Global Day of Protest: 3 Million In 65 Countries: Worldwide Movement Back In Streets (continued from page one)

YOUR WAR, OUR DEATHS!'

Some of the biggest demonstrations took place in the main countries making up Bush's "coalition of the willing." That means where the local imperialist ruling class was willing to flout the will of the majority of the people to join Bush's gang of thieves. For a share of the oil plunder, they were willing to turn their country's young workers into cannon fodder for U.S. imperialism.

Tony Blair in Britain, Silvio Berlu sconi in Italy, John Howard in Australia and Jose Maria Aznar in Spain were key allies in Washington's war. The biggest March 20 protest was in Rome, where over 1 million people marched. In London, 100,000 were in the streets and two mounted the Big Ben tower to hang an anti-war banner near the clock's face. Some 150,000 people marched in Barcelona, Spain, another 100,000 in Madrid and up to 50,000 in dozens of other cities in the Spanish state.

1. London (credit: jupiter--Indymedia)
2. Big Ben -London (credit: Greenpeace-Indymedia)

Considering that the peoples of Spain have been constantly mobilized since the March 11 bombings of trains in Madrid, the turnout was impressive. Spanish voters threw Aznar out of office in the March 14 national elections. Their slogan was, "Your war, our deaths." Demonstrators all over the world cheered the decision of the people in the Spanish state to eject Aznar from office.

 

 

Barcelona (credit: Indymedia)

 

 

 

In other countries where Bush has arm twisted the local regimes to send troops to Iraq, this aroused great opposition and angry protest. In Japan, which sent combat troops outside its borders for the first time since the end of World War II, 120,000 people demonstrated. There were some 60,000 in Tokyo alone.

Tokyo (Anti-War Joint Action Committee)

In Chile, which has sent troops to Haiti, 3,000 people in Santiago chanted, "We are not neutral, we aren't pacifists, we are in the anti-imperialist trenches."

Hundreds of Hondurans went to the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa, demanding the return of 370 Honduran troops from Iraq.

Some 15,000 came out in Lisbon, Portugal. People marched and rallied in the thousands in Copenhagen, Denmark; Amsterdam, Holland; and Oslo, Norway, to demand that troops from those West European countries be returned from Iraq. Smaller but still significant protests occurred in Warsaw, Poland; Budapest, Hungary; Sofia, Bulgaria, and other East European capitals with the same demand.

Amsterdam (credit: Indymedia)

In some imperialist countries that have not joined the military occupation--like France, Germany and Canada--the protests were smaller than last year, but still took place in over 100 cities.

 

DIFFERENT POLITICAL CURRENTS

Last year's protests had one simple demand: no war on Iraq. Now the demand depends on different attitudes toward the occupation and toward imperialism. Different political currents exist in the anti-war movement worldwide, just as they do inside the United States.

In Italy, for example, the more anti-imperialist groups and parties demand an immediate end to occupation "without ifs or buts" and whether or not the United Nations supports it. They fought for slogans "against the occupation of Iraq and Palestine and for the withdrawal of all occupation troops," reports journalist Fulvio Grimaldi.

The more social-democratic forces pushed for slogans "against all wars and terrorisms," a pacifist slogan that does not distinguish between the imperialist oppres sor and the oppressed. Grimaldi was pleased to report that "90 percent of banners and slogans in Rome centered on Bush's wars, on the occupation of Iraq and mentioned support for the Iraqi and Palestinian resistance."

In Spain the struggle unfolds around how soon and under what conditions the new government withdraws its forces from Iraq.

 

This political struggle is really over whether or not the movement in the imperialist countries will stand in class solidarity with oppressed peoples around the world who resist the imperialist takeover. The message of March 20 is that this movement has grown and developed even as the political struggle continues.