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Millions worldwide rally for peace

Compiled by Nicholas Holt

Feb. 19 (AGR)— As the Bush administration continues its drive for war on Iraq, millions of people from around the world took to the streets last weekend in protest. In Rome, Italy "No war! No ifs, and, or buts!" was emblazoned across a banner, painted in white and red, opening the massive peace march in the Italian capital that drew some 2.5 million people.

More than 450 organizations were represented in the mobilization, including leftists, groups and political parties, Catholic associations, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). There were also many families filling out the ranks of the marchers.

Participating in the Rome march were at least 130 opposition lawmakers and some representatives from the ruling coalition, a sign of the growing domestic rejection of Italy’s foreign policy, which is aligned with Washington.

Several polls have indicated that around 95 percent of the Italian public is opposed to the possible US-led war on Iraq.

One poster appearing amongst many other signs and banners read "No Dictatorship, No War," and was carried by a group of Iraqi Kurds, a minority that suffers state repression at home.

A group of journalists from RAI, the Italian public television station, joined the march to protest the decision of the company’s management council to not broadcast any images of the massive demonstration. Before the rally drew to a close, Haidi Giuliani, the mother of activist Carlo Giuliani, who was killed by police during the protests outside the G8 Summit held in Genoa in July 2001, read a message from Subcomandante Marcos of the Mexican Zapatista Army of National Liberation.

"[The] question is not whether we can change the murderous march of the powerful," read Giuliani. "No. The question we should be asking is: could we live with the shame of not having done everything possible to prevent and stop this war?"

The prevailing mood was festive and peaceful, with the demonstrators’ banners and chants criticizing US President George W. Bush and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and expressing solidarity with the United Nations (UN) and the people of Iraq. At least 40,000 protesters in South Africa took to the tarmac in Cape Town and Johannesburg with a ringing anti-war message.

In Cape Town, a march of many shades of political and religious persuasion displayed broad support for the anti-war message. Babies pushed by their parents in prams emblazoned with posters marched as well as ministers, priests, and imams in their hijab. The main anti-war poster featured a ghostly grim reaper swathed in the US flag.

Thousands upon thousands of protesters throughout Latin America took to the streets to express their opposition to a war on Iraq.

"The world is mobilizing against Bush and against war," summarized labor leader Victor de Geanro, speaking during a march of thousands of people in Buenos Aires, Argentina that ended outside the US embassy.

The protest march, which took place under an intense summer rainstorm, was organized by labor groups, student associations, human rights groups, leftist parties, and groups related to the World Social Forum.

Brazil also saw thousands of people demonstrating for peace. Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo reported the most numerous rallies, with 15,000 to 30,000 people in each, according to organizers.

The Brazilian protests were marked by vivid colors and a vast array of masks and costumes, and included the participation of union leaders, the MST landless peasant movement, and numerous officials encouraged to take part by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva himself and his leftists Workers Party.

More than 50,000 demonstrated in Mexico’s capital. Street theater, Arab belly dancers, and Brazilian samba music shared the streets with bull horns and bright flags of various political parties. A host of civic organizations and student groups also carried signs and banners against the impending war. "The North American people cannot win their happiness from the misery of other peoples," said Guatemalan Noble Peace Laureate Rigoberta Mencu as she addressed the crowd. "What did they win from all the wars and torture in Central America? Nothing but a historic mark of shame."

In Israel, an estimated 2,000 Israelis and Palestinians marched together on the streets of Tel Aviv.

Men in skullcaps marched alongside Arab women in headscarves holding banners and placards reading "Israeli’s against Bush’s war" and "War is not the answer."

The rally joined Jewish and Arab Israelis with Palestinians who have freedom of movement in Israel, unlike their kin in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In Beruit, Lebanon, thousands demonstrated outside the Middle East headquarters of the UN. One of the protest groups created a bloc free of posters of Saddam Hussein, and simply united by the common slogan, "No to war, no to dictatorship." The bloc included Palestinian students, gays and lesbians, who held a banner reading "Out against the war," and a great variety of leftists.

