BY
NORM DIXON
& BARRY SHEPPARD
Even as the world's corporate media was declaring the end of the Iraq war, on April 12 as many as 2 million people mobilised across the globe to oppose the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq.
In Rome, more than 500,000 people thronged the streets to denounce US barbarism in Iraq and to condemn the Italian government's support for it. The war is over in its most obvious form as a classic means of destruction, Fausto Bertinotti, secretary-general of Italy's Party of Communist Refoundation (PRC), told the crowd. But it continues as low intensity conflict [in support of US President George Bush's] strategic hypothesis of world domination by means of preventive war.
In Spain, hundreds of thousands took part in demonstrations in many towns and cities. In Barcelona, more than 200,000 people chanted Aznar resign!, a reference to Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's support for the US attack. An overwhelmingly majority of Spaniards were opposed to the war. Some 200,000 took to the streets of the capital Madrid, organisers said.
In London, organisers estimated that 200,000 people marched against the government of British Prime Minister Tony Blair's participation in the US invasion. It is clear the war is not over, said Andrew Murray, chairperson of the Stop the War Coalition. There are still people being killed and we will also emphasise our opposition to the occupation.
The crowd chanted, Blair calls it liberation, it looks like occupation. Radical film director Ken Loach denounced the US-British-Australian occupation as being against international law. Among the speakers were George Galloway, the Labour MP who is facing expulsion from his party for demanding that Blair be charged with war crimes. Veteran Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament campaigner Bruce Kent repeated Galloway's call.
In France, 100,000 people demonstrated in 80 cities, including more than 10,000 people in Paris who rallied behind a banner that declared: Iraq to the Iraqis. Other banners read Stop the occupation of Iraq and Yes to a democratic and independent Iraq. Protesters chanted, US go home!.
In Berlin, anti-war protesters carried a banner reading Peace before occupation to the Brandenburg Gate. Police put the turnout at 15,000.
The demonstrations in the United States on April 12 were much smaller than previous ones, but they were nevertheless very important. In San Francisco, about 5000 people braved a rain storm to march. Lightning cracked over their heads as they marched through city neighbourhoods.
The march was very spirited, with drums, shouting and many and varied signs. Most important, the great majority of marchers understood that Washington is seeking world domination. Los Angeles saw about 5000 protesters.
In the US capital, some 30,000 marched in much better weather. This is not about liberation, it's about the occupation of Iraq and the plundering of its natural resources, said Dustin Langley, a volunteer with the US protests' initiating organisation, Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER). They were supported by the other anti-war coalitions.
That these marches were held at all after the triumphalism of the US corporate media is testimony that the anti-war movement isn't dead. As some of the news of the atrocities perpetrated by the US invasion and occupation, and Iraqi opposition to the occupation, seeps through the media, anti-war sentiment is again on the rise since April 12.
The largest Latin American demonstration was in Mexico City, where children led 50,000 marchers. There were also protests reported in Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Puerto Rico and Venezuela.
In Dacca, Bangladesh, an estimated 300,000 people marched, shouting Down with US imperialism and America get out of Iraq.
In Auckland, 1500 demonstrators at a rally against the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq protested against media bias outside New Zealand's two largest news organisations.
In a letter delivered to chief executive Ian Fraser of Television New Zealand, a state-owned company operating two free-to-air channels, the Global Peace and Justice movement claimed its news service had become a mouthpiece and visual portal for an unrelenting stream of bald US/UK propaganda and blatant lies.
TVNZ has simply set aside the fact that the US invasion is illegal, immoral and unsanctioned and has portrayed it over the past three weeks as a 'war of liberation', undertaken on behalf of the Iraqi people with barely a nod towards the great mass of humanity and a clear majority of New Zealanders who oppose this organised aggression against the people of Iraq, the letter said.
It also protested at the portrayal of US military casualties being of far greater significance than the huge numbers of Iraqi civilians killed. Where are the TVNZ interviews with US soldiers who freely admit in interviews to have 'taken out' civilians and 'chicks who got in the way'?
Protests also took place in around 40 other countries including Japan, South Korea and Greece. Hundreds of thousands more marched in Glasgow, Tehran and Calcutta.
From Green Left Weekly, April 23, 2003.
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