This is part of an up-date email I receive from the Brixton Stop The War coalition. I can't make some of this because I am away working, but it'd be way cool if anyone was able to be present and let us know what happens.
Details as follows:
1) The war preparations and the opposition
The last week saw stepped-up war preparations and increasing opposition to it.
The British government announced the sending of an extra 26,000 troops - a quarter of the British army - to the Middle East. The United States announced the despatch of an extra 37,000 troops and two aircraft carrier battle groups to the region.
Both George Bush and Tony Blair restated their willingness to launch a war without a further UN Security Council resolution, and Bush repeated that the United States is prepared to "go it alone".
Meanwhile, France, Germany, Russia and China have all increasingly expressed their opposition to war on Iraq any time in the near future.
On Saturday 18th around 300,000 people demonstrated against war in Washington DC and tens of thousands did the same in San Francisco. Demonstrations and other anti-war actions were held around the world the same day, including in Britain.
A range of powerful anti-war events were held in South London:
* On Friday 17th thousands of home-bound people saw the "Standing Up Against War" vigil outside Brixton Library Gardens; hundreds of vehicles "hooted for peace".
* On Saturday 18th 45 people came to the picket of the local MP, who supports the government line, at his surgery in Balham.
* On Monday 20th people gathered on Clapham Common to oppose war and called on passing traffic to "hoot for peace"
* On Tuesday 21st 700 people attended a public meeting in Brockley
* On Wednesday 22nd 100 people came to a West Norwood public meeting and film show; many had to stand or sit on the floor.
2) Every Thursday 7.30PM: Brixton Stop the War organising meeting at the Dogstar, Coldharbour Lane, Brixton - all welcome
3) Every Friday 5-7PM: "Standing Up Against War" Outside Brixton Library Gardens
4) Sunday 26th January 12 noon
"No Basis for War - No Bases for War"
United States Airforce Base Fairford, Gloucestershire
A "pre-emptive weapons inspection" of USAF Fairford, which has been specially upgraded to handle American B2 stealth bombers for the bombing of Iraq
Details: www.gwi.org.uk
Coach leaving London for the action from Euston at 9AM and returning in the evening around 7PM; seats cost £10, concessions £5; phone 07817 061183 or email: fairfordcoachlondon@hotmail.com
7) Monday 27th January from 6.30PM until he leaves
Protest at the visit of Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon,
at Lambeth Town Hall, Acre Lane, Brixton
The crisis in the Labour party has grown so deep that they have had to send the Defence Secretary himself, in the middle of planning a major war, to try to dampen down the opposition. He will be holding a "Question and Answer Session" for local Labour Party members in the Town Hall.
Labour Party members are encouraged to go in and ask pointed questions. Everybody else is encouraged to be outside to give him the reception he deserves.
If you can bring relevant banners, placards etc, so much the better. The meeting is scheduled to go on until 9.30PM.
6) Thursday 30th January 5-7PM "No Licence to Kill - No War on Iraq"
Vigil/Protest at MI6 Building, south side of Vauxhall Bridge
Vauxhall tube; meet at 5PM at the junction of Vauxhall Bridge and Albert Embankment or come later and join in
"MI6", headquartered in Lambeth, is officially the "Secret Intelligence Service" of the British Foreign Office. As such, it would have had a major part in producing the British government's "dossier" published last September. This was meant to prove the Iraqi "threat". But weapons inspectors have found no evidence at all since then to back the dossier up, and it has "sunk without trace".
And MI6 has a long and bloody history in Iraq and the whole Middle East stretching back through the 1990s, the 1980s and for decades before that.
7) Saturday 1st February 10.30-3.30
Conference: No War on Iraq - Reclaim the Party for Peace
Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, Holborn
Speakers include Tony Benn * Barry Camfield Assistant General Secretary TGWU * Jeremy Corbyn MP * Mark Seddon Tribune editor and Labour NEC member * Ann Black Labour Party National Policy Forum * Sabah Jawad Iraqi Democrats Against War and Sanctions * Keith Bennett former editor Asian Times * David McKenzie Trident Ploughshares * Betty Hunter Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Panel discussions on War on Iraq * The US drive to war * Changing party policy
Organised by Labour CND
8) Friday 14th February
Central London Rally against war on Iraq
also Anti-war comedy event
Details: www.stopwar.org.uk
9) Saturday 15th February Assemble 12 noon, Embankment, London
National Demonstration - No War on Iraq!
March from Embankment to Rally in Hyde Park on the international Day of Protest in at least 12 capital cities across Europe, in the USA and around the world. |
