SEVEN thousand mainly young people from London and across the country marched to demand the withdrawal of British and American troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and to support the Palestinian people, as new US President Barack Obama arrived in London on Wednesday.
At the same time, tens of thousands of young people laid siege to the Bank of England and the City of London, condemning the bankers and capitalists for the way the lives of millions of ordinary people were being destroyed to pay for their crisis.
They stood fast all day and throughout the evening despite vicious police attacks and police actions that led to a total of 90 arrests.
The police during the day divided the crowds of demonstrators into small segments and pushed them around the area and compressed them so that many demonstrators were complaining that they were being crushed.
During the intense action, one demonstrator collapsed and later died. The cause of death is yet to be medically established.
In the evening, the police cleared Bishopsgate with an attack by riot police with shields and clubs.
Demonstrators outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square were shocked with the way that US President Obama was openly setting out for a big war in Central Asia, centred not on Afghanistan but Pakistan.
US drones have already killed Pakistani villagers near the border of Afghanistan, and US troops are poised to conduct ‘raids’ into Pakistan from their bases in Afghanistan.
Some people also carried placards on Wednesday’s demonstration that assembled outside the US Embassy, demanding ‘Don’t Attack Iran’.
As they assembled, youth led chants of ‘Occupation is a crime, Israel out of Palestine!’, ‘Free, free Palestine!’, ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine must be free!’, ‘No justice, no peace, troops out of the Middle East!’, ‘In our millions, in our billions, we are all Palestinians!’
They continued with more slogans including: ‘Barack Obama, yes we can, troops out of Afghanistan!’, ‘From Afghanistan to Iraq, people want their freedom back!’ and ‘Occupation is a crime, from Iraq to Palestine!’
Among the banners on the march were those from Cambridge Stop The War Coalition, CND, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Huddersfield Stop The War, Bristol Stop The War, Bath CND, NUJ Press and PR branch, Brent Stop The War and Chesterfield Stop The War.
Another banner read: ‘We ARE the change’.
There were also chants from demonstrators of ‘Close down all US bases’.
A contingent from the Workers Revolutionary Party and the Young Socialists kept up their chants all through the demonstration, that ended in Trafalgar Square.
Their demands included: ‘Free, free Palestine!’, ‘End the war in Afghanistan – troops out now!’, ‘Capitalism is bankrupt – socialism now!’ and ‘Victory to Palestine, smash Zionism now!’
Aleesha Hansell, a student at London Met University, said: ‘All of us as a social body need to take responsibility for each other, otherwise it will just end in complete obliteration of the world.’
Rick Tatem, from the Queen Mary Stop The War Society, said: ‘I am on the demonstration to oppose the neo-liberal global economic policies.
‘And I think the way the US have handled the occupation in Iraq has been awful and Afghanistan has suffered too much already because so many countries have fought over it.’
Rachel, from Nottingham, said: ‘I’ve just been at the other protest where the police were really violent.
‘People were being corralled into a tight corner and they were being pushed from all angles.’
Vicky Teddar said: ‘We’re part of the Student CND of the University of Kent and just feel there’s no point in wasting money on nuclear weapons when there’s much bigger issues at hand, such as climate change and inequality.’
Mark Tyler from Bristol said: ‘I want to see them immediately withdraw the British troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.
‘Obama is here and he has the biggest influence as a world leader and he could start the withdrawal now and it does trouble me that he is intending on sending more troops to Afghanistan and I can’t see the logic behind that.
‘And I think there are much, much better ways we can help Iraq and Afghanistan with all the money we are pumping into these wars.’
John Rees, a Stop The War Coalition spokesman, said: ‘It could be a turning point.
‘President Obama was elected at least in part because of the anti-war sentiment in the United States.
‘He’s given a commitment to quit Iraq and we want to make sure that commitment is kept, but that the commitment to deploy troops in increased numbers to Afghanistan is a commitment he breaks.
‘The Afghan war is a disastrous lost cause and no more people need to lose their lives and we need to spend no more money on it.
‘We will return in much larger numbers to the streets if the war continues to be expanded.
‘The Americans are already bombing in Pakistan and the demonstrations over Gaza earlier this year show that very large numbers of people are still willing to demonstrate over these issues and that they are even angrier than when the movement began.’
Natasha Diumma, from London, said: ‘I’m just here because I think it’s really important that we are not apathetic.
‘We are demanding the withdrawal of the troops immediately.
Tim Harris from Somerset said: ‘I’ve been opposed to the war from the word go.
‘It’s not about liberating people at all, it’s about oppressing people.
‘Troops have to be taken out. Instead of dropping bombs on people, economically improve their lives.’
Sean Mulgrew, from London, said: ‘I think troops shouldn’t have been there in the first place and we should sort out our own country before we try and go and sort out other countries.
‘I’m for a socialist system. It needs that, because it’s proved that what we’ve got now isn’t working.’
Miriam Marks was next to a banner demanding that G20 governments prioritise eradicating hunger over spending on arms.
She said: ‘At the University of East London we have a Stop The War Society and we’re not happy with the system in place at the moment. It’s obviously not working.
‘They spend so much money on weapons and war and a tiny fraction of that can be used to eradicate poverty and end world hunger.
‘Do they just want their own interests or do they want to listen to the people that they’re governing?
‘And we want the troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan now.’
Many people were waving Palestinian and Iraqi flags at Wednesday’s demonstration and a rally in Trafalgar Square was addressed by speakers from CND, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the Stop The War Coalition.
Jeremy Corbyn MP condemned the anti-immigration and asylum laws in the wake of the drowning of hundreds of migrant workers and refugees in the Mediterranean Sea.
Keith Sonnet, deputy-general secretary of UNISON, said: ‘We demand the troops come home now.’
Sonnet also called for a boycott of Israel.
Writer Victoria Brittain said that British resident Shakar Amah, who was held alongside Binyam Mohamed in Guantanamo Bay, is still being detained by the United States and demanded immediate action by Britain to release him.
Lindsey German from the Stop The War Coalition called for a big demonstration outside the G20 summit and condemned the capitalist media for their slurs against the anti-war and anti-capitalist movement.
Former miners’ leader Arthur Scargill condemned the ‘increased slaughter in Afghanistan’ and added: ‘We want an end to all wars throughout the world and an end to all slaughter.’
He demanded a ban on all goods from Israel until the slaughter of the Palestinian people was halted.
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