TAUNTON
DEANE STOP THE WAR COALITION - PRESS RELEASE
Monday 14th April 2003
Acting Joint Co-ordinator:
Cllr. Alan Debenham
49 Clifford Avenue
Taunton TA2 6DL
Tel. 01823 321304
or 07753 447 669
PEACE DEMONSTRATORS APPALLED AT HORRORS OF IRAQI WAR
Taunton Deane Stop-the-War
Coalition sent several members and its banner to
the national Stop-the-War March & Rally in London on Saturday. The
enormous
turn-out of some 250,000 was uplifting for every peace campaigner to
continue the struggle to end the death and destruction in Iraq and to
bring
to justice the politicians and Generals who have inflicted this illegal
act
of such grotesque slaughter and dereliction against the Iraqi people.
There was a two minutes silence
as the march reached Parliament Square to
mark the horrendous deaths of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians and
even
more thousands maimed for life, all from the unopposed blitzrieg of US/UK
bombing and shelling. Equally the horrors of the tens of thousands of
Iraqi
soldiers blown to smithereens in many massacres all over Iraq were
commemorated. Thousands of Muslims - many of them Iraqis and other
Arabs -
attended, since the Muslim Association of Britain and CND are major
Stop-the-War co-sponsors.
Speaker after speaker at the
Rally in Hyde Park expounded the enormous
humanitarian and cultural disaster inflicted illegally upon Iraq by Bush
and
Blair. All named the war as an act of US pre-planned colonisation, via
illegal pre-emptive attack, to grab the country and its oil under the
pretences of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction - recently
changed to
‘regime change’ to suit the easy demonisation of Saddam Hussein.
According to most speakers,
Iraqis should have been the ones to remove
Saddam, not the mighty mass murdering and destroying invaders from US/UK.
Many said Bush and Blair, and all top armed forces personnel, would
ultimately pay the penalty for their war crimes against innocent Iraqis
in
sleepless nights thinking of all the children murdered or maimed and at
the
Hague, answering to international justice whence CND was already pursuing
High Court action.
Speakers included top Iraqi
and Palestinian representatives, as well as some
very distraught ordinary people with families in Iraq. Parliamentarians
included Tony Benn, Jeremy Corbyn, George Galloway, Michael Foot and the
Liberal Democrat defence spokesperson, followed by Trade Union and CND
speakers, Caroline Lucas and George Mackie.
Alan Debenham, TDSTWC joint organiser commented: “After hearing
the real
news of the enormous humanitarian disaster inflicted illegally upon Iraq
and
Iraqis, we are all sickened by it and ashamed to be British. Blair and
MPs
supporting the invasion must pay politically, as must our taxpayers for
the
enormous military costs and compensation claims. The real war is just
starting.”