In Russia, two distinct protests against a US war on Iraq occurred in the capital, Moscow.

About a thousand Communists and nationalists gathered near the US Embassy with a message that was more emphatically anti-US than anti-war.

In a separate protest, 200 activists from socialist, anarchist, and radical ecological groups marched through central Moscow, where organizers spoke out both against a war on Iraq and the Russian war in Chechnya.

As many as 200,000 marched in the streets of Melbourne, Australia in what was the country’s largest peace protest since 30 years ago during the Vietnam War when Australian troops fought alongside US forces. "This is a huge statement by the people of Melbourne, and the people of the world to [Prime Minister] John Howard," Greens Senator Bob Brown told the crowd. "The people of Australia don’t see this as our war." Howard has already committed 2,000 military personnel to the Persian Gulf to prepare for conflict, but has said he has not yet decided whether Australian troops would actually join a US attack.

West Australia unions have promised a campaign of statewide industrial action the minute a military strike is launched on Iraq.

In Athens, Greece, riot police fired volleys of tear gas and made at least 13 arrests in clashes with demonstrators near the US embassy, during which protesters threw Molotov cocktails and rocks. Several banks had windows smashed.

In London, England, where labor unions have also threatened action against a war, more than a million voices were raised against war outside Prime Minister Tony Blair’s door at 10 Downing Street in the biggest demonstration the country has ever seen.

Those who addressed the crowd included London Mayor Ken Livingston, writer Tariq Ali, and Rev. Jesse Jackson.

But it was a day when numbers spoke louder than leaders, when ordinary people from across Britain made their voice heard just by their presence. "Drop Blair, not bombs!" a groups of schoolgirls shouted as they walked past Blair’s office. Hundreds of unionists marched under their banners, but the bulk of the demonstrators belonged to no union or group.

Blair held firm to his views at a Labor Party spring conference in Glasgow, Scotland where 100,000 marched, chanting "George Bush, terrorist! Tony Blair, terrorist!" And at McMurdo Station, Antarctica, around 50 people gathered in the summer snow to demonstrate against war.

Sources: Atlanta Messengers. org, Associated Press, Guardian (UK), Indymedia, Indymedia Moscow, Inter Press Service, Mexico Indymedia, Sunday Mail, unitedforpeace.org,West Australian, Zmag.org

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Americans take to streets to stop war

Compiled by Shawn Gaynor

Feb. 18 (AGR)—Well over a million people took to the streets in protest of a new war on Iraq this past weekend as momentum for both war and peace grew. Mainstream media was flooded with reports and polls about an "increased popularity of war," as the streets of large cities and small towns across the nation were flooded with protest and dissent.

Anti-war protests reportedly took place in over 120 communities across the country on Saturday, Feb. 15, in what is widely regarded as the largest day of protest yet.

President Bush dismissed the protests on Tuesday, saying, "Size of protest — it’s like deciding, well, I’m going to decide policy based upon a focus group."

In New York City nearly a half million people took to the streets despite a massive police presence. Thousands where barricaded and prevented from reaching the protest.

"The World Says No to War," proclaimed a huge banner over a stage on First Avenue near 51st Street, the focal point of crowds that filled the avenue from 49th Street to 72nd Street and spilled over into side streets and to Second, Third and Lexington Avenues, where thousands more were halted at police barricades, far from the sights and sounds of the demonstration.

Signs filled the streets, one reading "Drunk frat boy drives country into ditch."

Many speakers condemned Washington’s increasing assaults on constitutional rights. "Bush has started an undeclared war on our civil liberties," said Donna Lieberman, a leader of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

"Our right to dissent has been hijacked by this administration of liars and murderers," added Danny Glover, an African American and popular Hollywood actor. "We stand here against re-colonization."

