JAKARTA/CAIRO, 31 March 2003 — More than 100,000 Indonesians marched on the US Embassy yesterday in the country’s largest demonstration against the Iraq war to date, while South Koreans intensified their protests against a proposal to send non-combat troops to the Gulf. Students at China’s elite Peking University staged a quiet demonstration against the US-led war, in a rare instance of campus political activism permitted by Chinese authorities.
Chanting “America imperialist, number one terrorist!” more than 100,000 Indonesians peacefully marched 1-1/2 km from the British Embassy to the US Embassy in Jakarta. Some witnesses estimated the crowd was as large as 300,000. Protesters wore headbands saying “Peace, No War” and carried banners that read “Bush, Iraq is not your killing field” and “Hang Bush Now.”
Outside the US Embassy, speaker after speaker demanded the United States pull out of Iraq and called for US President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Australian Prime Minister John Howard to be tried as war criminals.
“Bush is the real evil and the real terrorist,” Amien Rais, speaker of Indonesia’s top legislative body, told the cheering crowd.
In South Korea, 30,000 workers protested the war and demanded that the National Assembly reject a government bill that calls for dispatching 600 military engineers and 100 medics to support the war.
About two dozen students at Peking University set up signboards with pictures of wounded Iraqi citizens and held up letters spelling “No War” in English. “I’m against the war, we all are,” said a female student who identified herself as Zhou. “America’s too ferocious.” Some 15,000 university students staged an anti-war protest in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria yesterday, burning US and British flags and calling for “holy war” to help the Iraqis. “No to opening the Suez Canal to the enemies, salute to the Iraqi steadfastness,” said a statement issued by the Alexandria University students and faxed to The Associated Press.
The Egyptian government has come under criticism at home for allowing US and British ships to cross the Suez Canal to take part in the war against Iraq. Another three US cruisers were crossing the strategic waterway yesterday. In the Nile Delta city of Mansoura, another 15,000 people, mainly members of Egypt’s ruling National Democratic Party, staged an anti-war protest.
In Cyprus, police said some 5,000 Greek Cypriots marched on the British Air Force Base at Akrotiri to protest the war, the largest such demonstration held on the Mediterranean island since the conflict started March 19. In Jordan, some 300 journalists marched in the capital Amman chanting anti-war slogans and condemning the stance of some Arab governments toward the war. “Bush, be patient we will dig your grave” was among slogans chanted by the protesters. Several hundreds students marched inside the University of Jordan, calling for “holy war” against the “American and Zionist enemies.”
In Sudan, more than 600 non-government organization workers rode in trucks, pickups and marched through the capital, Khartoum, urging the UN to work to alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi people.
