Angry Protestors From Asia to the Americas Stage Mass Rallies
Agence France-Presse
Sunday January 19, 06:16 AM
Angry protestors from Asia to the Americas staged mass rallies to demonstrate against war in Iraq, in a
direct challenge to a US-led assault on Baghdad that many fear is drawing near.
Demonstrations were at full throttle in Japan and the Middle East, and others were launched in
European capitals from Moscow to Paris, ahead of peace protests planned in several US cities and in Latin
American countries.
Rallies in Britain, Germany, Ireland, Italy and Spain were expected to draw thousands more to protest
US President George W. Bush's threats to go to war against Baghdad and Washington's ramped-up war
preparations.
In London, where British Prime Minister Tony Blair has offered Europe's strongest support for Bush's
stance on Iraq, hundreds gathered near Northwood, the permanent joint headquarters of the British armed
forces.
Candlelit vigils were to be held later in the day in Birmingham, Nottingham and in London's Trafalgar
Square.
In Paris, an anti-war rally drew 6,000 people, according to police, as a range of left-wing activists
demanded that Washington lay aside its war plans. Organizers said 20,000 people marched through the
French capital.
"Obviously (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein is a dictator. But if we attacked all non-democratic
regimes, there would be few peaceful countries left," said a woman attending her first protest.
Another 10,000 people rallied in France's southern city of Marseille, according to organisers, crying
"Bush, Blair, Chirac, we don't want your dirty war!" Police put protester numbers at 5,000.
Laura Nelson, a 43-year-old American who with her 18-year-old son joined in, said: "We are protesting
Bush's policies that favor the richest and the oil companies."
Peace protests were planned in some 40 other French cities.
In Germany, two demonstrations -- in the northeastern port city of Rostock and in the southwestern
university town of Tuebingen -- brought thousands out in support of peace.
In the Irish republic, around 1,500 activists gathered outside the Shannon airport to protest the possible
refuelling there of Gulf-bound US warplanes in the event of war, police said.
Sweden, too, saw up to 5,000 demonstrators march through the southwestern city of Gothenburg,
Swedish news agency TT reported.
Meanwhile, several hundred Russian Communists wielding banners of Lenin and Stalin rallied to
revolutionary songs outside the US embassy.
Waving crimson banners, the militants denounced the United States as a "terrorist" and "world
policeman", comparing Bush to Hitler.
Austrians got an early start in Vienna late Friday with 1,000 mostly students and school children
burning a US flag and chanting "Stop the War".
In Japan, rally organizers from World Peace Now said up to 5,000 protestors had marched through
Tokyo's glitzy shopping district Ginza.
"I hope that president Bush, who is acting like a cowboy, will recognize that an era of western films is
over," said Tomoharu Yamauchi, a 45-year-old coffee shop owner.
David Loy, an American teaching in Japan, carried a banner which read: "Today, I am ashamed to be a
US citizen".
Near the Pakistani capital, a human chain of more than 1,000 people -- including hundred
schoolchildren -- wove through the streets of Rawalpindi in a collective call for peace.
Children carried paper doves symbolizing the call for peace, while other held banners saying: "American
imperialism is brutal and mad" and "US has the maximum weapons of mass destruction."
Massive rallies were staged throughout the Middle East, including a march through the Syrian capital
that brought 15,000 people into the streets.
Shouting "Down with the United States!" the Damascus marchers carried banners reading: "Iraq: a
history and a civilization, not an oil well."
In neighboring Lebanon, more than 8,000 protestors marched to UN offices in central Beirut in the
largest anti-war rally held in support of Iraq in the past year.
Visiting British left-wing MP George Galloway took part in the protest, which gathered MPs as well as
several secular and nationalist Lebanese and Palestinian leaders.
"From Ramallah to Baghdad, one people that will never die!" was among the more popular chants.
A protest in Cairo had a more modest turnout, with only 300 people assembling in the central Sayeda
Zeynad Square, as a heavy police presence prevented others from joining in.
US anti-war protests were planned for Washington and San Francisco and other cities, synchronized
with the rallies in a total of 18 countries, including Argentina and Mexico.
Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said Friday the US president was happy to allow the US rallies, since
they are a sign of the "strength of our democracy."
Saddam is accused by Washington and London of harboring and developing weapons of mass
destruction, and of not cooperating with UN weapons inspectors who are carrying out searches in Iraq.
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