Planned mass protests will recall Vietnam peace rallies
PARIS:
Demonstrations against a looming US-led war on Iraq are to take place around the world, with organisers claiming Washington is now confronted with the biggest peace movement since the Vietnam war.
Tens of thousands of people are expected to take part in the co-ordinated marches in cities in the United States, Europe, Latin America, Japan and Egypt today and tomorrow.
The mass rallies underline the opposition in many countries to the use of military force in Iraq to support US President George W Bush's stated aim of "regime change" in Baghdad if it is not backed by UN authorisation.
Significantly, they are being held barely a week before chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix is due to give his much-anticipated update to the UN Security Council about progress made in tracking down Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction.
That report, on January 27, is seen as a key decision point for US plans for Iraq, which many news reports suggest are based on plans for an invasion sometime next month.
Bush is to give his national State of the Union address the next day.
Most attention will be given to anti-war protests in Washington and San Francisco today.
The rally in the US capital will go from the Congress building to a nearby military installation, according to one of the organisers, a group calling itself Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER).
Tony Murphy, spokesman for ANSWER, said: "We believe that the vast majority of people in the United States don't want a war, they want money spent on education and human needs and not weapons of mass destruction."
US allies in Europe will also see demonstrations, notably in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
"A battle has been joined between public opinion and the forces that want the war," Arielle Denis, of the group Movement for Peace, told a news conference in Paris that announced rallies today in the French capital and 40 other cities.
Russia's Communist Party has organised a rally in front of the US embassy in Moscow today, and ultranationalist deputy Vladimir Zhirinovsky is to lead another similar protest tomorrow in the city's central Pushkin Square.
In Japan, an expected 10,000 people are expected to march through central Tokyo at the urging of a coalition of 30 groups called Peace Boat.
In a statement, Peace Boat said that while Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's regime was dictatorial, "it does not justify the American government staging a military attack on the country and its people."
Other protests are due to take place in Mexico, Argentina and Egypt, following on from previous rallies seen in the US, Australia and Britain.
Baghdad itself has been the scene of several demonstrations this week, with several thousand Arab protesters burning US, British and Israeli flags during a march along a main city road on Thursday.
Other demonstrations are planned in the coming weeks, including one on February 15 in Britain and another on February 23 in Malaysia.
Organisers claim the magnitude of the worldwide protests rival those held against the Vietnam war in the late 1960s and early 1970's.
Some observers agree. Stephen Zunes of the University of San Francisco said this week that the broad-based anti-war activities in US communities and university campuses were "greater than after two or three years of heavy fighting in Vietnam," when US forces were already engaged in combat. |
