ROME — At least 2 million people (organisers estimate 3 million) from all over Italy converged on Rome on February 15, one of the largest peace rallies held in the world on that day.

An entire section of the historic centre of Rome, between the Colosseum and piazza San Giovanni, was packed for hours in a slow moving carnival of dancing and music, surrounded by a sea of coloured banners. The piazza San Giovanni, with its extraordinary Renaissance backdrop of the Basilica of San Giovanni and the Lateran Palace, seat of the popes until the seventeenth century, has been the traditional venue for major Communist Party rallies in the post-war period.

The slogan “Stop the war, no ifs or buts” brought together participants representing the breadth of Italian society and from more than 400 different organisations. Catholic youth, nuns and priests marched in the early spring sunshine alongside young people with dreadlocks, nose rings and Palestinian scarves.

Many marchers had left home late the night before on nearly 3000 special buses and 30 extra trains to travel to the Italian capital.

The stage was hung with one of the twentieth century's most vivid images of war, Pablo Picasso's “Guernica”. Among speakers from all over the world who addressed the rally were Kurds, Iraqi dissidents, Palestinians, a representative of the American Council of Churches and an Israeli conscientious objector who had spent three months in an Israeli military prison for refusing to serve on the West Bank.

Italy's right-wing government, led by Silvio Berlusconi, has openly sided with Washington and Britain in their plans to attack Iraq. Without consulting the Italian parliament, the government on February 13 agreed to US requests for the use of Italian rail, road and airport facilities for its war on Iraq.

The massive demonstration confirmed the findings of opinion polls that show that Italians overwhelmingly reject Berlusconi's pro-US, pro-war line.

City councils that have raised the rainbow peace flag have been threatened with prosecution. This has prompted a wave of “civil disobedience” by mayors all over Italy and a defiant rush by them to get hold of peace banners.

At the February 15 mobilisation, hundreds of local councillors from as far away as Friuli on the Austrian border arrived in Rome to march in uniform behind their cities' banner.

Catholic opposition to war is very strong in this strongly Catholic country. The Catholic Church is an important component in the Italian peace movement. The pope has condemned the drive to war more openly than almost any other world head of state and the Vatican has played a highly significant role in European diplomatic efforts to prevent war.

The pope held talks with German foreign minister Joschka Fischer in early February and met Iraq's foreign minister Tariq Aziz on February 14. Aziz was received on February 15 by Franciscan monks in Assisi, the Italian “city of peace”. The special papal emissary to Baghdad held talks with Saddam Hussein on the same day.

Meanwhile, Italy's main union, the General Confederation of Italian Trade Unions (CGIL), on February 18 decided it would launch a general strike if there is a war in Iraq, even if it is approved by a United Nations Security Council resolution. The CGIL has a membership of more than five million workers.

From Green Left Weekly, February 26, 2003.
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