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"Anti-War Protesters Hold Global Rallies
Millions Gather in Cities Around the World to Protest Iraq War
By Robert Barr
The Associated Press
Saturday, February 15, 2003; 2:25 PM
Millions of protesters - many of them marching in the capitals of America's traditional allies - demonstrated Saturday against U.S. plans to attack Iraq.
In a global outpouring of anti-war sentiment, Rome claimed the biggest turnout - 1 million according to police, while organizers claimed three times that figure.
In London, at least 750,000 people joined in the city's biggest demonstration ever, police said. Berlin had up to half a million on the streets, and Paris was estimated to have had up to 100,000.
Peace activists hoped to draw 100,000 demonstrators in New York City later for a protest near the United Nations.
"Peace! Peace! Peace!" said Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, who led an ecumenical service near U.N. headquarters. "Let America listen to the rest of the world - and the rest of the world is saying, `Give the inspectors time.'"
London's marchers hoped - in the words of keynote speaker Rev. Jesse Jackson - to "turn up the heat" on Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has been President Bush's staunchest European ally for his tough Iraq policy.
Rome protesters showed their disagreement with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's support for Bush, while demonstrators in Paris and Berlin backed the skeptical stances of their governments.
"What I would say to Mr. Blair is stop toadying up to the Americans and listen to your own people, us, for once," said Elsie Hinks, 77, who marched in London with her husband, Sidney, a retired Church of England priest.
"You don't fight terrorism with a preventive war," said Tommaso Palladini, 56, who traveled from Milan to Rome. "You fight terrorism by creating more justice in the world."
Several dozen marchers from Genoa held up pictures of Iraqi artists. "We're carrying these photos to show the other face of the Iraqi people that the TV doesn't show," said Giovanna Marenzana, 38.
Some leaders of German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's government took part in the Berlin protest, which turned the tree-lined boulevard between the Brandenburg Gate and the 19th-century Victory Column into a sea of banners, balloons emblazoned with "No war in Iraq" and demonstrators swaying to live music. Police estimated the crowd at between 300,000 and 500,000.
"We Germans in particular have a duty to do everything to ensure that war - above all a war of aggression - never again becomes a legitimate means of policy," shouted Friedrich Schorlemmer, a Lutheran pastor and former East German pro-democracy activist.
In the Paris crowd at the Place Denfert-Rochereau, a large American flag bore the black inscription: "Leave us alone."
Gerald Lenoir, 41, of Berkley, Calif., came to Paris specifically to support the French demonstrators. "I am here to protest my government's aggression against Iraq," he said. "Iraq does not pose a security threat to the United States and there are no links with al-Qaida."
In southern France, about 10,000 people demonstrated in Toulouse against the United States, chanting: "They bomb, they exploit, they pollute, enough of this barbarity."
Police estimated that 60,000 turned out in Oslo, Norway, 50,000 in bitter cold in Brussels, while about 35,000 gathered peacefully in frigid Stockholm.
About 80,000 marched in Dublin, Irish police said. Crowds were estimated at 60,000 in Seville, Spain; 40,000 in Bern, Switzerland; 30,000 in Glasgow, Scotland; 25,000 in Copenhagen; 15,000 in Vienna; 10,000 in Amsterdam; 5,000 in Cape Town and 4,000 in Johannesburg in South Africa; 5,000 in Tokyo; and 2,000 in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
"War is not a solution, war is a problem," Czech philosopher Erazim Kohak told a crowd of about 500 in Prague.
In Baghdad, tens of thousands of Iraqis, many carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles, demonstrated to support Saddam Hussein and denounce the United States.
"Our swords are out of their sheaths, ready for battle," read one of hundreds of banners carried by marchers along Palestine Street, a broad Baghdad avenue.
In Damascus, the capital of neighboring Syria, an estimated 200,000 protesters chanted anti-U.S. and anti-Israeli slogans as they marched to the People's Assembly.
Najjah Attar, a former Syrian cabinet minister, accused Washington of attempting to change the region's map. "The U.S. wants to encroach upon our own norms, concepts and principles," she said in Damascus. "They are reminding us of the Nazi and fascist times."
In Ukraine, some 2,000 people rallied in snowy Kiev's central square. Anti-globalists led a peaceful "Rock Against War" protest joined by communists, socialists, Kurds and pacifists.
In the Bosnian city of Mostar, about 100 Muslims and Croats united for an anti-war protest - the first such cross-community action in seven years in a place where ethnic divisions remain tense, despite the 1995 Bosnian peace agreement.
"We want to say that war is evil and that we who survived one know that better than anyone," said Majda Hadzic, 54.
In divided Cyprus, about 500 Greeks and Turks braved heavy rain for a march that briefly blocked a runway at a British air base.
Several thousand protesters in Athens, Greece, unfurled a giant banner across the wall of the Acropolis - "NATO, U.S. and EU equals War" - before heading toward the U.S. Embassy.
U.S. Ambassador Thomas Miller said the Greek protesters' indignation was misplaced. "They should be demonstrating outside the Iraqi embassy," he said before the march.
Police fired tear gas in clashes with several hundred anarchists wearing hoods and crash helmets, who smashed store windows and threw a gasoline bomb at a newspaper office. Thirteen youths were arrested, while five policemen and two protesters were injured.
In Moscow, 300 people marched to the U.S. Embassy, with one placard urging Russian President Vladimir Putin to "be firmer with America."
Between 3,000 and 5,000 people marched through a suburb of Canberra, the Australian capital, to protest government support for U.S. policy. Australia has already committed 2,000 troops to the Persian Gulf for possible action."