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Antiwar protesters switch focus to Iraq occupation
( 2003-04-13 09:59 ) (7 )

Thousands of peace campaigners poured onto the streets of Europe and elsewhere on Saturday switching their focus from preventing war on Iraq to protesting against the continuing US and British military presence.

Although U.S. and British officials say the military operation is drawing to an end after the fall of President Saddam Hussein's government, activists said their concerns were as grave as ever.

"It is good Saddam has gone but we cannot forget this war is illegal and without the sanction of the United Nations. It is setting a very dangerous precedent of pre-emption," Pakistani politician and former international cricketer Imran Khan told Reuters as he joined a mass rally in London's Hyde Park.

"No country should have the right to be judge, jury and executioner. That is the reason the U.N. was set up -- to protect the weak from the strong. But this war sets a precedent where might is right and undermines the UN."

Organizers estimated 100,000 people marched through the city center, waving banners saying "No Occupation of Iraq" and chanting "Bush, Blair, CIA, how many kids have you killed today?" Police put the numbers at closer to 20,000.

In Washington, thousands of people demonstrated against the war. Wearing T-shirts like one that read "I see all the dead Iraqi children. Boy, do I feel safe," and carrying signs saying "Fight the new colonialism!," the protesters also condemned the way U.S. media covers the war.

Police at one point used their batons to hit several protesters, who pushed and shoved back, and arrested three people.

In the Italian capital Rome, a march originally organized to call for an end to the fighting changed its slogan to "No to an infinite and global war."

"This war is far from over and anyway it will have terrible effects on the Middle East and maybe on the whole world," university professor Umberto Allegretti who joined the protest.

TV footage showed a giant rainbow banner, about 500 yards long, being pulled around the Circus Maximus where Romans used to race chariots.

'STOP THE OCCUPATION'

As the military campaign in Iraq enters its final stages, Washington is preparing to install an interim U.S.-led administration to oversee reconstruction.

Maha Alkatib, an Iraqi woman living in Britain, said it was vital the Iraqi people be allowed to take responsibility for forming their own government.

"It is difficult to comprehend a democratic government appointing a government for another state," she said.

In Paris, about 11,000 people marched through the streets demanding an immediate cease-fire in Iraq and the withdrawal of U.S. and British troops.

Demonstrators, led by several prominent French Communist politicians, carried banners reading "Stop the occupation in Iraq" and "Yes to a democratic and independent Iraq."

In Berlin, about 12,000 protesters marched past the headquarters of the opposition CDU conservatives, who have backed the U.S.-led campaign, shouting "peace not occupation."

About 200 Kurds also gathered in the city to celebrate the toppling of Saddam.

In Dhaka, Bangladesh, tens of thousands burned effigies of President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair while in Calcutta, about 15,000 leftist demonstrators formed a human chain around the U.S. and British consulates, shouting "Iraq will become another Vietnam for America."

Dozens of hard-line students protested noisily in front of the British Embassy in Tehran, shouting "Down with Bush," "Down with England."

In San Francisco, more than 1,000 demonstrators huddled peacefully under umbrellas in a steady rain in front of City Hall to protest a U.S. "occupation" of Iraq, then marched to a nearby park for another anti-war rally.

Although the turn-out in London was far below the roughly million anti-war protesters who marched through the capital in February, organizers said numbers exceeded their expectations.

"It shows there are still plenty of people still horrified by this illegal war," said Andrew Burgin from the Stop the War Coalition, which organized the event along with the Muslim Association of Britain.

"They have not found any weapons of mass destruction. It is an illegal occupation in terms of the international community and it has been an illegal war," he said.

Washington launched the war three weeks ago to destroy Iraq's alleged banned weapons, but has not found any so far.

Burgin said there was a fear that Iraq was only the beginning in a series of wars planned by the United States, and possibly Britain.

"Iraq now, but will it be Syria and Iran tomorrow?" he said.

Most of Saturday's protests were peaceful and there were few arrests.