March 1, 2003	Saturday	Zul Hijjah 27, 1423

KARACHI, Feb 28: The Citizens Committee Against War staged a protest march in the city on Friday against possible American military attack on Iraq, strengthen the international peace movement and to express solidarity with the people of Iraq.

The march started from Karachi Press Club (KPC) and after parading through Haji Abdullah Haroon Road, Regal Chowk, Zaibunnisa Street and Fountain Chowk on Aiwan-i-Sadar Road came back to the KPC where it terminated.

The participants, who included writers, intellectuals, journalists, teachers, doctors, students and political activists, were holding white peace flags and placards carrying slogans “No war against Iraq; we want peace, not war; and the people of Pakistan are with the people of Iraq” and were chanting anti-American and anti-imperialist slogans.

Before the start of the march, Hasan Abidi, a senior journalist, read out a declaration in which it was pointed out that “Saddam and weapons of mass destruction are only a ruse adopted by American imperialism to capture oil wells in Iraq, and after this they intend to occupy the entire region.

“Today’s superpower, which is a rogue imperialist state, is out to annihilate the civilization of Mesopotamia, the first human civilization, now known as Iraq, and to occupy its natural resources. The US wants to unleash aggression to subjugate and paralyze all small countries and to ensure global hegemony by the most sinister show of military might in human history.”

The declaration said any day thousands of cruise missiles would be fired on the orders of Bush and Blair and within two days more than 200,000 people, men, women and children, would be killed and millions would become disabled who would die for want of medical care. All this destruction would be wreaked by the US and its cohorts in the name of setting up democracy, restoring human rights in Iraq and eliminating weapons of mass destruction. “It is also possible that the helpless UN may give permission to these anti-human imperialists to launch aggression against Iraq under the threat of use of force.”

However, the sinister moves and designs of the imperialist forces are not going unnoticed. Millions of conscientious people, irrespective of religious and other affiliations, throughout Europe, America and the world over have come out on the streets protesting and exposing the US imperialist rulers’ and their cohorts’ real intentions that the planned attack on Iraq has nothing to do with the elimination of weapons of mass destruction and setting up democracy in Iraq after removing the Saddam government. Peace activists have also exposed those war mongers who use the sacred name of religion to further their own narrow interests.

The planned aggression against Iraq after Afghanistan is part of the old imperialist stratagem to capture and exploit the natural resources of the Third World. One aspect of the imperialist game is the state of Israel, a US stooge, to which the US provides full protection by giving it massive economic aid and by helping it build its military might. All this has emboldened Israel which has expelled Palestinians from their historical homeland and those Palestinians living in Palestine have become slaves in their own country.

The people of Pakistan hate war and love peace and in the light of their experience know very well that war is not a solution of any problem as it brings only miseries and destruction. They are well aware that religious fanaticism has not given them nothing but the scourge of terrorism, Kalashnikov and heroin cultures and sectarianism.

The people of Pakistan, therefore, at this historic juncture have joined hands with the world peace movement to fight back against the monsters who are out to destroy world peace, the declaration said.