In solidarity

SATURDAY, 18 January, was a day of international protest, with large-scale demonstrations in the US and elsewhere in the world. With the anti-war drive gaining enormous momentum, many have compared grass-roots activism at this time to the profound anti-war outcry of the Vietnam era.

US protesters were joined by demonstrators in almost 40 countries, from Japan to Pakistan, from Paris to London. With the anti- war movement gaining momentum, increasing international cooperation has become the hallmark of resistance to war in Iraq, and as the numbers of protests rise, the anti-war movement can no longer be dismissed as a fringe issue.

THE STOP THE WAR Coalition in Britain organised local demonstrations in numerous towns, not just the capital, in solidarity with US demonstrations. Stop the War founder John Rees notes that these protests were reported on all main TV and radio news programmes alongside the demonstrations in Cairo, Damascus, Moscow, Tokyo and US cities.

A debate on the war, aired last week on the BBC Radio 2 programme "The Jeremy Vine Show", was followed up by an overwhelming barrage of calls. Of the 27,500 listeners who rang the studio, some 87 per cent said they were against the war, Stop the War reported. Also last week, a poll conducted by Britain's Channel Four News asked viewers if the government had made its case for war in Iraq. Only 19 per cent agreed, with 81 per cent saying no. Stop the War convener Lindsey German concluded: "Practically no one in the country agrees with Mr Blair's war drive and these polls prove it."

Stop the War is also preparing for large-scale demonstrations in Britain and Europe on 15 February. Organised in cooperation with the London-based Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and the Muslim Association of Britain, organisers are saying they expect the demonstrations to be the "largest political protest ever held on British soil". Says Rees: "We believe we now have a real chance of pushing the Blair government out of the war."

AN ESTIMATED 15,000 Canadians demonstrated in Vancouver, another 15,000 in Toronto and 25,000 more in Montreal in solidarity with the US day of protest.

On Monday, Canada's two largest Islamic organisations, the Canadian Islamic Congress and the Islamic Society of North America, Canada (ISNA, Canada), published an open letter to the Prime Minister Jean Chretién strongly urging the government to distance itself from war plans in Washington. A coalition of some 30 Canadian NGOs have been working to urge dissent against Canada's participation in any war in Iraq. "President Bush's ill-advised war will threaten hopes of world peace for years to come and will benefit only the rich and powerful," the letter reads, "especially those in the business of selling armaments or oil." At a formal news conference yesterday, Chretién said he wanted to see a UN resolution sanctioning military action in Iraq but left open the possibility that Canada could take part in a unilateral US-led campaign.

ALSO on 18-19 January:
- A peace concert in Tokyo drew an estimated 4,000
- Some 6,000 people marched in Paris
- A protest in Goteborg, Sweden, gathered 5,000
- Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Damascus
- Roughly 1,000 pro-communist demonstrators protested out
- Some 30,000 people marched from Madrid to the Torrejón military base, near Madrid

A LEAKED UN report on "Likely Humanitarian Scenarios" estimates that "as many as 500,000 people could require treatment of some kind as a result of injuries in a war against Iraq. The controversial report serves as a framework document for the UN's Iraq Steering Committee and as such, presents information on the situation in Iraq that was previously unavailable. As the product of UN agency work on the ground in Iraq, it holds enormous weight. The report is available online at: www.casi.org.uk/info/undocs/war021210.pdf.

AT AN emergency meeting of the British House of Commons last week, top health officials laid out the case for preventing war against Iraq, citing figures culled from the recently released "Global Report on Violence", issued by the World Health Organisation, and a report by Medact, the British affiliate of the US-based International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). Medact report author Jane Salvage told Al-Ahram Weekly that the leaked UN report "echoes our own conclusions" and said that she had heard the UN leadership was "furious" about the leak. Read Medact's report at: www.ippnw.org/CollateralDamage.pdf.

AS MORE US troops and military material are being shipped out to the Gulf region, a group of US veterans against the war have issued the statement "A Call to Conscience". The statement touches on a strong perceived need among anti-war veterans to "speak directly to the troops who are being deployed to Iraq for Bush War II". Read the Veterans Call to Conscience (VCC) online at: www.calltoconscience.net.

Compiled by Nyier Abdou