THE DAILY STAR - LEBANON: World capitals gird for peace protests -- Weekend will see demonstrations from san francisco to Tokyo
Protests in 33 countries, over 200 cities
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World capitals gird for peace protests
Weekend will see demonstrations from san francisco to Tokyo
Activist declares: ‘A battle has been joined between public opinion and the forces that want war’ against Iraq
Compiled by Daily Star staff
Muslims and Arabs will attack US targets everywhere if the United States invaded Iraq, a senior member of Hamas Hamas warned from Gaza on Friday as world capitals geared for a weekend of anti-war protests.
Mahmoud al-Zahar made the comments during a speech to approximately 3,000 Palestinians who marched through the winding streets of Gaza City to mark the 12th anniversary of the 1991 Gulf War. Some protesters fired shots in the air and others held portraits of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
“If Iraq is attacked … all American targets will be open targets for every Muslim, Arab or Palestinian,” Zahar said. “Any attack against Iraq will be answered by resistance everywhere and American interests everywhere will be targeted. All American targets will be open targets to every Muslim, Arab, or Palestinian.”
Islamic groups and secular factions at the march issued their own statement, which condemned Arab states that were “silent against the assaults on Iraq and Palestine.”
Protesters chanted slogans against US President George W. Bush, whose father was president during the 1991 war in which Iraqi troops were driven out of Kuwait.
“Bush junior is a coward. Iraq will not be humiliated,” they chanted under Palestinian and Iraqi flags.
Palestinians have regularly held rallies and marches in support of Saddam in recent weeks. But Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, who supported Saddam during the 1991 war, has been more cautious this time around, calling for a peaceful resolution to the standoff in the Gulf.
In Manama, about 1,000 Bahrainis, chanting “down, down USA” and “no to war for oil,” marched in the pro-American Gulf Arab state on Friday to protest against the looming US-led war on Iraq.
“We condemn the US-British plan to attack Iraq,” read one banner carried by protesters after Muslim prayers.
“No to American (military) facilities in Islamic countries,” read another.
Opposition leaders headed the peaceful march to the UN offices in Bahrain, headquarters of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet and a possible launchpad for any US attack against Iraq.
Demonstrators carried Bahraini and Iraqi flags in the biggest march in the Gulf Arab state since thousands of angry Bahrainis attacked the US Embassy last year to protest against Washington’s strong support for Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians.
Tens of thousands of people are expected to take part in coordinated marches in cities in the United States, Europe, Latin America, Japan and Egypt on Saturday and Sunday, and organizers are claiming that Washington is now confronted with the biggest peace movement since the Vietnam War.
Most attention will be given to anti-war demonstrations in Washington and San Francisco on Saturday.
The rally in the US capital will go from the Congress building to a nearby military installation, according to one of the organizers, a group calling itself Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER).
“We believe that the vast majority of people in the United States don’t want a war,” said ANSWER spokesman Tony Murphy. “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, on the weekend.
“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 Thursday that announced rallies Saturday in the French capital and 40 other European cities.
Russia’s Communist Party has organized a rally in front of the US Embassy in Moscow on Saturday, and ultranationalist legislator Vladimir Zhirinovsky is to lead another similar protest a day later in the city’s central Pushkin Square.
In Japan, an expected 10,000 people are expected to march through central Tokyo on Saturday 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’s 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 in the United States, 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 Thursday.
Other demonstrations are planned in the coming weeks, including one on Feb. 15 in Britain and another on Feb. 23 in Malaysia. Agencies |
