PARIJS/LONDEN - Tienduizenden mensen over de hele wereld hebben zaterdag tegen een mogelijke aanval op Irak gedemonstreerd. Betogingen waren er in Europa, het Midden-Oosten, Azië en Amerika. In Duitsland kreeg een betoging een officieel tintje door de deelname van de sociaal-democratische bondskanselier Gerhard Schröder en leden van de regeringspartij Groenen.
Bijna 5000 demonstreerden in Tokio. In de Syrische hoofdstad Damascus scandeerden meer dan 15.000 mensen leuzen tegen de Verenigde Staten, de grootste voorstander van militair ingrijpen.
Ook in de Verenigde Staten zelf gingen duizenden mensen de straat opgegaan om te protesteren tegen een militaire aanval op Irak. In Washington verzamelden zich ondanks een bijtende kou tienduizenden betogers bij het parlementsgebouw, het Capitool.
Tot de manifestatie was opgeroepen door de organisatie ANSWER (Act Now To Stop War & End Racism) en een coalitie van studenten- en kerkorganisaties en vakbonden. ANSWER riep op tot weerstand tegen de 'koloniale oorlogsplannen' van de regering-Bush. Een vakbondsleider uit New York beschuldigde de Amerikaanse president ervan het verdriet van de Amerikanen over de aanslagen van 11 september uit te buiten om een oorlogskoers te kunnen varen.
Voor de ambassade van de Verenigde Staten in Moskou zwaaiden enkele honderden communisten met rode vlaggen en portretten van Lenin in een steunbetuiging aan Irak. In de Pakistaanse stad Rawalpindi vormden schoolkinderen en vrouwen een menselijke keten.
Wenen was met een stille mars in de nacht van vrijdag op zaterdag de eerste Europese stad dit weekeinde met een vredesbetoging. De optocht eindigde voor de ambassade van de VS, waar de demonstranten een Amerikaanse vlag verbrandden.
In Parijs en andere Franse steden gingen enkele duizenden mensen de straat op om tegen een oorlog te ageren. Ook in de Zweedse hoofdstad Göteborg en in Duitse steden als Rostock en Tübingen deden duizenden mensen mee aan een protestmars.
Door Britse en Ierse steden trokken tienduizenden betogers bij kaarslicht in een zwijgend protest tegen een oorlog. In Zuidwest-Ierland protesteerden 2000 personen tegen het besluit van de regering om een vliegveld open te stellen voor Amerikaanse toestellen op weg naar de Golfregio. Duizenden Italiaanse anti-globalisten begaven zich naar de haven van Napels. Voor zondag staan betogingen in Spanje en België op het programma.
In Nederland heeft de politie zaterdagmiddag tachtig tot negentig actievoerders gearresteerd die de vliegbasis Volkel waren binnengedrongen, nadat ze met tangen gaten in de omheining hadden gemaakt. De actievoerders wilden inspecteren of op de basis Amerikaanse kernwapens liggen opgeslagen. De actiegroep is van mening dat de Verenigde Staten, in navolging van Irak, duidelijkheid moeten verschaffen over hun massavernietigingswapens.
Tens of thousands of anti-war protesters converged on Washington today, braving the bitter cold in thunderous numbers and assembling in the shadow of the Capitol dome to voice their opposition to a U.S. military strike against Iraq.
Throughout a morning rally on the National Mall and an afternoon march to the Washington Navy Yard, activists criticized the Bush administration for rushing into a war with Iraq that they claimed would kill thousands of Iraqi civilians, spell disaster for the national economy and set a dangerous and unjustified first-strike precedent for U.S. foreign policy.
They delivered that message on a day when being outdoors tested everyone's endurance. Marchers were bundled in attire fit not for a protest, but for a ski trip. Men, women and children fought off temperatures no higher than 24 degrees in ski masks and goggles, stashes of hot soup in containers in their backpacks. Many sneaked away from the cause momentarily to warm up on an idling bus or to stand in line for a cup of coffee.
"The world is cold but our hearts are warm," the Rev. Jesse Jackson told the crowd to applause. He was one of many speakers that included New York civil rights leader the Rev. Al Sharpton, actress Jessica Lange and Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.).
Organizers of the demonstration, the activist coalition International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), said the protest was larger than one they sponsored in Washington in October. District police officials suggested then that about 100,000 attended, and although some organizers agreed, they have since put the number closer to 200,000. This time, they said, the turnout was 500,000. Metropolitan Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey said he would not provide an estimate, but said it was bigger than October's. "It's one of the biggest ones we've had, certainly in recent times," he said.
Ramsey said there were only a couple of minor incidents; a Capitol police spokeswoman reported two arrests, one for disorderly conduct and one for writing graffiti on a Library of Congress building.
D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department officials said three people were taken to hospitals, including a woman who had a seizure. The health problems were not believed serious and were not weather-related, officials said.
The demonstration coincided with other national and international antiwar protests. Thousands attended rallies in other U.S. cities, including San Francisco and Tampa. Protests also were held in other countries. Organizers selected today for protests partly because of the approaching Jan. 27 deadline for the first major report by weapons inspectors in Iraq, a date many activists said could trigger war. The events were also meant to mark the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, and many speakers invoked his legacy.
