People's Democracy

Teach-Ins, Vigils And Demonstrations Worldwide

An Emphatic No To War

AS the US and other governments continue to spread misinformation and

manipulate public opinion through pliable media, loaded opinion polls and bellicose rhetoric of war, thousands of protestors marched through the streets of America, Europe and other parts of the globe denouncing the war hysteria.

Since September 11, 182 anti-war actions involving 285,000 people have taken place in around 40 countries. Even as the massive military build-up continues, more and more people are opposing it by taking to the streets within America!

IN WASHINGTON

Washington witnessed the first major national anti-war protest since the terror attacks, with an estimated 25 thousand people taking over the downtown streets on September 30. They marched just blocks away from Capitol Hill shouting "People Say No to the War!".

Young protesters, who beat drums and the bottom of plastic tubs, shouted chants at stone-faced police in a tense stand-off on one Pennsylvania Avenue block.

Originally on this day anti-globalisation protests were scheduled to coincide with the annual IMF-World Bank meetings, in which one lakh protestors were to participate. Out of fear of these protests, the IMF-World Bank meetings were postponed initially and after the September 11 terror attacks they were altogether cancelled.

"I don’t think the solution to violence is more violence," said Rachel Ettling, a 19-year-old sophomore at New York’s Columbia University who held a red banner at a park in the shadow of the US Capitol dome that read: "America! Get a clue!" Ettling said she and the throngs of protesters were putting the country’s best ideals to use. "It’s a very patriotic thing to be an activist," she said. "This is democracy in the streets."

The protestors pleaded that the country not engage in what they called a "rush to war", and to condemn violent acts of retaliation against those of Middle Eastern background.

Another rally and march for peace, organised by local anti-war activists, took place on September 29. Leslie Sauer, 55, a landscape architect from rural New Jersey, held a sign that read, "8 million Afghan refugees need food now, not war and terror." Many protesters criticised US foreign policy, which they say has exacerbated tensions in the Middle East.

"We rain bombs on Iraq, then we’re surprised we’re hated," the Rev. Graylan Hagler, minister at the District’s Plymouth Congregational Church, told thousands gathered there.

When demonstrators ended their march an hour later at Edward R Murrow Park across from the World Bank and IMF, lines of police prevented them from leaving. The park soon became the scene of a sometimes-tense 90-minute standoff. Hundreds of police stood shoulder-to-shoulder surrounding the park. The police officials said the tactic was used to cool off the crowd, but many who were detained said the action violated their rights. Protesters’ nerves were on edge, and many sat down on the grass, while others started chants.

Police eventually negotiated with the group to march down Street NW towards Freedom Plaza at 14th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, where the second march was assembling at noon.

At that march, organised by a new anti-war, anti-racist coalition called International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism), speakers addressed the crowd for three hours before thousands of protesters streamed down Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Participants exchanged angry words with about 100 counter-demonstrators organised by a national conservative group, Free Republic, who had gathered at the National Archives.

IN NEW YORK

For the second time since the September 11 attacks, New Yorkers marched against war. Over a thousand people marched for peace and against anti-Arab violence in conjunction with the demonstrations taking place in Washington DC and other places of the world. The march was organised by the September 11th Coaliton and it was from Bryant Park near Times Square to Union Square.

The march ended in Union Square - "Ground Zero for Peace" where since the clean-up last Tuesday (after two weeks), only traces of the thousands of candles, signs, flowers, messages of peace, and flags remained.

EUROPE WITNESSES HUGE PROTESTS

Britain, Spain, Greece, Italy, The Netherlands and Switzerland witnessed huge but peaceful anti war demonstrations over the weekend. It was vocal movement expressing concern over military build up.

The British ruling Labour Party kicked off its annual party conference on September 30 in England's southern resort city of Brighton with thousands of peaceful protesters opposing the international "war on terrorism" marching outside of the conference centre.

About 4,000 demonstrators, including veteran activists of anti-globalisation protests in Genoa and London, came face to face with police as they arrived at the Brighton Centre conference venue.

Organisers from the Green Party and Globalize Resistance movement called for the anti-war protest to be peaceful. The demonstration was originally planned to oppose what organisers called New Labour's "adoption of Tory policies".

But a Green Party spokesman said the emphasis had changed " since Tony Blair threw his weight behind George Bush's military crusade."

IN ATHENS

Several thousand people responded to an appeal by the Greece Communist Party and took to the streets of central Athens on September 27, to condemn the US "imperialist war" following this month’s suicide attacks in the United States.

The demonstrators marched to the parliament shouting "The people are not terrorists."

At the head of the march was a row of women dressed in black and carrying a banner reading "Terrorism = NATO + CIA."

Other banners in the crowd read: "No to the imperialist war" and "Bush is a terrorist." Anti-riot police were deployed in the city centre for the march, in particular around the US embassy.

IN NAPLES

Thousands of anti-war demonstrators began marching through the centre of Naples on September 27 to protest a military build-up and the threat of a global conflict in the wake of the attacks on the United States. They gathered in the centre of Naples, which is home to NATO’s Southern Command, to lead a march to the city’s municipal headquarters several kilometres (miles) away.

The protest had been scheduled in Naples when it was thought that a key NATO meeting would be held in the city, but although the talks were moved to Brussels, where they took place on Wednesday, the protesters decided to maintain their march.

Hundreds of Italian police and carabinieri kept a close watch on the march, but the gathering bore none of the tension which preceded the rioting that marred the G8 summit in Genoa in July.

Many of the protestors were from left-wing organisations and carried portraits of Karl Marx and Che Guevara.

Classics student Tonia Capuano, 17, claimed she would demonstrate anyway against anti-globalisation, "because that’s where the war and the violence comes from".

OTHER PLACES

In Geneva, around 2,500 people protested on Sunday against potential military reprisals. The protesters marched peacefully from the centre of the Swiss capital to the European headquarters of the United Nations, carrying banners proclaiming, "No war," and "Stop global terror, fight for justice."

In Amsterdam, thousands of demonstrators gathered in a protest organised by a group called "The Platform against the New War." The group consists of about 160 religious and humanitarian organisations including some Turkish and Arab associations, the co-ordinators said in a statement.

Some 5,000 people in Barcelona marched behind a banner that read: "No More Victims" at a rally organised by the "Let's Stop The War" committee of some 70 associations - ranging from unions and political parties to social groups.

In a statement read at the end of the march, the protesters urged Spain "not to intervene in the military response to the attacks and in any possible reprisals by NATO."