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu spoke to the crowd assembled in New York, saying: "This war is immoral. Those who are going to get killed in Iraq are not collateral damage. They are human beings. They are our brothers and sisters."

A federal judge refused to issue a march permit for the New York demonstration, and police presence was high. The police refused to accommodate the huge crowd that packed into New York City and instead shoved, herded, attacked, surrounded, and arrested people who were simply trying to get to the rally.

The police did not disclose details of their security operation, but did say that 5,000 officers were involved. It was mounted during one of the most intense national security alerts since the attacks of 9/11. In addition to the thousands of uniformed officers in the streets, it included sharp-shooters on rooftops, mounted officers, radiation detectors and other hazardous-materials detection and decontamination equipment, bomb-sniffing dogs and plainclothes officers mingling in the crowds.

Previous terror alerts have turned out to be based on erroneous information, and there was no report in the US of terrorist attacks during the weekend, or since Sept. 11 2001. Protest organizers termed the timing of the warning "auspicious."

New York city police reported that a deputy inspector had been assaulted and taken to a hospital and that two horses were hurt.

The National Lawyers Guild estimates that 350 people were arrested.

"We are going to stop this war," said Dennis Rivera, leader of SEIU 1199, a powerful health care workers union that brought thousands of mostly black and Latino workers to the rally. "If they can march in Rome and Barcelona and London, we can march in New York, too."

Over 30 New York City unions endorsed the protest, turning out membership, and speaking out against Bush’s plans for war.

Students also turned out in large numbers to oppose the war.

"We are here to tell students all over the world that we are not silent," shouted Jessica, a first year college student who traveled from Texas to attend the protest.

Over 200,000 turned out to show their opposition in San Francisco, California, showing this city’s continued and overwhelming opposition to the war.

Korean war veteran Don Prell, 73, of San Francisco, decried the looming military conflict as a ploy for big business. "I think it’s stupid. I’ve already gone through (war) and I could see that it was a war for the rich people then, and this is one now," Prell said. "It’s the same thing and it’s ridiculous."

In a repeat of the Jan. 18 protests a group of demonstrators broke away from the huge crowd at San Francisco’s Civic Center area at the end of Sunday’s anti-war march and clashed later with police on Market Street during a four-hour confrontation marked by hit-and-run vandalism.

Protesters broke windows at McDonald’s on Powell Street and Old Navy on Market Street, as well as the window front at Abercrombie & Fitch in the San Francisco Center. They spray-painted buildings and other objects with graffiti. They burned trash, climbed onto a cable car, and later tossed bottles and other objects at mounted police who were trying to control them.

At one point, the group with about 1,000 people took over the intersection of Market and Eighth streets.

Police said two officers were injured during the confrontation and taken to San Francisco General Hospital, where they were treated and released.

Police Sgt. Jim Seim said the attitude of the troublemakers seemed to be, "If we go to war, it will get worse."

The breakaway crowd seemed to be mostly made up of "Black Bloc" anarchists like those who broke windows and spray-painted buildings during last month’s march.

In Detroit, Michigan over 4,000 people braved the bitter cold to march against war on Iraq. After the march down Washington Boulevard, a rally was held at Cobo Hall. Among others, three top United Auto Worker leaders spoke at the rally against the "drumbeat for war."

The UAW was represented by vice presidents Richard Shoemaker and Bob King and secretary-treasurer Elizabeth Bunn. She said that she spoke "for the caucus," meaning the Administration Caucus that runs the UAW.

She quoted Abraham Lincoln: "It is a sin to sit silent when it is your duty to protest." She said that "there are no sinners here today."

She said Iraq "is no threat against our country." She concluded by saying: "This drumbeat to war must end and it is our duty and our responsibility to end it. Peace and solidarity forever."

"We’re preparing to move from mass protest to mass resistance," said David Sole of the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War on Iraq. "If we can’t stop the war from beginning, then we will peacefully get in the way to bring it to an end."

