Thousands join protest in New York to mark 1st anniversary of Iraq war

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, March 21, 2004

Thousands join protest in New York to mark 1st anniversary of Iraq war

Thousands of anti-war demonstrators marched through the streets of New York Saturday on the first anniversary of the Iraq war, calling for an end to the occupation of the country.

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Thousands of anti-war demonstrators marched through the streets of New York Saturday on the first anniversary of the Iraq war, calling for an end to the occupation of the country.

Protesters gathered in midtown Manhattan for an anti-war rally before they set off on a two-hour march through the center of the city to protest the Bush administration's Iraq policy.

Under the banner "The World Still Says No to War," dozens of protesters took the floor to slam US President George W. Bush's decision to rush US troops into the war and asked to bring the soldiers home.

A member of the anti-war group "Military Families Speak Out" who lost his son in Iraq said:" Bush lied, who died? My son. Bringour children home now!" Another high school student from Virginia demanded that the Bush administration spend more on schools and education when a considerable number of teachers do not have enough textbooks for their students. "Money on books and schools, not on war!" she chanted.

Carrying signs that read "Occupation in Iraq wrong," "Stop Madcowboy Disease," and "Not One More Delay, Not One More Death, Not One More Deception," demonstrators marched through New York streets, chanting anti-war slogans. Some carried mock coffins, others had paper cranes in hand that symbolize peace.

"I'm upset with the president for just about everything," said one protester. "His war in Iraq that goes on and on and kills people, what he's done to our economy and what he's doing to our future."

According to United for Peace and Justice, one of the anti-war groups that organized the event, it wanted to send a message to the Bush administration that peace-loving people do not want this war.

"The March 20 protests come after months of revelations vindicating the anti-war movement's position that waging war on Iraq was unnecessary and unjustified. Mounting evidence indicates that Iraq posed no imminent threat to the United States and that Bush administration's justifications for its preemptive strike were deliberately exaggerated or false," the group said in a pressrelease.

"We are calling for the US occupation of Iraq to end immediately in accordance with the wishes of the Iraqi people and their right to self-determination and the wishes of the US soldiers and the vast majority of people in the world," said SarahSloan of ANSWER Coalition, another organizer of the event.

According to the organizers, more than 250 similar protests were staged in cities across the United States, from Alaska to Florida, Hawaii to Maine. Demonstration will also take place in many countries around the world, making March 20 a global day of coordinated action in the spirit of last year's anti-war protests.

A heavy police presence was obvious at the rally and march, a precaution to an event last March that drew 100,000 demonstrators and led to clashes between protesters and the police. Large numbers of police officers, including those in riot gear and on horseback, watched closely outside the metal barricade that kept demonstrators inside. Police helicopters were hovering overhead.

"We don't agree with the system that the police are setting up that restricts people's access to the demonstration, but regardless of any plans they may have to try to keep people away, we know that people will be coming in massive numbers," said Sloan. ��

Source: Xinhua

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