Anti-War Protests Grow

The more fierce war becomes, so does the antiwar movement.

Getting into the third day of the war, or on March 22, millions of people took to the streets around the world, including France and Germany where the antiwar movement is centered. Voices opposing the war were heard even in Spain and Australia, countries that have officially announced their support for coalition forces as led by the United States and Britain.

More than 200,000 people got together in New York to rally against the ongoing war on Iraq. The antiwar demonstrators picketed on the street, walking down south for about 30 blocks from Broadway in Manhattan. South Korean college students also joined in the rally. The police arrested 74 demonstrators when the demonstration continued over the allocated time limit.

In San Francisco, 2,200 people had already been rounded up by the police for demonstrations that lasted for two days prior to March 22. Again on Saturday, tens of thousands of people took to the streets in opposition to the ongoing war. Another thousand demonstrators rallied in Hollywood, L.A., and accused CNN and other U.S. news media of their biased coverage of the war towards the Bush administration.

Chanting slogans like "war for oil," hundreds of people demonstrated in front of the Rose Garden on Pennsylvania Avenue, in Washington, D.C.

France, a nation spearheading the antiwar demonstration, watched hundreds of thousands of demonstrators rally against the war in major cities including Paris and Marseilles. Especially in Paris, some 150,000 demonstrators took to the street, chanting "Bush is a killer." In other cities, McDonald`s restaurants were attacked by mobs throwing stones and firecrackers.

40,000 Germans rallied in Berlin, and skirmishes flared up across Italy. Also in each of the major northern European nations like Norway and Sweden, ten to twenty thousand demonstrators rallied against the war.

In Hyde Park, London, about 100,000 British people gathered to accuse Tony Blair`s decision to participate in the war.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar had a tough day due to his decision to engage in the U.S.-led war. 250,000 people demonstrated in the capital Madrid, and 750,000 in Barcelona, urging him to resign. In Santiago, Chile, a bomb exploded near a U.S. bank branch.

In Cairo, Egypt, 20,000 college students burned the flags of the United States, Britain and Israel, and demanded that their government send troops to assist Iraq. In the meanwhile, in downtown Cairo, some 1,000 lawyers waged a sit-in against the war. In Gaza Strip, Israel, 10,000 Palestinians waved the flag of Hamas, an Islamic fundamentalist group. Violent demonstrations ensued all day in countries like Indonesia, Sudan and Bahrain.

Jei-Gyoon Park Kwan-Hee Hong phark@donga.com konihong@donga.com