Posted on 09/28/2002 6:29:04 PM PDT by Lokibob
Quarter-million march against war
Demonstrators bring the streets of London to a standstill with a message of peace By James Cusick, Westminster Editor
It dwarfed anything seen in central London during the 1960s and rivalled the masses that gathered for last weekend's countryside protest. A quarter of a million people taking to the streets is difficult to ignore. Organisers of the anti-war march, which crowded the streets of London and swamped Hyde Park yesterday with one of the largest mass demonstrations seen anywhere in Europe, couldn't quite believe the size of the protest they had gathered. In its early stages, police were caught ill-prepared and had to divert the march into two routes to cope with the sheer scale of protest. En route to Hyde Park, the marchers covered the streets, stretching miles between the Embankment, along Whitehall, through Trafalgar Square, up Haymarket, along Piccadilly and into Hyde Park.
Banners, whistles, megaphones, chants, even a makeshift papier m‰chŽ tank complete with missiles and puppets of George W Bush and Tony Blair, alongside 'soldiers' in fatigues complete with dripping fake blood, tried to ensure the message was anti-war and not just anti-American.
Andrew Burgin, from the Stop the War coalition, accused Bush and Blair of using allegations regarding Saddam Hussein and Iraqi weapons of mass destruction as a cover for a war that was really about oil. Organisers had spent a week making placards at their Brick Lane headquarters in London. They needn't have bothered, however -- everyone, from all corners of Britain, brought their own.
No protest march would be complete without the Socialist Workers Party and this was no exception. Huge banners shouted 'No War for Oil' and 'Stop the War Machine'.
Alongside the issue of war with Iraq, many on the march voiced concern over the situation in the Middle East and Israel's continuing action against the Palestinians. 'Stop State Terrorism, Stop Sharon, the Child Killer,' stated banner after banner. Police and intelligence-gathering helicopters hovered over the demonstrators as the march snaked along some of central London's main streets.
There was gridlock for miles around and traffic was at a standstill. Guests who were staying in a plush Piccadilly five-star hotel were unable to get through to the main lobby of the hotel.
Near the head of the march, Mohammed Sarwar, Labour MP for Glasgow Govan, said over the noise of megaphones, whistles and chants: 'I'm here to join the many tens of thousands of people who are here to protest against this unjustifiable war. It has little to do with weapons of mass destruction. Bush wants to act alone and my fear is that Blair is supporting unconditionally.'
Sarwar said that the vast majority of Labour's rank-and-file activists did not support the war. 'Blair should listen to the people, not George Bush,' he said.
Banner after banner filed past police and bemused tourists. Protesters came from universities, teaching associations and unions such as Unison, the Transport and General, and other groups like the Muslim Association of Britain, the Socialist Alliance, and Musicians Against Nuclear War. Some Japanese monks in Buddhist clothing banged their peace drums.
Peace was called for but hatred was nevertheless evident. A small child, sitting on his father's shoulders, shouted through a small megaphone: 'Bush and Hitler are the same, the only difference is their name.' Other banners and chants referred to Bush and Blair as 'an axis of evil'. The words on one banner were aimed directly at the prime minister : 'Tony Blair be Fair, Iraqi Leos Are Murdered Every Day.'
The demonstrators were not all from Britain. Krista van Velzen, a 28-year-old Socialist Party MP from The Hague, wore a sandwich-board that read 'Dutch MPs Against The War'. She said: 'It's great that there are so many people from different backgrounds united under one slogan. I came to find out how people got this demonstration together because it's the right way forward. In my country, like here, most people are opposing any attacks on Iraq but the people representing them in parliament are not.'
Christian groups marched alongside Muslim groups . Thomas Chitseko, 16, a schoolboy from Harlow, Essex, carried a 'Quakers for Peace' placard. He said: 'The Quaker movement is anti-war; there were lots of Quaker conscientious objectors during the second world war .'
The wide range of ethnic groups was matched by variety in terms of age from children in pushchairs all the way up to pensioners .
Ken Fleet had travelled to London from Nottingham as part of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation group. Twelve other coaches left Nottingham early yesterday morning with supporters of this organisation. A veteran of protests in the 1970s and 1980s, Fleet was proud that his group was established by Lord Russell, one of the founders of CND and a leader of the Aldermaston anti-nuclear march in the 1960s. 'This is the same argument,' Fleet said, and predicted that if war with Iraq went ahead there would large-scale anti-war rallies throughout Europe's main capitals.
Less seasoned demonstrators also took to the streets. 'I've never demonstrated before,' said actor David Warner, 'and that shows just how important I think this issue is. I don't want to see Iraqi civilians killed or young people sent there to get killed.'
Film director Ken Loach was also among the demonstrators. He said: 'We can't get involved in this war; we can't consider murdering another 100,000 Iraqis simply to pursue America's interest in oil and their dominance in the region.'
Although organisers would have preferred the unifying force of a single anti-war demonstration, the scale of the protest meant that other issues -- such as Palestine, world poverty and anti-capitalism -- fought for space and attention in the vast crowd that marched towards Hyde Park.
Khairi, 33, a student of Libyan origin from south London and a member of the Muslim Association of Britain, said: 'It's not just about war on Iraq; Israel is killing our brothers in Palestine too. If Britain are America are having a war on terror, why don't they stop Sharon ?'
For the various trade union members on the march, there was a unifying message. Jan Kowalczyk, 46, a psychiatric nurse from Salford and a Unison member, carried a banner for his local mental health union branch.
He said: 'There is a tradition of trade union support for anti-war protests. In the Falklands and the Gulf war our branch also had an anti-war position. As the reality of the war becomes closer, people are talking about it more at work. People don't want war -- they're working in a hospital and they think about the casualties and ask why are we attacking another country.'
Optimism and hope on such protests is usually there like adrenaline at a sporting event . But on this march, anger went alongside a harsh reality that war might be inevitable. Mohamed Abdurrazag, 37, a doctor from Libya now living in Dewsbury in Yorkshire, carried a Green Party placard saying 'People B4 Petrol'. He felt pessimistic about the effect the march would have.
Abdurrazag thought politicians would ignore everything -- even the quarter of a million-strong march. He said: 'There is mass opposition to the war in Britain, you can see it today, but I think the decision to go to war has already been taken. The UN is under the control of the United States so it won't make the right decision.'
At Hyde Park, when the marchers eventually reached the focus of the rally, some two hours behind what organisers predicted, those addressing the crowd included the former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter and Ken Livingstone.
The mayor of London said: 'The largest march in 30 years -- bigger than the Countryside Alliance -- will have an electrifying effect on the Labour Party Conference and on those MPs opposed to war.'
Veteran politician Tony Benn told the crowd: 'Nothing can take the British people into a war they do not want or accept.' He added that it would be 'wholly immoral' for the US and Britain to attack Iraq.
Inevitably on any mass protest there were people who just turned up feeling they should say something, however unclear . The best expression of this came from one spectacled youth in a rainbow-coloured anorak. He carried a placard with the message 'Various People Against Bad Things'. His confusion was understandable. The United Nations has been troubled by the same confusion for months.
Lindbergh also spied on the Nazis and provided FDR with valuable intelligence of German war capability, and once the war started he volunteered for service.
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