ISLAMABAD, 16 February 2003 — Schoolgirls, writers, doctors, lawyers, peace activists and trade unionists were among more than 3,000 Pakistanis marching yesterday against war on Iraq, burning US flags and cursing US President George W. Bush.
In the violence-wracked commercial city Karachi, around 1,000 anti-war protesters gathered outside the local press club before marching toward the main Sadar market, torching effigies of Bush and chanting “Bush and Blair are terrorists,” and “No to war, yes to peace”.
Some protesters paraded through the eastern city of Lahore’s ancient walled quarter, waving placards. In the northern city of Rawalpindi some protesters were seen making their way through its crowded bazaars.
Rain drove over 700 protesters inside mosques in the religiously conservative northwest city of Peshawar. “Muslim countries should unite against America, otherwise Muslims all over the world will topple pro-US governments,” said Maulana Muhammad Yusuf of the Jamaat-e-Islami (party). “World peace is in danger from US foreign policies.”
In the central city of Multan, 300 protesters chanted “No blood for oil” and carried placards inscribed with “Bush: Don’t kill thousands for a personal grudge.” Protests have been noticeably small in Pakistan despite the heavy rhetoric of the religious right, whose firebrand preachers have threatened that no American citizen or facility would be safe if Iraq was attacked.
Newspaper editorials and commentaries have been urging Pakistan to use its non-permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council to vote against any use of force on Iraq.
President Pervez Musharraf told his US counterpart George W. Bush in a telephone call Friday that war “was not a good option,” the government announced yesterday. Musharraf’s comment came when he was telephoned by Bush on Friday “to discuss the (UN) Security Council’s consideration of the situation in Iraq”, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
“(Musharraf) emphasized that while it was agreed that (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein had to fully comply with the UN resolutions, war was not a good option,” the statement said. While Pakistan has consistently spoken against unilateral US military action and called for the Iraqi crisis to be resolved peacefully through UN resolutions, it has not openly spelled out how it would vote on the question of using force against Baghdad.
The White House said on Friday that during their telephone conversation Bush and Musharraf had agreed on the need for Iraq to “comply completely” with UN disarmament resolutions. In an apparent increase of pressure on Security Council members, “Bush stressed the need for the Security Council to act decisively and on as unified a front as is possible”, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said in Washington.
Islamabad has issued several calls to Baghdad to do its bit to avoid war, while Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali has toured Gulf countries lobbying for peaceful solutions. (AFP)
