JAKARTA, 29 November 2004 — Some 8,000 Indonesian Muslims yesterday staged a peaceful rally against a major US-led assault on Iraq’s rebel city of Fallujah, which has claimed 2,000 lives since earlier this month.
Protesters marched along Jakarta’s main thoroughfares to the US Embassy, chanting anti-American slogans and displaying posters critical of US President George W. Bush.
“How many more people must die because of Bush’s lies,” read leaflets handed out by the protestors, many of whom were women wearing headscarves and carrying babies.
“The US onslaught against Fallujah is an attack against Muslims because they destroyed mosques and killed innocent civilians,” a protester, as Abu Ammar, said.
Protesters also distributed leaflets carrying a picture of Bush alongside that of a monkey with a similar facial expression and a caption reading: “What’s the difference?”
The rally was organized by the Muslim group, Prosperous Justice Party, an increasingly popular organization which won 7.34 percent of votes in this year’s legislative elections.
The atmosphere at yesterday’s rally was more like a picnic than a street protest, with parents carrying babies and little children taking pictures at Jakarta’s landmark welcome statue before marching on to the US Embassy.
US and Iraqi forces engaged in the largest postwar military operation in Iraq when they thrust into the rebel stronghold of Fallujah to root out insurgents on Nov. 8.
Iraq’s National Security Adviser Qassem Daoud on Thursday said that more than 2,000 people had been killed in the assault and more than 1,600 captured.
Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country, was a vocal opponent of the US-led invasion of Iraq.
