Anti-war protesters march through the streets of Sydney

SYDNEY, March 20 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The Australians were the first to take to the streets Saturday, March 20, to mark the first anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion-turned occupation of Iraq, as massive rallies were planned worldwide for the same purpose.

Urged by church leaders and several community groups, the protesters marched through Sydney's downtown shopping district chanting “U.S. out of the Middle East, No Justice, No Peace,” U.S. daily The Washington Post reported.

“Many Australians are disappointed that the government ignored their voices," said Anna Sampson, one of the demonstrators.

In the northeastern Australian city of Brisbane, marchers unfurled a 300-foot-long banner with the words: “We still say no to war”.

They also held a lofty effigy of Prime Minister John Howard in a cage, saying it represented Australian terror suspects detained at the notorious U.S. military prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

They planned to bring down a fake statue of Howard, mocking the toppling last year of the statue of deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

“By the end of this 24-hour cycle, millions of people will have marched throughout the world asking their governments not to take them to war and to give them peace,” organizer Pamela Curr said.

Howard was one of the staunch supporters of the U.S.-led war to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan.

Australia sent 2,000 troops to fight in Iraq despite overwhelming public opposition to the war.

First U.S. Rally

Anti-war protesters block an entrance to the Bechtel Corporation San Francisco

In the United States, hundreds of protesters marched through the streets of San Francisco and Michigan Friday, March 19, setting stage for sweeping rally across the country.

They chanted anti-war slogans and carried signs to voice their opposition to the invasion, The New York Times said.

“We need to bring this unjust war to an end,” said Jack Heyman, of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.

One organizer with a loud speaker encouraged participants to take “autonomous action” and engage in civil disobedience.

Eleven people were arrested for blocking traffic, and another six protestors were arrested for trying to block the entrance to the corporate headquarters of Bechtel Corp., a large engineering firm that holds major contracts for reconstruction work in Iraq.

Protesters participated in yoga, flashed peace sings and wore colorful masks as they made their way through the city's streets.

Since the start of the war to occupy Iraq, up to 389 U.S. troops have been killed in resistance attacks -- 274 of them since Washington declared major combat over on May 1.

Large demonstrations were expected on Saturday in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, with big turnouts hoped for in up to 200 cities across the United States.

Rallies are expected later in Britain, Italy, Spain- whose governments supported the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

In London, thousands of balloons will be released in memory of those killed in the Iraq conflict and in the Madrid bomb attacks.

Amnesty International said in a new report Friday that over 10,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since March 20, 2003 as a “direct result” of the U.S.-led military offensive on Iraq.

Iraq’s March 

Iraqis protest the U.S. presence on their land (AFP)

In Iraq, up to three thousand Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites joint hands Friday in marking the anniversary, calling for an end to the U.S. occupation of their country. 

They took to the streets in a peaceful march after weekly midday prayers, saying they were opposed to U.S. military presence in Iraq as well as the deposed regime of Saddam. 

“No to Saddam. No to the Americans. Yes to Islam,” the worshippers chanted before leaving the Kazimiya mosque, one of the holiest Shiite shrines in Baghdad.

During the Friday sermon, Imam Saeed Hazim al-Araji deplored the situation in Iraq and blamed the post-war situation on the U.S. troops deployed in the country.

“Some Iraqis speak of liberation but most consider that it is an invasion and we are against this occupation,” he said. 

“What have the Iraqis gained from this occupation,” he asked, listing among the current woes the detention by U.S. troops of Muslim scholars and thousands of civilians. 

“We are all time-bombs at the service of the Hawza (the Shiite religious authority),” the imam told the worshippers, urging them to join ranks “with our Sunni brothers” against the U.S.-led occupation.

The Shiite worshippers left the mosque and headed for the neighborhood of Azamiya across the Tigris River to link up with Sunni protesters gathered outside one of their mosques.

There they mingled, holding up placards in Arabic and English denouncing “American terrorism”.

“Human rights have disappeared,” said one sign. Another called for the “end to destruction” in Iraq and a third condemned the “indiscriminate” firing of U.S. troops on suspects in the Iraqi capital.

“Occupation brought international terrorism to our land,” Sunni scholar Jawad Al-Khalissi said.

He blamed the U.S. presence in Iraq for nearly daily bombings and attacks that have rocked the war-battered country since major combat was declared over last May 1.

The latest deadly bombings devastated a Baghdad hotel, killing at least 17 people and injuring up to 40 others.

U.S. Arsenal

Greenpeace activists set up fake missiles in front of the U.S. embassy in Berlin (AFP)

Greenpeace activists also seized the occasion to protest outside the U.S. embassy in Berlin, Germany, calling on President George W. Bush to destroy U.S. weapons of mass destruction.

Around a dozen members of the environmental campaign group mounted plastic replicas of the Statue of Liberty and missiles, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported. 

In a statement , Greenpeace said that a year after the Iraq war, “we see once again that war is not the way to resolve conflicts.”

The group said the United States had 10,000 nuclear warheads against 8,000 in Russia, 400 in China, 350 in France and 180 in Britain.

Although security near the US embassy is extremely tight, the demonstration was allowed to go ahead by Berlin city authorities.

U.S. press reports condemned last year the U.S. army in Iraq for using excessive force, saying it should boast less about precision bombs, which claimed the lives of innocent Iraqi civilians.