Anti-war march expects thousands

2003-02-14 17:49

London - Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to march through London, Tokyo, New York and dozens of cities around the globe this weekend as opponents to a possible US-led war in Iraq step up their anti-war efforts.

In Britain, several lawmakers from Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labor Party will be among the protesters, possibly worrying the British leader.

With opposition to military action remaining stubbornly high in Britain, Blair's ready enlistment in US President George W Bush's "coalition of the willing" against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has proved the biggest challenge of his premiership.

While Blair insists Saddam must be disarmed by force if he will not do it willingly, the prospect of war has split his party.

Among the protesters gathering in London's Hyde Park Saturday will be senior Labor figures - including former Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam - and large delegations from the trade unions that form the party's core support.

Organizers say millions of people are expected to protest Saturday in hundreds of cities around the world, from Vancouver and Mexico City to Tokyo and Hong Kong.

Up to 100 000 people are expected in New York, where Archbishop Desmond Tutu and actors Susan Sarandon and Danny Glover will address a Manhattan rally. Weekend demonstrations are planned across Australia, whose government has joined Britain and the United States in committing troops to a possible war.

German anti-war groups say 80 000 will gather in Berlin. The French and German governments have led European opposition to a military strike.

Leaders of railway, firefighters and general workers' unions will address the London event, alongside US civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, playwright Harold Pinter, activist Bianca Jagger and the leader of Britain's opposition Liberal Democrats, Charles Kennedy.

"There is a skeptical public out there. They are right to be skeptical," Labor lawmaker Tony Wright told British Broadcasting Corp. radio on Thursday. "We don't live in an age where people can just say 'trust me' or 'I've got information which if you had, you'd behave differently."'

Also Thursday, a group of US soldiers, parents of soldiers and six US House members filed a lawsuit in federal court in Boston, arguing that a resolution passed by the US Congress in October did not specifically declare war and unlawfully ceded the decision to Bush.

Democratic Rep. John Conyers cited an excerpt from Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution that states, "Congress shall have power ... to declare war."

"Get it? Only Congress," Conyers said at a news conference in Washington.

Congress has not formally declared a war since World War II.

In several European cities Thursday, demonstrators protested US policies and possible war with Iraq:

- In Vienna, Greenpeace activists covered parts of the Austrian capital's famous Burgtheater with an anti-war banner showing a portrait of US President George W Bush with his eyes covered by the signs of the Esso oil company. The picture, which was projected onto a large white fabric attached to the historic building, also included the words: "No war for oil!" and "Stop Esso, stop Bush."

- In several German cities, more than 10 000 people took part in demonstrations, underlining support here for Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's stance against military intervention. In Dresden, survivors marked the 58th anniversary of the Allied bombing that devastated the city at the end of World War II: "Help to prevent new suffering, new destruction and new death."

- In Rome, about 20 demonstrators occupied an airstrip at a military airport, while in Padua, protesters targeted a produce market that supplies US bases as well as a stretch of Naples' port.

In Istanbul, Turkish police clashed with demonstrators and detained 45 people protesting a possible US war.

- SAPA