BY BEN COURTICE
MELBOURNE — Victorian Peace Network organisers estimate between 35,000 and 40,000 people attended the March 29 protest against war. The rally stretched for more than three city blocks, led by protesters waving Palestinian and Iraqi flags, and chanting "Stop killing the people of Iraq" and "Block the budget in May — give the people a say".
As the crowd assembled, rally convener Dave Sweeney presented a panel of speakers from the three parliamentary opposition parties. Greens senator Kerry Nettle, speaking first, condemned the war on Iraq — "human bombing" not "humane bombing" — as being like that against Palestine, and likely to breed a "new generation of extremists".
The last 50 years of Palestinian history show, she said, that only social justice and self-determination can bring peace. She ended with a call to bring home the troops and end UN sanctions on Iraq.
Labor MP for the seat of Melbourne, Lindsay Tanner, condemned the Coalition government for betraying its commitment to act through the United Nations, for not condemning the detention of Australians in Guantanamo Bay and for locking up Iraqi refugees in the desert before sending them back to Iraq to be bombed.
Arguing that the UN was the best way to find solutions to self-determination struggles like East Timor and West Papua, and conflicts such as that between India and Pakistan, Tanner condemned Howard for going beyond US "deputy sheriff" to "global vigilante".
Tanner did not comment on the large banner raised behind him by the Socialist Alliance, which said "Block the budget — force Howard to an election". He ended his speech calling for all troops to be brought home now, as did the Democrats speaker Lyn Allison.
Following the march, Reihana Mohideen from the Asian Peace Alliance condemned the "imperial arrogance" that suggested the war would be "quick and easy" for the US forces. She also said that the hypocrisy of the sham hunt for weapons of mass destruction was evident to the people of Asia, who had experienced the carpet bombing of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, and the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Mohideen warned that the war could spread: "If we don't stop this war, Asia could be next". She praised the Mid-East people's "strong history of resisting colonialism", raising the hope for ending the war: "the other global power today — people's power". Mohideen finished with the slogan of the global justice movement, "a new world is possible, and a new world is necessary".
From Green Left Weekly, April 2, 2003.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.