Initial report on protests

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

msnbc.com

Thousands protest against Iraq war
Demonstrations across U.S., around world decry prospect

Oct. 26 — Tens of thousands of anti-war protesters circled the White 
House on Saturday after Jesse Jackson and other speakers denounced the 
Bush administration’s Iraq policies and demanded a revolt at the ballot 
box to promote peace, while thousands gathered in cities across Europe 
and elsewhere around the world to demand an end to threats of an 
“unjustified” war against Iraq.

THE WASHINGTON protest coincided with anti-war demonstrations from 
Augusta, Maine, to San Francisco and abroad from Rome and Berlin to 
Tokyo to San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Mexico City. In Washington and many 
of the other demonstrations, protesters added complaints about U.S. 
policy toward the Palestinians.

“We must not be diverted. In two years we’ve lost 2 million jobs, 
unemployment is up, stock market down, poverty up,” Jackson told a 
spirited crowd in Washington. “It’s time for a change. It’s time to vote 
on Nov. 5 for hope. We need a regime change in this country.”

Congress has authorized the use of military force to achieve the 
administration policy of “regime change” in Iraq.

“If we launch a pre-emptive strike on Iraq, we lose all moral 
authority,” Jackson told the chanting, cheering throng spread out on 
green lawns near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

A sign showed Bush’s face at the end of two bright red bombs with the 
caption: “Drop Bush, not bombs.”

The protest brought out the elderly, young parents with babies in 
strollers, even a man dressed as Uncle Sam wearing dreadlocks and 
another Uncle Sam, on stilts, with an elongated Pinocchio nose.

Protest organizers claimed up to 200,000 people had answered the call to 
challenge President Bush’s determination to force out Iraqi President 
Saddam Hussein. Because the U.S. Park Police no longer issue crowd 
estimates, the size of the crowd could not be verified. As the march 
began, participants stretched for at least five city blocks.

American peace activist Joe Quandt, center, from Albany, N.Y., holds a 
sign during a vigil protest in front of the Polish Embassy, which houses 
the U.S. interest section, in Baghdad on Satiurday. A group of mostly 
American activists opposing the Bush administration's policy towards 
Iraq held the vigil. At left is Suzan Mackley of Chicago, and second 
from left is Michael Birmingham of Dublin, Ireland.

On a nearby street corner, a handful of Iraqi-Americans staged a 
counterdemonstration. Aziz al-Taee, spokesman for the Iraqi-American 
Council, said, “I think America is doing just fine. ... We think every 
day Saddam stays in power, he kills more Iraqis.”

New Englanders ventured out in snow, sleet and rain to join 
demonstrations in Maine and Vermont. Across the nation a couple thousand 
showed up at the Colorado capitol in downtown Denver, and demonstrators 
marched in San Francisco.

The thousands who gathered in cities across Europe, Asia and beyond also 
displayed vocal opposition to the U.S. policy toward Iraq and demanded 
reversal of Bush’s Iraq policies.

In Berlin, crowds of people brandishing placards that declared “War on 
the imperialist war,” “Stop Bush’s campaign” and “No blood for oil,” 
along with a few Iraqi and Palestinian flags, converged on the downtown 
Alexanderplatz square and marched past the German Foreign Ministry.

Police estimated that as many as 8,000 people took part in damp, windy 
weather, while organizers put the number at 30,000. No trouble was reported.

Some 1,500 people turned out in Frankfurt and 500 more in Hamburg, 
according to police, while 1,500 rain-soaked demonstrators gathered 
under umbrellas outside the U.S. Embassy in Copenhagen, Denmark, and 
more than 1,000 hit the streets in Stockholm, Sweden.

Closely watched by police in anti-riot gear, a few thousand people 
marched in downtown Rome in a protest dominated by banners referring to 
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that also was attended by some 
opposition politicians.

“We’re aware that war and terrorism feed each other,” Paolo Cento, a 
lawmaker for the Greens party, said of his opposition to a war against Iraq.

In Baghdad itself, American anti-war activists protested in front of 
U.N. offices, urging the U.N. Security Council not to give Bush a blank 
check for war against Iraq. Six members of the Chicago-based Voices in 
the Wilderness raised banners including “Drop sanctions not bombs.”

In Tokyo, about 300 Japanese staged a “peace walk,” holding up placards 
urging governments to “stop the war before it starts.”

The United States, backed by Britain, wants tough new rules for U.N. 
weapons inspections and a declaration from the Security Council that 
Iraq faces “serious consequences” if it fails to comply.

However, Russia wants to stick as closely as possible to current 
inspection rules and eliminate any language allowing an attack on 
Baghdad. France also opposes any language possibly authorizing military 
action and wants to water down some U.S. inspection proposals.

“We say to President Bush: There is no reason for this war,” pacifist 
German lawmaker Hans-Christian Stroebele told the crowd in Berlin, 
drawing cheers as he added: “This war is unjustified.”

Saturday’s were the first major demonstrations in Germany in recent 
months against the prospect of military action against Iraq, which has 
been staunchly opposed by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

“I expect the government at least to stick to that,” said Susanne 
Roessling, 41, an employee at a legal firm. “They should really exert 
pressure,” for instance by refusing to let U.S. planes attacking Iraq 
fly over Germany, she added.

Schroeder has argued that a strike against Baghdad could wreck the 
international anti-terror coalition and throw the Middle East into 
turmoil, and says Germany would not participate.

That stance is credited with helping Schroeder narrowly win re-election 
last month, and led to a cooling in relations between Berlin and Washington.

“It’s a tactical position that could change tomorrow,” 54-year-old peace 
activist Wolfgang Ratzel said at the Berlin protest. “I have no 
illusions about the effect” of the demonstration, he added.

“Saddam Hussein is one of the absolutely worst dictators in the world 
today ... but that doesn’t justify the USA’s war plans,” Gudrun Schyman, 
leader of Sweden’s former communist Left Party, told the crowd in Stockholm.

“You don’t disarm a regime by conducting an armed war.”



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