More than 10 000 people marched on the United States consulate in Cape Town on Saturday to protest the war in Iraq, and to call for the expulsion of America and Britain’s ambassadors.
Protesters burned US flags and chanted anti-American slogans outside the building in the city centre under the watchful eye of a strong police presence.
The march, under the banner of the anti-war coalition, included representatives from the African National Congress (ANC), the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu), the Council of Churches and Muslim Judicial Council.
The chairman of Parliament’s foreign affairs portfolio committee, Pallo Jordan (ANC), said the US and British attack on Iraq had never been about weapons of mass destruction.
”They have not uncovered any weapons of mass destruction, doesn’t that make you think, comrades? What the war was about from the very beginning was to change the government of Iraq and to put their own government in there, so they can gain access to Iraqi oil,” he said.
The coalition has threatened ”more drastic action” should the consulate not respond in writing by Thursday to a memorandum delivered on Saturday and another submitted during a protest in February.
Cosatu deputy general-secretary Tony Ehrenreich said it was totally unacceptable that the US was yet to respond to the group’s demands.
The coalition is considering calling a boycott of products from US-based multinationals. The memorandum condemns the war as unjust, illegitimate and morally unjustifiable.
”This expansionist policy in the Middle East today is in essence a genocidal policy aimed at world domination by the handful of US monopolies.”
It appealed for Allied forces to disobey commanders and refuse to take action against Iraqis, and for the families of soldiers to demand their return home.
The marchers’ fury was directed at US President George W Bush and his British counterpart Tony Blair.
Some carried Palestinian and Afghanistan flags and placards that read: ”Down with imperialist war”, ”Drop Bush, not bombs”, ”Soon Bush will join Hitler in hell”, ”Satan’s puppet — Bush”.
Others chanted slogans such as ”down with killers, down with Bush,” and ”one oppressor, one bullet”.
Shahied Mohammed of the anti-war coalition said the hatred for imperialism completely overshadowed the hatred for the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
He demanded that South Africa immediately withdraw its ambassadors to the US, Britain and Spain, and expel those country’s representatives in this country.
The government should mobilise other African states to do the same, and should call for a special session of the United Nations to condemn the war, and force the US and Britain to pay reparations to the people of Iraq, Mohammed said.
The coalition is staging a 24 hour picket outside the consulate and plans to march on Parliament and the British and American consulates next weekend. – Sapa