Regardless of the exact number, the crowd today on the Mall was the largest anti-war demonstration here since the Vietnam era. People packed much of four long blocks of the Mall, shoulder-to-shoulder in many sections, from 3rd to 7th streets SW between Madison and Jefferson drives for the 11 a.m. rally. The first marchers stepped off at about 1:30 p.m., and when many had begun reaching the Navy Yard more than two dozen blocks away about an hour later, protesters were still leaving the rally site.
Those who hoped the president and much of Congress would witness the thousands in the streets of Washington were out of luck; the president was in Camp David and Congress is out of session.
It hardly mattered for some. Marchers spoke of a surging grass-roots political power. "The antiwar movement is now at a whole new level," said Tony Murphy, a spokesman for ANSWER, which was formed three days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as a response to the Bush administration's war on terrorism at home and abroad. "Now we're talking about a force that can really stop the war. It's not just a hopeful attitude. It's a real sense that it's possible."
The demonstration drew people of all walks of life from both coasts and all points in between, as scores of college students, thirty-something families and senior citizens traveled to Washington by charter bus, car caravan, plane, train and, in the case of one determined Iowa State University student, by foot.
On the snow-covered grass of the Mall and in the narrow streets along the march through Southeast Washington, handwritten signs and banners bobbed, distilling the day: "War is not a Christian belief," "No blood for oil" and "Freezing out here for peace."
"We want peace," said Mari Anderson, 59, of Titusville, Fla., a chemical specialist at a Florida power plant who took a 14-hour drive to Washington with a friend and walked along Pennsylvania Avenue NW this morning to join the throngs rallying on the Mall. "We want diplomatic solutions. Saddam Hussein hasn't done anything to us in 11 years."
Alex Maertens, 30, who lives near the Southeast Washington march route, fit the protest into her other chores for the day. "I don't like having to march with people who are sentimental fools, but I happen to think that this war is an immense mistake," said Maertens, a toxicologist studying at Johns Hopkins University. "The burden of proof is on us and that case has not been established."
Marching with a packed crowd along Independence Avenue SE, Nancy Paton, 49, said she came with her 23-year-old daughter on one of four busloads from her Westland, Mich., inter-faith church. Paton said she had never been part of a political protest. "I kind of felt powerless to do anything about this proposed war on Iraq," she said, adding that she was moved to join the protest because the war "is more about oil than terrorism. After this war in Afghanistan, it seems like Bush just wants to keep going."
Through the day, the debate over whether the United States should use military force against Saddam Hussein spilled onto the sidewalks and street corners of the city's center and outside the gates of the Navy Yard in Southeast Washington. Counter-protesters, some organized and others not, offered their opinion of the antiwar activists.
"You guys should go get a job," said a man traveling in the passenger side of a black SUV that pulled over briefly to heckle protesters in the morning on Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Later in the day, on the Pennsylvania Avenue SE march route, a group of people sharing a bottle of champagne on one building's second-floor balcony displayed a sign reading, "Hippies Go Home." Protesters responded, "We are home."
When the march approached the intersection of 8th and I streets SE outside the U.S. Marine Corps barracks, where about 50 counter-protesters gathered for a rally, the counter-demonstrators, including many war veterans, chanted "Swim to Cuba," and "We gave peace a chance; we got 9-11." In return, the protesters shouted back, "We don't want your oil war." The march stopped for 10 minutes, and during the delay Chief Ramsey walked up and down the lines of officers separating the marchers from the counter-protesters.
Exchanges proved far more civil elsewhere.
On a Blue Line Metro train headed for the Mall area, one goateed middle-aged man loudly lectured other protesters – and anyone else in earshot – about the history of Iraq, and the way the United States was complicit in every development there in the past 50 years. Others on the car listened intently, and thanked him as he left the train at Smithsonian Station.
Activists cited a number of reasons why – in the middle of a numbingly cold Washington winter, for a $35 to $110 seat on a packed bus spending anywhere from a couple to more than 24 hours on the road – they came to Washington. Some said they were pacifists opposed to war no matter what the circumstances. Others said they were moved to action because they felt the Bush administration was rushing into an unjustified war with Iraq, viewing the march as a kind of election in which to cast a vote with their bodies.
"I am here to tell people who might have questions about the war that they're not alone," said Brian Harrison, 21, a Texas college student who sat on a charter bus for a 27-hour ride from Houston to attend the demonstration. "So many people are so riled up about the war that they're willing to travel great distances to physically testify their opposition."
The cold, though, was never far from the minds of the protesters, including Harrison, who said he had never seen snow on the ground. "I've actually never been this cold before," he said.
"The sun had really helped," said Joanne Catizzi, 51, a Baltimore school teacher. "I was really afraid I was going to freeze my butt off." But Shelby Berkowitz, 32, a graduate student in psychology from Lansing, Mich., asked, "What's the suffering from standing out in the cold compared to the suffering inflicted by U.S. policies in the world?"
Antiwar demonstrations continue tomorrow in Washington. Youth and students who took part in today's march plan their own demonstration, with an 11 a.m. rally and march from the Department of Justice to the White House.
Civil disobedience is planned at the White House by D.C. Iraq Pledge of Resistance and United for Peace. Following an 11:30 a.m. rally at Farragut Square, hundreds will risk arrest to show their opposition to war, organizers said.
At the end of today's march about 5 p.m., protesters said they were pleased and hoped the Bush administration would hear their message. "It turned out very well despite the weather," said Jon Mays, 32, an engineer from Clinton. "It made me proud that we have people that are coming together for one cause."