In Colorado Springs police fired tear gas at anti-war demonstrators and fired rubber bullets, hitting at least one protester after a rally spilled out of a park and blocked a major thoroughfare Saturday.

At least two people were treated at a hospital for minor injuries and released after the rally.

Thirteen people were arrested after they forced the closure of a half-mile stretch of Academy Boulevard, police spokesman Lt. Skip Arms said.

A second rally at Peterson Air Force Base ended with 21 arrests but no tear gas. Peterson is home to the Northern Command, the joint military command in charge of homeland security.

About 3,000 people attended the Palmer Park rally and 300 turned out at Peterson.

Some of the protesters danced and chanted, "Who owns the street? We own the street," angering some of the other protesters.

Members of the Colorado Coalition Against War in Iraq said they invited protesters from across the state to Colorado Springs because it is home to the largest concentration of military personnel and facilities in the state.

At a statehouse rally in Boise, Idaho, Iraqi immigrant Azam Houle said she fled the "suffocating police state" 27 years ago, but that invading her homeland was not the solution. "We seem to think we can destroy a country and then build a democracy," she said. "Democracy at gunpoint isn’t democracy."

San Jose, California isn’t usually the first place that springs to mind when it comes to hotbeds of political protest. But organizers of an anti-war rally there started changing that perception with a march that drew at least 5,000 people and spotlight what they call America’s unjust planned invasion of Iraq.

"Where’s the exit strategy?" asked Dick Reilly, a contractor and veteran who attended the New York rally. "So we go into Iraq and bomb and shoot, and Osama [bin Laden] has more recruits. How does it end?"

Sources: Associated Press, Detroit Free Press, Indymedia, Infoshop, Inter Press Service, New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle,Washington Post

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Bolivia burns, cabinet resigns
amid popular protest

Compiled by Seán Marquis

Feb. 19 (AGR)— The entire cabinet of Bolivian President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada has resigned, following a week of public protests and rioting that rocked the Andean nation of 8.3 million.

"Eighteen ministers have decided to resign," Foreign Minister Carlos Saavedra told reporters on Monday. The mass resignation is a formal move that is traditionally used to allow presidents to quickly reshuffle the cabinet.

"The president is like the captain of a ship throwing everything overboard to keep it from sinking," said Jim Shultz, executive director of the Democracy Center. "It’s unclear if there’s anything else he can throw overboard other than himself."

The toll from last week’s near-rebellion has been high: 33 fatalities — including nine policemen, hundreds of injured, and approximately $24 million in losses incurred through looting and destruction in South America’s poorest nation.

The riots began as a protest against a government plan to raise income tax to 12.5 percent in response to demands from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that Bolivia reduce its deficit from 8.5 percent of the budget to 5.5, which officials claim is needed to cut the budget deficit and win IMF support for a $4 billion loan.

The website of La Razon, a newspaper in La Paz, reported that the protests were linked to the current visit of an IMF delegation and the announcement of the "impuestazo," a 12.5 percent super-tax on the salaries of the 20 percent of Bolivans who remain employed after five years of devastating recession.

But the Bolivian government has claimed that the tax was not imposed under the IMF program.

"On paper that is no doubt true; in reality it is widely known that the IMF takes an active role in proposing solutions to the problems it identifies," the Washington-based anti-debt group 50 Years is Enough said in a Feb. 12 statement. "The introduction of new taxes on the working population was widely known to be the IMF’s favored remedy for the deficit."

The protests actually began on Tuesday, Feb. 11, when a 2.2 percent pay raise for the police was announced; officers in four precincts — including the police special forces (Grupos Especiales de Seguridad) — refused to begin patrols and demanded a 40 percent pay increase, leading to a general police strike by morning. The announcement of the impuestazo further inflamed the tensions and motivated many Bolivians to join the police force in its protests.

Wednesday morning the rest of La Paz’s 10,000 policemen went on strike, and the wives of the police protested as well.

