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USA: 100,000 march in San Francisco, 200,000 in Washington
Workers Power Global, London: 28 October 2002
On Saturday October 26 across the USA hundreds of thousands marched in a massive show of opposition to the Bush Administration's plans to attack Iraq.
In San Francisco a march of 100,000 filled the entire march route from Justin Herman Plaza to Civic Centre. It took three hours and marchers were still in Justin Herman Plaza when the head of the procession reached Civic Centre.
The speakers at the opening and closing included Richard Mead, president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. Ron Kovic, Vietnam veteran and author of "Born on the Fourth of July", Congresswoman Barbara Lee, John Burton, President of the California State Senate and Ramiz Rafeedi of the Free Palestine Alliance.
Chants and slogans included: "Bush Is A Moron, Don't Let Him Get His War On"; "We Refuse To Kill For You...We Refuse To Die For You..."; "Drop Bush Not Bombs" Many said they were first-time protesters who had never attended a protest before. Some said they were against all war, others said they were simply against an Iraq invasion.
In Washington DC more than 100,000 marched in he largest Antiwar Protest since the Vietnam era. Several speakers referred to anti-Vietnam War protests, and organisers compared the current movement with the one that peaked with a rally of between 250,000 and 500,000 people in Washington in 1969. The last large-scale peace protest in Washington was in 1991, when about 75,000 demonstrated during the height of the Gulf War.
Tens of thousands of people gathered by the Vietnam war memorial on the Mall and then marched to the White House. Several groups, including the Anti-Capitalist Convergence that organised one of September's anti-war protests, mounted an independent march that fed into yesterday's rally and said everyone had agreed upon a non-confrontational goal from the outset.
In a rally that lasted more than three hours at Constitution Gardens, near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, people listened to Jesse Jackson, actress Susan Sarandon, singer Patti Smith and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, among others.
The march began at 21st Street and Constitution Avenue. Using 17th, H, 15th and E streets NW, protesters circled the White House and returned to their starting point. Shoulder-to-shoulder crowds filled the streets for several blocks. When marchers at the front of the procession returned to Constitution Avenue on their way back, they had to wait to allow demonstrators at the tail of the march to pass.
The national protests were sponsored by the International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition, which announced two major initiatives at the demonstration. The People's Anti-War Referendum, a nation-wide initiative to fight the war drive, calls on people to vote no to war on a website ö www.votenowar.org. The votes collected by early January 2003 will be brought to Washington, DC where another mass demonstration and Grassroots Peace Congress will take place on Jan. 18-19, on the Martin Luther King holiday weekend.
Meanwhile...
In BERLIN 10,000 marched demanding an end to threats of an unjustified war against Iraq. Crowds carried placards that declared "No Colonial War for Oil", "War on the imperialist war," "Stop Bush's campaign" and "No blood for oil," along with a few Iraqi and Palestinian flags. They converged for a final rally in the city centre of former "East Berlin", the Alexanderplatz. Smaller but significant rallies also took place in Frankfurt, Cologne, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Bremen and Munich
Peace activists carry a banner reading during a demonstration against a possible war in Iraq
Police estimated that as many as 8,000 people took part in damp, windy weather, while organisers put the number at 30,000. No trouble was reported.
Demonstration were also held in Copenhagen, Stockholm and Rome. The marches were planned by anti-war activists to coincide with protests in Washington and San Francisco.
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