A day of world protests
February 16, 2003 - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Paris—- With the drums of war beating louder after Friday’s U.N. Security Council meeting, millions of protesters around the world took to the streets Saturday against the threat of war against Iraq.
The largest protests took place in Italy, Great Britain and Spain, countries whose governments are supporting war.
Rome saw the biggest turnout—- 1 million according to police, while organizers claimed three times that figure. Trucks loaded with stereos blasted festive music with a heavily accented Italian refrain of ‘‘Strike the war’’ and ‘‘Say yes to peace.’’ Politicians mixed with celebrities and teenagers drew peace signs on each other’s cheeks.
In London, at least 750,000 people joined in the city’s biggest demonstration ever, police said. ‘‘This war is absolutely dreadful,’’ said Janet Rutherford, 65, who took the train from Kent to join the protest. ‘‘There are other ways of dealing with Saddam Hussein. This can only escalate terrorist attacks here. It could only end badly.’‘
Spanish police gauged the turnout in Madrid at 660,000. Organizers claimed nearly 2 million people gathered across the nation in one of the biggest demonstrations since the 1975 death of dictator Gen. Francisco Franco.
In New York, NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly said about 100,000 people were in the crowd, which stretched 20 blocks deep and spanned three avenues.
‘‘Just because you have the biggest gun does not mean you must use it,’’ Martin Luther King III told demonstrators as he stood before an enormous banner reading: ‘‘The World Says No To War.’‘
‘‘Peace! Peace! Peace!’’ Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa said as he walked from a church service to a meeting at the United Nations. ‘‘Let America listen to the rest of the world—- and the rest of the world is saying, ‘Give the inspectors time.’‘’
In Paris, where the French government opposes an Iraq war, police had anticipated 50,000 people marching on the Place de la Bastille, but officials later estimated up to 200,000 came to make their voices heard.
“I don’t think the U.S. is doing a good job of convincing the rest of the world to side with them,” Kamala Gulmammadova, an Azerbaijani studying in France, said at the rally. “They use a strong politic and even scare tactics. There are better ways of convincing your allies to side with you.”
Berlin had up to half a million in the streets. Some leaders of German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s government took part in the 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.
‘‘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.
Friday’s Le Monde newspaper collected polls from around Europe, showing the vast majority of the population opposing war. Governments in Spain and England are two of the United States’ strongest supporters, but 91 percent of Spaniards were against the war, and 90 percent of the British opposed war without U.N. approval. Turkey, Iraq’s neighbor and a key U.S. military ally, topped the list with 94 percent of its population opposing the war.
Javier Tubio, a Spaniard studying psychology in Paris, said as he prepared to take part in Saturday’s demonstration: “My country is struggling to create a political identity for itself but instead, it is creating an exterior identity without considering its citizens first. Spaniards are ashamed to be a satellite of the U.S.”
‘War aware’
As the protesters marched, British Prime Minister Tony Blair addressed fellow Labor Party members in Glasgow, Scotland, saying there is a strong moral case for deposing Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.
‘‘Ridding the world of Saddam would be an act of humanity,’’ Blair said. ‘‘It is leaving him there that is inhumane. That is why I do not shrink from military action should that indeed be necessary.’’ Blair said, though, that he still believed there is a chance for the crisis to be resolved without war. U.N. weapons inspectors would be given more time, he said but he added that he found Iraq’s recent concessions ‘‘suspect.’‘
But Elsie Hinks, 77, who marched in London, was unconvinced. ‘‘What I would say to Mr. Blair is stop toadying up to the Americans and listen to your own people, us, for once,’’ she said.
Englishman Peter Hawkins, the CEO of a small business group based in London and Glasgow, Scotland, described Europeans as “war aware.” He said, “We know the human burden caused and are against rushing in without carefully examining all of the options and consequences.”
The massive European protests included some Americans. At Saturday’s Paris rally, Shauna Cooper and Veronica Mason, two New York University students studying in France, carried signs saying, “I’m A New Yorker Against The War.”
“Watching CNN and the BBC here gives you the idea that the world is more unified for war than it actually is,” said Cooper.
Danielle Hoffman Rispail, deputy to Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe, said she attended the rally in part because of what happened at the United Nations on Friday.
Even though U.N. inspectors presented a somewhat favorable report on Iraq’s disarmament, the United States pushed for war.
“The Security Council meeting seemed to say that what the U.S. is using for proof isn’t enough,” Rispail said.
“It seems that many Americans are beginning to feel like we feel,” she said. “It’s the French voice that the government is listening to. Maybe George Bush should do the same for his people.”
Public opinion polls have shown less opposition to an Iraqi war among Americans than Europeans. Still, activists rallied in about 150 U.S. cities, including Atlanta, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Miami and Seattle.
Police in Colorado Springs, Colo., fired tear gas at protesters, sending at least two to a hospital, and made arrests after the demonstrators blocked a major thoroughfare near an Air Force base.
In Los Angeles, actors Martin Sheen and Mike Farrell and director Rob Reiner were among the thousands of chanting marchers who filled Hollywood Boulevard from curb to curb for four blocks.
‘‘None of us can stop this war. . . . There is only one guy that can do that and he lives in the White House,’’ said Sheen, who plays a U.S. president on NBC’s ‘‘The West Wing.’‘
Thousands all over
Police estimated that 60,000 turned out in Oslo, Norway, 50,000 marched in bitter cold in Brussels, Belgium, while about 35,000 gathered peacefully in frigid Stockholm, Sweden.
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; 25,000 in Copenhagen, Denmark; 15,000 in Vienna, Austria; 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.
In Mexico City, as many as 10,000 people—- including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta Menchu—- snarled traffic for blocks before rallying near the heavily guarded U.S. Embassy. Demonstrators beat drums, clutched white balloons and waved handmade signs saying, ‘‘War No, Peace Yes.’‘
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.
The Associated Press and the New York Times contributed material for this article.
