Millions swell anti-war protests

5am

MADRID - Millions of demonstrators turned out again yesterday in huge global protests against the United States-led war in Iraq.

Around 50 people, including 18 policemen, were injured during clashes in central Madrid between police and youths who had taken part in a huge anti-war protest.

Around one million people took to the streets throughout Spain, calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, who has strongly supported the military intervention against Baghdad.

They included about a quarter of a million people who joined a peaceful march though Madrid, crying "No to war!" "Aznar resign!" and "Murderers!".

About half a million people demonstrated in the north-eastern city of Barcelona and tens of thousands more attended anti-war rallies in Valencia, Bilbao, Santander, Granada, Pamplona and Seville.

In London yesterday half a million people - just one-third of the biggest of the pre-war marches but still a solid demonstration, including ordinary people as well as rent-a-crowd protesters - marched from two sites into Hyde Park.

The demonstrators took almost five hours to walk the 3km into the park, shepherded by a friendly and limited police presence.

Elsewhere in England some of the protests were met by a less friendly police presence.

In Menwith Hill, in Yorkshire, where the main European link in the Son of Star Wars defence system is being built, 1000 demonstrators were met by 800 police, including 200 riot police armed with night sticks.

Demonstrators, including families who had arrived with picnics, were set on as they gathered.

In London on Saturday, as bombs were falling in Baghdad, the supreme irony was a huge fireworks display and gathering in Finsbury Park, on the edge of central London, to celebrate the Middle Eastern start of the year. The area has a large number of refugees from Iraq, Iran and Turkey.

The festival is a celebration of the spring solstice, an event widely celebrated, particularly by Kurds.

Festivals have taken place in Finsbury Park for several years, promoted by north London Kurdish organisations.

The fireworks were exploded for almost an hour, with their thumps punctuated by police sirens, echoing from outside the bombing raids that were being shown on television screens.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators also took to the streets in cities across America yesterday.

Marchers stretched more than 5km down Broadway in New York City, chanting "No Blood for Oil" and carrying signs such as "Support Our Troops. Bring Them Home," "Peace is Patriotic" and "You Can't Save A Country By Bombing It." Unofficial estimates put the crowd at 150,000 to 250,000.

"It's the wrong war at the wrong time in the wrong place," said New York City schoolteacher David Gurowsky.

Shopkeepers along the route joined the spectacle. Tea shop owner Miriam Novalle held up a sign reading "Make Tea, Not War."

The sentiments echoed from coast to coast.

In San Francisco, streets downtown were closed for a third day as tens of thousands of demonstrators rallied in front of city hall before marching through the city in a thick stream running for as many as 10 blocks.

The protest was peaceful and without incident, in contrast to the arrests of more than 2100 people since Friday in daily anti-war demonstrations in the city.

Protesters also gathered in Hollywood, Chicago and Washington.

Rallies in support of President George W. Bush, whom opinion polls show gaining public backing for the war, took place in Chicago and in California's capital, Sacramento.

In Washington, between 200 and 300 people rallied across from the White House in Lafayette Park for about an hour before marching through the streets.

"Bush Does Not Speak For Me," said one protest sign.

Bush, whose handling of Iraq is backed by 70 per cent of Americans, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll released yesterday, was staying at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland.

In Chicago, about 600 to 700 people rallied in support of the war at Federal Plaza, the site of anti-war protests each day since the war began.

In Montreal, organisers said as many as 200,000 people massed to voice their objections, though police refused to give a crowd figure for the gathering, called by "Stop the War," a coalition of more than 190 groups.

"Stop the empire," "No to Bush-ery," and "No Bush, no Bombs" read banners as they passed the United States Consulate on their way to the main federal Government building in Montreal.

Anti-war rallies in Asia's Muslim nations were largely subdued, as thousands of protesters waving placards took to the streets across the region.

About 2000 protesters rallied outside the heavily fortified US Embassy in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, shouting anti-US slogans before marching to the United Nations office a few blocks away.

In neighbouring Malaysia, which has a Muslim majority, about 8000 people shouted "Destroy America" as they took part in a "peace run" in eastern Kelantan state.

Officials cancelled a similar event in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, fearing it could stoke emotions.

In Muslim Bangladesh, protesters burned American flags and in the capital, Dhaka, called for an immediate halt to hostilities as an alliance of political parties and Muslim groups enforced a half-day general strike. There were no reports of violence.

In South Korea, some 3000 protesters, including students and religious leaders, gathered in the capital, Seoul, to protest against the war and their Government's decision to send up to 700 non-combat troops to assist the war.

Nearly 5000 men and women marched to the US Embassy in the Indian capital, New Delhi.

Some carried bottles, which they said contained a mixture of blood and petrol, and shouted: "Take this, this is what you want, and stop attacking Iraq."

- REUTERS, HERALD CORRESPONDENT