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Posted on 01/18/2003 1:59:12 PM PST by yonif
In Paris, anti-war protesters shouted in English, "Stop Bush! Stop war!" Tokyo activists carried toy guns filled with flowers. And one banner at a Moscow rally read: "Iraq isn't your ranch, Mr. Bush."
The slogans and banners were different at protests around the world Saturday, but the message to the United States and its allies was the same: Find a peaceful solution to the Iraq crisis.
US President George W. Bush also faced similar opposition in cities at home this weekend. In Washington, thousands of protesters braved the bitter cold, sometimes darting back to their heated buses to stay warm.
At a 6,000-strong demonstration in Paris - the third nationwide anti-war demonstration since October – many shouted "Down with war!" and a few people set off firecrackers. A Jan. 12 poll in France's Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper showed 76 percent of those surveyed didn't want French troops to take part in a US-led operation.
"You can see people are waking up (to the issue) when they see us marching," said Flore Boudet, a 21-year-old philosophy student demonstrating with classmates from the Sorbonne University in Paris. About 50 smaller French cities also had protests, including Lyon, Marseille and Strasbourg.
In Moscow, Russians chanted "US, hands off Iraq!" and "Yankee, go home!" outside the US Embassy.
Many of the protesters targeted their anger at Bush and the US administration, which say the United States has the right to attack even without backing from the UN Security Council.
At least one demonstration - in Bologna, Italy – police fired tear gas when the crowd got out of control. Some activists in a 2,000-strong protest tried to break through a line of police who were blocking off a small, unrelated demonstration by rightists. There were no arrests or injuries, police said.
A few protests targeted bases of the British and US military, which are amassing troops in the Persian Gulf to prepare for possible war. In one of several German protests, people sang "We Shall Overcome" outside the US Army Europe headquarters in Heidelberg. Near London, about 200 people demonstrated outside the barbed wire fence of the armed forces' Permanent Joint Headquarters.
In Istanbul, communist protesters took their anger out on another symbol of British and American influence: They staged a protest outside a theater showing the latest James Bond movie.
In the Middle East, a march in Cairo, Egypt, drew 1,000 people, while some of the 4,000 protesters in Beirut, Lebanon, brandished posters showing Saddam Hussein.
Not all protesters were pushing for peace: In the Syrian capital, Damascus, some people shouted, "Our beloved Saddam, strike Tel Aviv," a refrain from the 1991 Gulf War.
In Hyderabad, India, communist workers burned the effigy of Bush, while police stopped about 200 protesters from marching on the US Consulate in Lahore, Pakistan.
Thousands protested in Tokyo's glitzy Ginza shopping district, including a group of students wearing Bush face masks and toting toy guns filled with flowers. Some Japanese demonstrators played island folk songs on traditional string instruments from Okinawa - home to more than half of the 47,000 US troops in Japan.
In Hong Kong, about 60 people chanted "Inspections, yes! War, no!" and "Yankee, go home!" as they marched through the financial district to the US and British consulates.
Anti-war activists say the weapons inspectors who are combing Iraq for evidence of weapons of mass destruction must be given ample time to do their jobs. Inspectors are preparing to deliver their first formal report on Jan. 27.
On Friday, Saddam Hussein proclaimed his country ready for war and warned that his enemies risked "suicide" at Baghdad's gates. A day earlier, international weapons inspectors found 12 empty chemical warheads in Iraq – a find described by US officials as "troubling and serious."
United Nations weapons inspectors were trying to determine if the discovery represented a violation of UN resolutions - a possible trigger for war.
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But is was an eye-opener to find this distrust of the US government, both here and abroad. The number of black people and leaders points to problems ahead.
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