March, 20 2005	Sunday	09 Safar 1426

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LONDON, March 19: Tens of thousands of people marched through European cities on Saturday, banging drums, waving banners and posters denouncing the ‘war on terror’ on the second anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. In London, 45,000 protesters marched with pictures of US President George Bush under the title, “World’s Number One Terrorist”, according to police, while the organizers put the figure at up to 150,000. There were also banners saying “No War in Iran” mingled with others warning British Prime Minister Tony Blair that people would not vote for him in a general election expected in May due to his support for the invasion. “Hey! Ho! Bush and Blair have got to go!” the protesters chanted as they moved from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square, where the main roads were cordoned off to traffic and hundreds of police stood guard. “This shows that the British people are still very angry about the occupation of Iraq and determined that there should be no more wars in the Middle East with British support,” Andrew Murray, who heads the Stop The War Coalition — the action group that organized the event — said. In Rome several thousand people took to the streets, some of them demanding the immediate return of the 3,000 Italian troops in Iraq. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi this week said the troops would start heading home in September, only to backtrack following a phone call from the US president.

Around 1,000 demonstrators also marched from downtown Stockholm to the US embassy, after listening to speeches by anti-war lawmakers.

“Sweden, with its need to export arms, keeps quiet and collaborates,” charged Green Party deputy Lotta Hedstroem.

Police in Athens said 2,000 demonstrators had marched in the city centre, where they attended a rock concert and heard an address by Sue Niederer, the mother of an American soldier killed in Iraq.

In Poland, where three out of four people oppose the deployment of Polish troops in Iraq, only 500 protesters marched in Warsaw past the US embassy and the offices of President Aleksander Kwasniewski.

In Turkey protests took place in Ankara, Istanbul and Adana, attracting crowds of several hundred. Turkey refused US access to the country to attack bordering Iraq ahead of the war.

London’s peaceful protest was the biggest since an unprecedented rally in the British capital in Nov 2003, Mr Murray said, speaking at Nelson’s Column, where a long line of prominent campaigners were delivering speeches.

Protesters of all ages and backgrounds said they wanted to send a message to Mr Blair to pull British troops out of Iraq and warn against any more “Bush wars”.

“A war on poverty, a war on AIDS that would be worthwhile, we would give more taxes for that,” said one of the speakers, Paul MacKney, the general secretary of the National Association of Teachers in Further Education (NAFTE).

“But instead we see 100,000 dead in Iraq. The war has cost five billion (pounds), military spending is 10 per cent of taxes,” he told the crowd assembled at the square to a volley of cheers, drumbeats and whistles.

“I think the war in Iraq is illegal, I think it is wrong, it is appalling and I will have no part of it,” said Ray Hewitt, 34, a veteran of the first Gulf War and an army reservist who helped to carry the coffin through London.

“I will go to prison before I go to Iraq,” said the soldier, who has refused to be sent back to the Middle East.

People poured into London from across the country, including 58-year-old theatre worker Eileen Murphy who travelled on a coach for five hours from Lancashire, northern England.

“I am here to protest that British troops are supporting the Americans in Iraq,” she said, sitting among the campaigners in Trafalgar Square.

Iraq and the ‘war on terror’ are likely to hurt Mr Blair in the next general election, which is widely expected to be called for May 5, many protesters predicted.

“It was wrong to take the country to war without everyone’s support. That makes me angry,” said Adam Rowberry, just 15, who was handing out green stickers emblazoned with the words, ‘Vote respect’.—AFP