Students of Colegio Ayacucho, protesting against the dismissal of the school’s director, took advantage of the absence of police and threw stones at the government building called "burned palace" in Plaza Murillo. More and more protesters gathered and the conflict went on all day, spreading to other parts of the country. The protesters ransacked and set fire to the ministry of employment, and the buildings of the parties MIR and MNR, both in the ruling coalition.

Thousands of government employees, largely the only workers who have regular, taxable salaries, marched through the capital and stormed the square outside the presidential palace and broke into government offices.

Police looked on without taking action as students smashed windows.

During five hours of mayhem, police officers seized the foreign ministry, firing tear gas in support of the demonstrators who laid siege to the presidential palace across the square.

The carnage began in earnest after Sánchez de Lozada gave orders to send in the army, pitting the security forces against each other. Television footage showed soldiers firing at the police headquarters across the square after police officers fired tear gas at them.

The striking police and military then engaged in a gun battle for control of the area, with snipers also reported.

"The large number of deaths raises serious concerns that security forces failed to exercise proper care in responding to the protests," said Joanne Mariner, deputy director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch. "The Bolivian government could take a big step towards restoring confidence in its authority by making a firm commitment to ensuring that these killings will be properly investigated."

Sanchez de Lozada escaped from the palace in an ambulance and gave a nationally televised speech in which he suspended the tax proposal and ordered the withdrawal of government troops.

Inmates set the city’s largest jail on fire and attempted a mass escape, and looting continued even after the rioting died down. Thousands pooled in the streets below the city’s largest department store, arms outstretched as looters hurled boxes of goods from the windows.

Ambulances screamed through the city, carrying the injured to hospitals, which pleaded for blood donations. Tired nurses and doctors created a human chain to keep grieving family members from forcing their way into the city’s emergency rooms, surgery wards, and morgue. "I’ve been a doctor here for 30 years and I’ve never seen such a bloody day," said Eduardo Chavez, director of the capital’s main public hospital.

"We’re living a total chaos," said Sonia Rocha, a restaurant owner. "The government should really have thought before announcing these new taxes. We’re just too poor to pay them."

As many as 13 government buildings burned through the night as firefighters joined the police in their protest and refused to put the fires out.

On Thursday small groups of looters ran loose through chaotic central La Paz, where tanks and 400 heavily armed soldiers were deployed near the presidential palace, besieged by protesters the day before.

Several thousand protesters marched through downtown, shouting slogans against Sanchez de Lozada. "Resign or die, those are your options," they chanted, referring to the president.

Looters scoured the Ministry of Sustainable Development which had been torched the day before.

After receiving government promises of a pay increase, striking police officers returned to work on Friday.

But the Bolivian Labor Central (COB) and MAS said they would continue their protests, and have set their sights on forcing Sánchez de Lozada to resign through work stoppages, roadblocks, and other pressure tactics.

On another front, MAS and fellow opposition party New Republican Force announced that they will file a criminal complaint against the president and his ministers, who they hold responsible for the people who were killed and injured on what the press has dubbed "black Wednesday."

"The president only withdrew his tax bill after a great deal of blood had been shed," MAS lawmaker Filemón Escobar said.

Bolivia is the latest casualty of the meltdown that has swept across Latin America bringing economic collapse and civil disorder.

And a US-led "war on drugs" has forced Bolivia to eradicate 90 percent of its coca, the raw material for cocaine, impoverishing coca farmers, mainly indigenous people, and causing unrest and ethnic tensions.

IMF-inspired policies and pressure from the United States to end coca growing in the country without offering farmers an economic alternative are burdening Bolivians, says the Washington Office on Latin America, a non-governmental organization (NGO).

But the tax hike, revoked immediately after the riots broke out, has proved to be the final straw on a population already mired in poverty and buffeted by economic liberalization programs.

Sources: Argentina Indymedia, Associated Press, BBC News, Inter Press Service, Observer (UK), Human Rights Watch, Reuters

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