POLITICS-SOUTH AFRICA: Anti-War Protesters Join Millions Around the Globe

By Farah Khan Reprint | | Print |

CAPE TOWN, Feb 15 2003 (IPS) - At least 40,000 protesters in South Africa took to the tarmac in Cape Town and Johannesburg with a ringing anti-war message at the weekend, joining millions around the globe.

At the same time, South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki thrust the country into the middle of the peace effort by despatching a team of disarmament experts to Iraq, as part of the effort to stave off war.

”(Our people) prefer peace to war. They yearn for peace because they know from their experience that without peace there can be no development. Without peace we will fail in the effort in which we are engaged, to transform ours into a country of hope, and revert to the past on which we have turned our backs, a past of misery and despair,” said Mbeki in his annual state of the nation speech on Feb 14, kicking off a weekend in which the country nailed its colours to the blue mast of speech.

In Cape Town, a march of many shades of political and religious persuasion displayed how the anti-war message has broad acceptance and support. Babies pushed by their parents in prams emblazoned with posters made up the second row of the organisers. In the front row were leaders of the Anti-War Coalition and their midst included cabinet ministers, priests and imams in their hijab.

The main anti-war poster featured a ghostly grim reaper swathed in the U.S. flag’s stars and stripes. Other protests carried funnier messages like the group of drag queens, wearing elaborate dresses and carrying signs which read, ”War’s such a drag”. Another said, ”Time for regime change in the U.S.”. The United States is pushing for ”regime change” in Iraq as the main outcome of war.

It was a day which saw new definitions of demon and hero: British prime minister Tony Blair, U.S. President George Bush and Israel’s Ariel Sharon all came in for a drubbing. Osama bin Laden was hero for a day, his image decorating many T-shirts, declaring him ”innocent until proven guilty”. There was a large Muslim turnout for the Cape Town march, where the majority of the city’s population practices Islam.

The protest wound its way under Table Mountain, through the main Adderley Street and finally to a stop outside a desultory-looking United States consul general. A ring of barbed wire had been thrown up outside and the flag was furled into a ball, almost in fear. About 60 police officers stood guard until a U.S. representative collected a poster. Protestors stood peacefully at the barbed wire, listening to a series of speeches. Many threaded their posters into the barbed wire.

In Johannesburg, the protest also reflected a coalition unusual in South African politics, the differences put aside to deliver a message for global safety. ”Speakers attacked the government for allowing U.S. and U.K. warships on their way to Iraq to dock in Durban harbour; for parastatal Denel supplying the U.S. and U.K. armies with laser-guided sights and shell casings,” according to a march report.

Meanwhile, Mbeki’s Friday decision to send the disarmament experts to Iraq continued his efforts at diplomatic initiatives to ward off war. Mbeki has thrust South Africa into the international debate on whether an attack on Iraq is justified. Last week he sent an emissary – deputy Foreign Affairs minister Aziz Pahad – to Iraq, both as a show of solidarity and in an effort to get Iraq to co-operate wholeheartedly with weapons inspectors.

”These are the experts who led our country’s programme to destroy our nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction, as well as the missiles for the delivery of these weapons in combat,” said Mbeki. ”The apartheid state built up nuclear capability, which the democratic order has neutralised through a programme of disarmament.

Mbeki revealed that United Nations secretary-general Kofi Anan and Iraq had both acceded to the South African offer. This team had won international acclaim for its disarmament expertise and looked forward to sharing it with the Iraqi government, scientists, engineers and technicians.

While Mbeki has faced internal criticism for the ruling African National Congress’s increasingly strident criticism of the United States, a growing anti-war movement is providing mass support for his position. While Mbeki did not join the marches at the weekend, by devoting as much of his key annual speech to an anti-war message he also clearly laid his colours to the peace mast.

In addition to calling for Iraq’s ”respect for the decisions of the UN Security Council”, Mbeki said such respect for multilateralism was a responsibility of all countries. He called for ”respect by all countries of the principle and practice of multilateralism, for the continuing responsibility of the UN with regard to issues of international peace and security, and the peaceful resolution of international conflicts”.