March 19, 2006	Sunday	Safar 18, 1427

ROME, March 18: Demonstrations marking the third anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq drew thousands of people in cities around Europe on Saturday, as polls show most Europeans remain opposed to the occupation.

Anti-war sentiment appeared to be the strongest in Rome, where tens of thousands took to the streets, carrying signs ‘Stop the war in Iraq’ and ‘No to the war for oil’.

“Iraq is on the brink of civil war. This war must be stopped before it degenerates into a conflict of civilisations,” said Fausto Bertinotti, head of the Refounded Communist Party (PRC), one of the leftist groups behind the demonstration, taking place about three weeks before Italy’s April 9-10 legislative elections.

The ruling centre-right government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a strong ally of US President George Bush, sent nearly 3,000 Italian soldiers to Iraq despite the objections of a majority of Italians.

In London, police estimated a crowd of 15,000 showed up for the anti-war march, still a far cry from the 2003 demonstration that mobilised one million protestors.

The city’s Mayor Ken Livingstone made an appearance at the event in Trafalgar Square which peace groups had organised to demand the immediate withdrawal of 8,000 British troops, the second largest military contingent after the United States in Iraq.

“Three years after the invasion, this government has not learnt one lesson. You cannot build democracy with bombs,” said Robert Brown, a teacher from Oxford who came to the march with his family.

Some 64 per cent of Britons say they are against the Iraq war, according to a Populus poll conducted last month.

A turnout of several thousand people was reported at demonstrations in Denmark, Greece and Turkey.

In Athens, nearly 2,000 protestors marched to the US embassy, led by Palestinian immigrants who chanted anti-American slogans, “Get the imperialists out of Iraq and Afghanistan”, and “Bush is terrorist Number One”.

Protests were also held outside US facilities at Souda military base on the island of Crete and in Greece’s second city of Salonika.

The latest opinion poll published in the Greek daily Kathimerini on Saturday showed that 85 percent of those surveyed considered the invasion of Iraq a mistake, compared with three percent who said it was “just”.

Demonstrators in Istanbul, led by leftist and Islamist groups, called for the American troops to pull out of Iraq with banners saying “United States, go home”.

Turkish public opinion has been nearly unanimous in opposing the US-led invasion of Iraq, a neighbouring country. In March 2003 as US troops invaded Iraq, the Turkish government refused to allow US soldiers to pass through Turkey, thereby preventing an opening of a second front in northern Iraq.

The call for US troops to leave Iraq was echoed at a small demonstration in Nicosia on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, an EU member.

“We call for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. At the same time, we demand that those who created the problems resolve them,” said Andros Kyprianou, a spokesman for the Akel communist party, the biggest party in the Cypriot parliament.

An Iraqi asylum seeker, 30-year-old Mohammad Ahmad, said it was time for the Americans to leave his homeland “but not before speeding up the formation of the government and security forces,” he said.

In Copenhagen, some 3,000 people took to the streets, organisers and police said, with banners reading “Bring back the troops now”. Demonstrators rallied outside the US embassy before marching on to the British embassy. Police said one arrest was made.

In Stockholm, where a few hundred people braved the cold and falling hail to gather at an outdoor rally in the Swedish capital, the mother of a British soldier killed in Iraq took the stage, putting the blame on the US and British leaders.

“George Bush and Tony Blair are liars. They sent my son to war. I am not going to see him again and it’s wrong.” —AFP

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