GOV'TS FEEL ANTI-WAR HEAT / LARGE PROTESTS ERUPT IN NATO COUNTRIES
By John Catalinotto
Hundreds of thousands of people from the Middle East to Africa to Europe took part in major demonstrations against the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan the weekend of Oct. 12-13. Two of the larger protests took place in the heart of major NATO powers--in London and Berlin.
These actions took place as the U.S. continued bombing Afghanistan, using cluster bombs and killing Afghani civilians. This put the onus of terror on the Pentagon in the eyes of much of the world.
Bush's war of "long duration" showed all signs of being an imperialist war to arrange the division of the world and its energy resources--especially in the Middle East and Central Asia. British and German participation in this war makes even clearer its predatory character.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has been traveling around the world trying to build up support for the "coalition" Washington is using to back its moves against Afghanistan. Blair is a more articulate defender of imperialist interests than Bush, but there is no way of separating Britain's role from its history of colonialism, especially in that area.
British imperialism is in the role it has occupied since 1945--junior partner of U.S. imperialism. While its political leaders put their experience running the British Empire at the service of Washington, they make sure the British ruling class gets its share of the plunder.
But while the New York Times happily reprints Blair's speeches, he has aroused growing opposition at home.
What distinguished the march in London, which organizers said was 50,000 strong, was the broad multinational participation. There was an especially large contingent from the Muslim community--mainly South Asian--living in England that is now about 4 million people.
Salma Yakoob of the Stop the War Coalition in Birmingham, speaking in Trafalgar Square, described it well: "If only the leftists had been here today, people would have said we were all lefties," she said. ''If only CND [Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament] had been here, they would have said it was the middle-class elite. If it was only the Muslims, they would have called us extremists. If it was only Asians and Black people, they would have said it was the ethnic minorities.
"Tony Blair, we are here united against this war. You cannot dismiss us all.'' (The Independent, Oct. 13)
British anti-war activist Jean Hatton told Workers World, "The most popular placard carried by the demonstrators seemed to be 'Not in our name,' a slogan used widely by protesters against sanctions on Iraq. Others highlighted the double standards employed by Western nations, where the deaths of thousands in Iraq caused by these sanctions go largely unreported."
She added that even neighborhoods in smaller cities saw many expressions of solidarity between the historically British and the immigrant Muslim population, and a strong feeling that the people of Afghan istan should not suffer any additional hardships.
"There is great unease across Britain. Even people who supported the bombing of Yugoslavia and Iraq are asking what can possibly be achieved by bombing a country already devastated by war," Hatton said.
A NEW ROLE FOR GERMANY
Since 1945, Wash ing ton has led the vast majority of military assaults in the world, from Korea to Kosovo. London and sometimes Paris send their troops in behind the Pentagon; at times they act on their own. The German military, however, was supposed to stay put--unless it was fighting the USSR under NATO command.
Now for the first time Berlin has been openly invited to take part in the action, and the Social Democrat/Green government is jumping at the chance to send German youths to their death.
In a major speech on Oct. 11, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said, "The willingness to provide security through the military is an important declaration for Germany's allies." It "means a new self-conception of German foreign policy.... Avoiding every direct risk cannot and must not be the guideline of German foreign and security policy." (Washington Post, Oct. 12)
He added, "There are more reasons why Germany must show its active solidarity ... historical reasons, contemporary reasons, and reasons to do with the position of Germany in the future."
Schroeder's speech found an echo. "This is a defining moment for Germany and its role is being fixed," said Karl Kaiser, director of the German Council on Foreign Relations. "It didn't go unnoticed that when Bush spoke of the coalition around the U.S., he said it was Britain, France, Australia and Germany. And that has enormous meaning."
The Christian Democrats also back this aggressive policy. Only the Party of Democratic Socialism refused to vote for German participation in the war on Afghanistan.
This new eagerness to send their youth--working-class youth, that is--into danger should be recognized for what it is. This is a declaration that the German government wants to guarantee that German imperialism gets its share of the spoils. In the current crisis, that means its share of Middle East and Central Asian oil and gas.
PROTESTS IN BERLIN AND STUTTGART
As in the U.S. and Britain, an ever-larger part of the German population began to fear that the Pentagon's bombing of Af ghan istan would kill and maim innocent people there and only increase the dangers at home.
In Berlin a reported 50,000 people came out against the U.S. war. Another 25,000 marched in Stuttgart.
Ruediger Goebel writing in the Berlin daily newspaper Junge Welt on Oct. 15 noted that these protests were significantly larger and more youthful than any during NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia two years ago, with large numbers of high- school students taking part.
This new youth activism is important, as it directly confronts the move by German ruling circles to participate in military adventures around the world. Some of these youths had participated in anti-globalization actions.
Sebastian Schluesselburg, representing secondary-school students, expressed the youths' dissent in a clear voice at the Berlin protest. "Retaliatory military strikes have no backing in the German student body, Mr. Chancellor," he said. Earlier in the week students in Berlin had defied threats of school punishment to take part in anti-war activity.
Germany still has a drafted army, although it is moving in the direction of a more streamlined, professional and motorized force. A vocal opponent of German militarization, Tobias Pflueger, has already called upon German youth to refuse service and on German soldiers to refuse to take part in any support of the U.S.'s open-ended war.
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