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The Day the World Said
No to War

n London February 15, at least 700,000 gathered in Hyde Park in what authorities called the city’s biggest demonstration ever, with march organizers putting the total at more than a million. The Rev. Jesse Jackson was among the speakers who urged Britons to turn up the “street heat” on pro-war Prime Minister Tony Blair. Other British cities held their own large protests, with some 30,000 taking to the streets in Glasgow.

Dili, East Timor. Charles Scheiner.

In France, where conservative President Jacques Chirac is leading a diplomatic initiative to avert war, an estimated 100,000 rallied under a huge American flag with the black inscription “Leave us alone”; large protests were also held elsewhere in Toulouse, Lyon and Marseille.

At least half a million gathered in Berlin, turning the boulevard between the Brandenburg Gate and the Victory Column into a sea of banners and balloons emblazoned with “No war in Iraq.” Speakers praised German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s antiwar stance, and three of his cabinet ministers were among those in attendance, despite Schroeder’s own request that they stay away. Authorities called it the biggest antiwar march in the history of postwar Germany.

An estimated million people marched in Rome, filling the streets of the ancient city with rainbow-striped peace flags. More than half a million protested in Madrid, the Spanish capital, and an estimated million marched in Spain’s biggest port city, Barcelona. Protests were also held in Seville, Valencia and Bilbao. (Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi and Spain’s Jose Maria Aznar are among the few western European leaders lining up with the Bush/Blair war drive.)

Tens of thousands protested in nearly every European capital, often in spite of bitter cold. In Prague, where the Czech government is taking a vocal pro-war stance, philosopher Erazim Kohak told about 500 protesters, “War is not a solution, war is a problem.” Protests were also reported from Warsaw and Budapest, where the Polish and Hungarian governments are similarly supporting the war drive. One thousand marched on the U.S. Embassy in freezing Moscow, urging Russian President Vladimir Putin to be firmer in his antiwar position.

Athens was one of the few cities where things turned violent. Police fired tear gas in clashes with several hundred hooded and helmeted anarchists, who smashed store windows and threw a petrol bomb at a newspaper office. But the skirmish was a sideshow to the massive gathering. A giant banner reading “NATO, US and EU equals war” was unfurled across the wall of the Acropolis before the march of some 200,000 headed to the U.S. Embassy. Tear gas was also fired in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki, while in divided Cyprus about 500 Greeks and Turks came together briefly, braving heavy rain to block a British air base runway.

In Istanbul, 5,000 marched as the government debated allowing the United States to use Turkish territory as a staging ground for an Iraq invasion. After subsequent larger demonstrations, the Turkish Parliament on March 1 voted not to allow some 62,000 U.S. troops to be deployed from Turkey.

Protests within the Middle East were especially passionate. In Damascus, some 200,000 marched on the People’s Assembly, chanting anti-U.S. and anti-Israel slogans. While government officials remained silent, Najjah Attar, a former Syrian cabinet minister, joined the protest, accusing Washington of plotting to redraw the region’s map and divide the nations of the Arab world. “The United States wants to encroach upon our own norms, concepts and principles,” she said. “They are reminding us of the Nazi and fascist times.”

Some 10,000 marched under pouring rain in the Jordanian capital, Amman, many carrying Palestinian flags and portraits of Saddam Hussein. Hundreds of riot police barred their way when they attempted to march on the U.S. Embassy in defiance of a ban on protests at the fortress-like complex. In a silent protest, thousands of homes in Jordan turned off their lights and electric appliances and lit candles for one hour on Friday night. Meanwhile, in Beirut, an estimated 15,000 marched on the U.N. headquarters to demand action to stop the war. In Tel Aviv, a mixed crowd of some 2,000 Jews and Palestinians marched together to protest the war drive.

In Baghdad itself, the regime exploited the international mobilization. Tens of thousands, many carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles, demonstrated at a government-called rally to support Saddam Hussein and denounce the United States, with the sound of drums filling the streets. “Our swords are out of their sheaths, ready for battle,” read one of hundreds of banners carried by marchers along Palestine Street, a central Baghdad avenue. The U.S. Voices in the Wilderness peace delegation to Baghdad (NVA, January-February) held a protest of its own on the same day, marching with peace banners to the rhythm of the drums of an Okinawan delegation.

No protests were reported from central Africa, where many nations are ravaged by their own wars; but Johannesburg and Cape Town each had 5,000-strong rallies. In Cairo, where Arab leaders were to meet the next week to discuss the crisis, a massive police presence kept the crowd down to less than 1,000, but a few days later, on February 27, almost 100,000 jammed a stadium there for a legal antiwar rally.

Asia in Action
The actual first protests happened on the west side of the International Date Line, when it was still Valentine’s Day in the United States but already February 15 in Asia. In Dili, the capital of the world’s newest independent nation of East Timor, 100 people carried signs bearing the WRL broken rifle emblem through the streets in a march to the U.S., Australian and British Embassies. Thousands also marched in Bangkok, Tokyo, Manila, Seoul and Dhaka, Bangladesh. A peace march led by schoolchildren was reported from New Delhi, while 10,000 marched in Calcutta. Protests struck a strident anti-U.S. theme in Pakistan, as American flags were burned in Islamabad and nearly every other city. Hundreds gathered outside the U.S. Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and several hundred marched on the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong. And in Jakarta, Indonesia, 100,000 marched against the war drive the previous weekend, February 9.

In Australia’s largest antiwar rally since the Vietnam era, 150,000 marched in Melbourne; and thousands demonstrated in Sydney and Canberra. In New Zealand, protests were reported from 18 cities.

The Americas Act
Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver held protests of at least 20,000 each. At least 15,000 marched in Mexico City to hear speakers including Guatemalan human rights crusader and Nobel Peace Laureate Rigoberta Menchú. In Havana, 5,000 turned out for a government-supported rally. In San Juan, Puerto Rico, some 1,000 gathered, urging Gov. Sila Calderon to take a public stance against the war drive.

Brazil held the largest marches in South America, with 30,000 taking to the streets in both Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, supporting President Luiz Inacio (“Lula”) da Silva’s efforts to unite the continent’s nations against a U.S.-led attack on Iraq. Protests were also reported in Brasilia and Porto Alegre. In Buenos Aires, the Argentine capital, thousands came out despite a summer downpour to hear speakers including human rights advocate and Nobel Peace Laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel. Montevideo, the Uruguayan capital, got a jump on the continent, holding its 20,000-strong march on Friday the 14th. Protests were also reported in the Chilean cities of Santiago and Valparaiso and the Venezuelan capital of Caracas.

Further south still, technicians and workers at McMurdo research station in Antarctica briefly walked out to form a human peace sign in the snow, and distributed photos of it around the world on the Internet.