Thousands March for Peace

By Sarah Ferguson, AlterNet. Posted March 22, 2004.

In a preview of the kind of anti-Bush force that may converge in New York this summer during the Republican National Convention, tens of thousands of demonstrators from across the Northeast marched in Manhattan on Saturday to protest on the one-year anniversary of the start of the Iraq war and to demand an end to the American occupation.

"Today we sent a message, not only to George Bush and his cronies in Washington but also to John Kerry and the people he wants to bring to the White House that our movement is alive and strong we're not going away," said Leslie Cagan, national coordinator for United for Peace and Justice, which initiated the call for a global peace demonstration last October.

City officials estimated the crowd at 30,000 to 40,000, but organizers said the number was closer to 100,000, considering that the march at one point spanned more than 40 blocks as it snaked through midtown. The New York demonstrations coincided with peace vigils and protests in close to 300 cities across the US and in 60 countries -- including an estimated 1 million Italians who filled the streets of Rome to denounce their government's support for the war and approximately 25,000 who marched in London, where two intrepid Greenpeace activists caused a security panic by scaling Big Ben to hang a banner that read, "Time for Truth."

More somber marches were held in cities across Spain to mourn the 202 people killed in the Madrid train bombings, and protests took place across Asia, Latin America, and even in Egypt and Turkey -- where demonstrators clashed with riot police.

Iraq Anniversary Photos of the San Francisco protest march by Derek Powazek
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Although the turnout in New York and other cities did not match the massive demonstrations that took place a year ago, organizers said the crowd sizes exceeded expectations -- especially in New York, where there has been an uproar over the police department's heavy-handed crowd-control techniques.

At last year's Feb. 15 rally during the buildup to the war, police penned protestors behind a maze of barricades to control access to the demonstration, prompting numerous arrests, injuries, and a class action lawsuit by the New York Civil Liberties Union. This time, the NYPD scaled back the barriers and went so far as to post detailed instructions for the protesters on its website -- though many still found the level of police control oppressive.

New York's protest, like those in other cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago, was co-sponsored by the hard-left antiwar coalition International ANSWER, which expanded UFPJ's call to end the US occupation of Iraq with a more doctrinaire demand to "End Colonial Occupation from Iraq to Palestine to Haiti & Everywhere!"

Nevertheless, the demonstration drew a remarkably broad cross-section of people, from large numbers of Arab Americans, Palestinians and Haitians angry over the US-backed ouster of Aristide, to students, Greens, revolutionary socialists and Kucinich peaceniks, along with union workers, teachers and more well-heeled professionals -- many of them Deaniacs and Kerry supporters.

There was also a large contingent of veterans and about a dozen military families, whose presence added a level of gravitas to the protesters' myriad causes.

"Bush lied and who died?" demanded Fernando Suarez del Solar speaking out on behalf of his 20-year-old son Jesus, who was one of the first Marines killed during the invasion last March when he stepped on a cluster bomb dropped by Coalition forces. "More than 570 beautiful human beings have died in this war, and for what? For lies!" Suarez cried. "America, I am looking in you. We need to stop this war today. No more dead bodies," he pleaded, before leading the crowd in a chant of "Bring them home now!"

Suarez's anguish was echoed by Sue Niederer, whose son, Army Lt. Seth Dvorin, 25, was killed on February 3. Holding a sign that read, "You killed my son," she castigated President Bush for misleading the nation to war. "I want answers to my son's death. I want answers to why he was defusing a bomb when he was never trained to do that.

"What did he die for? For a country that hates us, that doesn't want us there. We should bring our troops home and topple Bush."

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