistlers and juggling George Bush clowns turned the Rome march into a huge carnival for peace. Young and old, from greying pensioners to body-pierced teenagers, marched arm-in-arm in a festive atmosphere that turned the august city into a buzzing party town.
As marching bands played and whistles blew, streams of pacifists flowed through the streets under a sea of rainbow-coloured flags and baring anti-war slogans.
“No War for Oil” and “Bush is the new Hitler” were some, while others declared “Make love not war”.
In France, one of the staunchest opponents of war, one woman protesting in Paris said: “The Americans were stressed by Sept 11 and now they are going completely overboard.”
At least 50,000 people crammed into the centre of Paris, where organizers believed the turnout was well beyond 100,000. The demonstrators, led by more than 80 political parties, unions and organisations, were joined by American pacifists protesting the US policy towards Iraq.
“American citizens against the US government’s war-mongering and unilateral foreign policy,” read one banner.
France’s opposition for now to war against Iraq is supported in Europe by Berlin, where some 500,000 people attended a rally in the biggest protest in Germany since the end of World War Two.
They waved banners reading “No Blood for Oil”, “Make Love Not War”, and “War? No Thanks!”
German unions, rights groups and political associations spearheaded the rally, which was on “a scale unseen” since the fall of the Iron Curtain, according to a police official.
“The axis of evil runs through the Penta-gon,” said one banner, referring to the label branded on Iran, Iraq and North Korea by President Bush.
Rallies kicked off in half a dozen cities across Spain, answering a call by the political opposition, joined by hundreds of social and artistic groups.
Spain’s ruling Popular Party, under fire at home for its support for the hawkish US line on Iraq, began circulating three million copies of a pamphlet defending the government’s position before Saturday’s protests.
In the Greek capital Athens, tens of thousands of people set off towards the US embassy, while Communists hoisted giant anti-war banners on the Acropolis, one reading: “The war benefits imperialists and harms the people.”
Some violence broke out on the sidelines of the march, with rioters throwing Molotov cocktails at a official building, but they were soon dispersed by police.
In Moscow, several hundred Communists protested at the US embassy, brandishing banners saying: “Bush, hands off Iraq” and “Bush go away, you are Hitler today”.
In the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, one banner read: “I look at Bush but see Hitler”.
ASIA: The day began with a slew of demonstrations in Asia. In Japan, the only nation to have been attacked with nuclear weapons at the end of World War Two, around 300 gathered in front of the US embassy in Tokyo chanting anti-war slogans.
“What the United States is doing now is wrong. We are on the brink of World War Three,” said Japanese housewife Mariko Ayama.
Australians turned out in their thousands for the biggest protest since the anti-Vietnam war marches of 30 years ago.
South Koreans shouted: “Bush Terrorist”, while Malaysian protesters depicted Bush with yellowing missiles for teeth.
Protesters were cheered on Friday when U.N chief weapons inspector Hans Blix told the Security Council that he held out hope arms inspections in Iraq would work.
In the Arab world, some 200,000 Syrians and Palestinian residents of Damascus took to the streets to voice their opposition to a U.S. war against fellow Arab Iraqis.
The crowds burned the U.S. and Israeli flags near the country’s parliament and chanted slogans calling a U.S. military campaign against Baghdad a war for oil.
One of the banners read: “Axis of Evil: America, Britain, Israel”.
About 10,000 people waving Iraqi, French and German flags and President Saddam Hussein’s pictures marched peacefully but noisily through the Lebanese capital, Beirut, towards the UN offices
Large-scale anti-war protests were also held in Jordan, Egypt the Palestinian territories and Israel.
In Iraq itself, two massive anti-war rallies filled the streets of Baghdad, with many protesters carrying guns. Official figures put the number of protesters at one million. Reporters estimated the turnout at several hundred thousand.
Thousands of South Africans, including three ministers, lined the streets of Cape Town, one of four protests planned across the country. Protesters carried placards saying “Bombs kill babies” and “There’s a terrorist behind every Bush”.—Reuters
