ABC News Online (Australia) - Posted: Sun, 29 Sep 2002 5:12 AEST
Thousands march in UK, Europe in anti-war protest over Iraq Hundreds of thousands have demonstrated in London and Rome to protest the drumbeat of conflict in Iraq, with speakers claiming Washington was only on the warpath because it wanted Iraqi oil.
Several hundred thousand people thronged London to protest a looming war in Iraq, many whistling derisively as they marched past Prime Minister Tony Blair's Downing Street residence, a key US ally in the effort to strike against President Saddam Hussein.
Organisers from the Stop the War Coalition said 400,000 people took part, calling it the biggest peace demonstration ever in Britain, but police put the figure at around 150,000.
The marchers, including many public figures and legislators, trekked past British Parliament to Hyde Park where speaker after speaker derided US President George W. Bush and Blair for trying to wage war on behalf of oil interests.
"This is a war for oil," London mayor and veteran left-winger Ken Livingstone said.
"It's not a war about human rights, it's certainly not about weapons of mass destruction."
John Pilger, a radical journalist whose latest film on the Palestinians has just been telecast in Britain, told the Hyde Park crowd that "Bush and Blair must be stopped".
"Other countries may be next - Iran, North Korea, perhaps China," he said. "This war is not about weapons of mass destruction," British labor leader Mick Rix said.
"It's about payback time for the same corrupt multinational businesses that put Bush in power in the first place."
Parallel theme
The demonstration, which has "freedom for Palestine" as a parallel theme, was spearheaded by a broad coalition that includes veteran pacifist groups and Muslim representatives.
It followed the Tuesday publication of a British Government dossier that Blair described as solid evidence that Saddam was developing weapons of mass destruction.
A giant banner scrawled with the phrase "Don't attack Iraq" summed up the mood of the crowd as it set off from the north bank of the River Thames. The Stop the War Coalition called for a seperate "Don't Attack Iraq" day of action in local communities on October 31.
It said the event would involve college occupations, workplace meetings and protests and peaceful "direct action" in cities across the country. Mr Blair is the European leader who most strongly backs Bush's hard line on Iraq, though the British Government puts more of a focus on ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction than removing the Iraqi leader from power.
UN mandate
But a string of public opinion polls suggest that the British public is reluctant to support military action against Saddam without at least a firm UN mandate.
The protests occurred as a US envoy was in Moscow trying to convince a sceptical Russian Government of the need for a toughly worded United Nations resolution on Iraq.
The same envoy was earlier given a cool reception by France. Meanwhile, organisers say in Rome some 100,000 demonstrators protested Washington's Iraq policy, challenging Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's support for belligerent US threats against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
As tens of thousands of Italian peace activists thronged the streets of Rome, Communist Renewal party Secretary General Fausto Bertinotti said their ambition was to help build a new peace movement.
"This is the first big demonstration organized in Italy against war and for peace," Mr Bertinotti said.
"A mounting peace wave is sweeping Europe and it can counter that in favor of war," communist deputy Titti de Simone said.
Mr Berlusconi on Wednesday offered his support to the United States in its drive against Iraq, but told legislators he also favored a new tough UN resolution threatening the use of force against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Among those in the march were Nemer Hammad, representative of the Palestinian Authority in Italy, and Syrian bishop Hilarion Capucci, together with deputies of the main opposition party the Democrats of the Left (DS) and pacifist leaders.
In Paris the Trotskyite Workers' Party organised a protest rally Friday, headed up by Daniel Gluckstein, a candidate in French presidential elections in April. "Together we swear ceaselessly to organise the struggle in university faculties and high schools, in our enterprises and local districts to say 'No to war! No to exploitation!' Down with military intervention in Iraq'!" a PT statement said.
In the French Mediterranean port of Marseille several thousands marked the second anniversary of the Palestinian uprising or intifada by demonstrating in support of the Palestinian cause, condemning what they described as Israel's "apartheid" policy.