Opposition to war grows across Europe
By Steve James,
WSWS.org
12 October 2002
The imminent war against Iraq has met with rising public opposition in
Europe. Large anti-war demonstrations have been held in many cities, as
well as protests at the US military outposts, listening stations and
airbases
that litter the continent. Many more demonstrations are planned for the
coming weeks against what is broadly perceived as a war for control of
Iraq's oil fields.
Simultaneous with the 350,000 strong demonstration in
London on
September 28, up to 150,000 marched around the ancient centre of
Rome in protests
which also reflected deepening opposition to the
Italian government of Silvio Berlusconi.
One week later, more demonstrations were held in Rome, Naples,
Milan, Florence, Bologna, Catania, Bergamo and Venice. Some
estimates of the total number of people involved were as high as 1.5
million. According to anti-war groups, 100 cities held protests.
The demonstrations were organised by various anti-war organisations,
trade unions and anti-capitalist groups and political parties. In
Florence
15,000 marchers were greeted with church bells and a banner, "Florence
Open City Repudiates the War." The British Consulate in Venice was
briefly occupied. In Rome, riot police cordoned off the US embassy,
although the demonstrations passed without serious confrontations.
Portraits of British premier Tony Blair, US President George W. Bush
and Berlusconi were burnt in Milan.
A demonstration in Madrid,
Spain, September 29 attracted 30,000
people, according to its organisers, a coalition of anti-war and human
rights groups and the United Left. Statements were read from British
Labour MP George Galloway and former US Attorney General Ramsey
Clark. Protesters held placards opposing US terrorism and equating
Bush with Adolf Hitler.
On October 6 in Rethymno, on the Greek island
of Crete, confrontations
broke out between 300 demonstrators opposing an attack on Iraq and
hundreds of police surrounding a hotel being used by European Union
defence ministers. The ministers were discussing plans for a European
Rapid Reaction Force, due to be operational in 2003, and their attitude
to war against Iraq.
Demonstrations have also been held in Helsinki,
Finland, demanding the
government stay out of a military campaign against Iraq, and in Geneva,
Switzerland,
where 2,000 people demonstrated simultaneously with the
large protests across the border in Italy.
Military bases have also been the focus of protests. Three thousand
people marched through Dublin,
Eire, September 28, in a march
organised by the Irish Anti-War Movement, which is opposing the Irish
government's intention to allow Shannon Airport to be used during an
attack on Iraq. Anti-war activists have documented US military use of
the airport as a stopover during the attack on Afghanistan. Individuals
in the area trying to monitor US flights have reported increased police
and airport security harassment in recent weeks. Military use of Shannon
airport destroys the Irish government's claim to be upholding the
country's neutrality.
Two thousand people rallied near British bases on the island of
Cyprus
in the Eastern Mediterranean, which could be used to support an attack
on
Iraq. Cyprus's parliamentary speaker and Communist Party member
Demetris Christofias called for the "total abolition of the bases and
the total demilitarisation of Cyprus." The rally was jointly organised
by
the Green Party and peace groups and was held near Akrotiri, where the
British military are building communications masts. The parliament in
Cyprus opposes the masts.
On October 6, 1,117 people were arrested inside an airbase at Kleine
Brogel, in Belgium,
where the Belgian Airforce and NATO store nuclear
weapons. Hundreds more, including pacifist campaigners from across
Europe and several members of the Dutch and Belgian parliaments,
demonstrated outside the base.
Media reporting of the extent of hostility to war against Iraq has been
much restricted. Jeremy Dear, leader of the British National Union of
Journalists (NUJ), issued a press release prior to the September 28
demonstration in London, warning that BBC journalists had been
informed by managers they would be showing bias by reporting anti-war
events. The London demonstration, the largest left-wing demonstration
seen in the British capital since the 1980s, and perhaps since the
1930s, was not reported at all by the Washington Post or the New York
Times, and was thinly reported in Britain.
Nevertheless, there is widespread skepticism about the war that goes
far beyond those actually participating in demonstrations. An
ICM/Guardian poll found that only 33 percent of the British population
support an attack on Iraq, while 44 percent oppose it. The percentage
of respondents supporting the war had fallen by four percent in one
weekimmediately after Tony Blair's dossier of "evidence" was
released. According to an Irish Times/MRBI poll, only 22 percent of the
Irish population supported the war, while 68 percent opposed it. Fifty
nine percent thought the Irish government should oppose action in the
United Nations, even if Iraq failed to comply with UN resolutions. Most
decisive was opinion in Spain, where, according to a poll held by
Instituto Opina and El Pais, 87 percent opposed war, while a mere 9.3
percent supported it.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/oct2002/euro-o12.shtml
