[Gllug] OT: Anti-War march today

[Dermot Moynihan]

The Stop the War Coalition has called another march for today - note 
different assembly points to previous marches:

http://www.stopwar.org.uk/#march

ROUTE:
The demonstration will assemble at 12 Noon on 12 April with two NEW 
assembly points. Start A - (for people coming from the South and S London), 
assembles York Road, Waterloo SE1 (nearest tube Waterloo). Start B - (for 
the North and N London), assembles Victoria Street (nearest tubes St James 
Park and Victoria). Both marches will march past Parliament, unite at 
Parliament Square and march to Hyde Park.

On this Saturday's demonstration we are asking people to bring flowers, 
cards, wreaths or whatever you think is appropriate, to lay outside 10 
Downing Street as we walk past there. We will also be stopping both 
demonstrations as they arrive at Parliament and holding a minute's silence. 
This will be in memory of all those who have died so far in Iraq.

Why we are still marching:

The country has been invaded in a war of conquest not liberation. Iraq is 
to be occupied by the US military, headed up by Jay Garner, a pro Israeli 
retired general who is unelected and unaccountable to any of the Iraqi 
people. The main Iraqi figurehead proposed by the Americans is the 
convicted fraudster Ahmed Chalabi, a banker who has not lived in Iraq for 
45 years, whose close links with the CIA make him their ideal candidate. 
The country will be run as a colony of the west.

The war is by no means over. There is still fighting in many parts of the 
country, the Kurds have entered Kirkuk in the north, there is massive 
instability. Bombing of Tikrit is still going on. Reports of celebrations 
are both exaggerated and premature. The situation for most Iraqis is one of 
misery as they face shortages of water and food, hospitals overflowing, and 
still a massive danger of death and injury from fighting.

This was wrong before it started and it remains wrong. It is illegal, 
immoral and unnecessary. The reasons for the war were given as the 
existence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Not a single WMD has been 
found, even though many of the sites which were identified as containing 
them have been visited. Even if any are found to exist in the future, the 
conduct of the war makes it clear that the Iraqi regime did not, as 
claimed, intend to use them.

The Americans and British showed their war aims by early on taking over the 
600 oil wells. The reconstruction of Iraq will be carried out mainly by US 
companies. There is much talk of the oil becoming the property of the Iraqi 
people but all the signs are that revenues from the oil will be used to 
feed the profits of the construction companies.

The Stop the War Coalition was formed to fight against the 'war on 
terrorism' launched by George Bush after 11 September 2001. We have seen 
successive wars in Afghanistan and now in Iraq. Already Donald Rumsfeld is 
talking about future attacks on Syria and Iran. George Bush's axis of evil 
speech over a year ago also targeted North Korea as a possible future victim.

The anti war movement remains the biggest movement this country has seen 
for generations. Anti war opinion is still very substantial. Meetings 
against the war in recent days have attracted record audiences, with 1000 
people in Liverpool, over 300 in Cardiff and 200 in Croydon. The sentiment 
in these meetings is very strongly anti war and very sceptical about the 
motives of the British and American governments. The demonstration on 
Saturday 12 April will be a very large protest against the slaughter and 
against the occupation of Iraq. It is also an international day of action 
against war, with demonstrations in 38 countries.


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