- LONDON (Reuters) - Millions
of people are expected to march for peace in Iraq Saturday in what organizers
say could be the world's biggest anti-war protest.
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- From Antarctica to Reykjavik, demonstrations against
the looming war in Iraq are planned in more than 350 town and cities by
people from all walks of life and all ethnic groups.
-
- London is expecting at least 500,000 marchers in what
the organizers say will be a major blow to hawkish Prime Minister Tony
Blai -- President Bush's strongest supporter in his campaign to force Iraqi
disarmament.
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- "We expect Saturday's demonstration to be the biggest
ever in British political history," Andrew Murray, head of the British
Stop The War coalition, said Wednesday. "The British population do
not consent to this war."
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- Organizers in Rome are expecting more than 500,000 people
to march through the city as the anti-war demonstration brings together
trade unionists, center-left political parties, anti-globalization groups
and ordinary citizens.
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- In Russia a series of demonstrations are planned on Saturday,
as they are across the United States and Australia.
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- Organizers of a peace march in San Francisco say they
expect more than 100,000 to converge on the city Sunday.
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- In South Africa, where President Thabo Mbeki and former
president Nelson Mandela have both spoken out strongly against any Iraq
war, a series of demonstrations are planned.
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- Even in traditionally neutral Switzerland a series of
protests are planned under the slogan "No to war in Iraq -- No blood
for oil!"
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- In Dublin, anti-war demonstration organizers expect upwards
of 20,000 people to take part in a march through the city.
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- WORLD PEACE MOVEMENT
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- But the event in London, which organizers pledge will
be peaceful despite fears it could be disrupted by anti-Israeli demonstrators,
will be pivotal in the world peace movement.
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- Jeremy Corbyn, prominent maverick in Blair's ruling Labor
Party, said the key speaker at the rally would be American anti-war campaigner
Jesse Jackson.
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- "He is coming specially because opinion polls show
that if Britain backs out of the war the American public will also stop
supporting it," he told a news conference.
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- Blair, who has unflinchingly supported Bush since the
September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, has seen his popularity
plunge in successive opinion polls.
-
- As London and Washington have poured troops and armor
into the Gulf, insisting that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was concealing
weapons of mass destruction, they have been suffered a series of blunders
over dubious intelligence reports.
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- Iraq insists it has no banned arms.
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