BY NIKKI ULASOWSKI
PERTH — More than 20,000 people crammed in Forest Place in the CBD on February 15 for an anti-war rally organised by the NOWaR Alliance.
Contingents from Fremantle and Midland arrived on "peace trains". From Fremantle, three such trains were filled, including an additional train service put on for the rally. The final train was jam-packed with protesters singing John Lennon's "Give peace a chance".
Protesters came from different age groups, occupations and ethnic backgrounds. "Solidarity" was a key theme. Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) activist Ian Bolas, who addressed the rally on behalf of the Socialist Alliance, argued that, while the corporate media reports the bad news of the impeding war, "rallies such as today demonstrate the good news: that people are willing to mobilise in their hundreds of thousands across Australia to say 'no' to war".
Peter Stewart from the Christian Centre for Social Action told the crowd that church sermons were being halted for people to write protest letters to Prime Minister John Howard. He stated that banners were being hung outside churches and on fences.
The Refugee Rights Action Network (RRAN) also mobilised a loud contingent to the rally. RRAN speaker to the rally, Beck Shumack asked, "How can Australian people be at peace, when Iraqi people who are fleeing their government are locked up in this country?" Other speakers at the rally included a representative from Unions WA, the Islamic community, the Greens WA, the Democrats and the Kurdish community.
The rally drew large contingents from eight unions including the Financial Sector Union (FSU), the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU), the CFMEU, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), the Maritime Workers Union (MUA), the State School Teachers Union (SSTU), the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union (LHMU) and Unions WA.
The rally concluded with an energetic, necessarily slow, march through the city. The protest had so exceeded organisers expectations, that those at the front of the march had reached the end of the route before those at the back had begun marching.
At least two other anti-war protests occurred in WA on February 15. A protest in Albany attracted around 900 people and Bunbury attracted several hundred. The NOWAR Alliance in Perth meets weekly each Thursday at 6:30pm at Unions WA, 79 Stirling St, Perth. The next major rally will be on March 22.
From Green Left Weekly, February 19, 2003.
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