arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

Big peace demonstrations in Rotterdam and elsewhere in The Netherlands

On Saturday 10 November, people gathered for one of many local demonstrations in The Netherlands for peace for the Afghan people in Rotterdam, on Plein 1940. Plein 1940 is called after May 1940, when Hitler's air force, the Luftwaffe, destroyed the city center of Rotterdam, killing many people.

Already at 1 pm, one hour before the official beginning, a band of Brazilian residents in The Netherlands took to the stage of the truck of Theaterstraat theatre company. Their age ranged from early teens to thirtyish. They concluded their Latin American songs with a call for peace and love for everyone.

Signs on the stage said: No to the new war. Stop Dutch participation in the war. Stop abolishing democratic rights. Stop war for oil and money. Against imperialism, for international friendship. Stop war propaganda in the media. Stop bombing the innocent. US and Taliban out of Afghanistan.

Then, two Afghan refugees resident in The Netherlands played Afghan music on keyboards. Next, guitarist/singer Jos Linnebank sang an anti-war song.

The meeting started officially with Ms Nelly Soetens laying flowers at the monument by sculptor Ossip Zadkine for the 1940 bombing, in memory of the Rotterdam people who died in May 1940, the New York people who died on 11 September, and the Afghan people dying day after day.

An Afghan studying medicine in The Netherlands said Afghanistan had been abused bloodily by Cold War strategists. Today, Bin Laden and the Taliban, products of the CIA, were used as pretext for killing the innocent Afghan people. It was extremely obvious to Afghans they would never trust Western governments. However, I call on the people of the Western countries to stand tall, to end this war!

Wytze de Lange of the National Platform against the New War spoke, opposing Dutch Prime Minister Kok. Kok had announced yesterday that 1300 Dutch soldiers would join George W. Bush's war "against terrorism" [maybe, according to analysts, in Somalia or Yemen or around the Arab/Persian Gulf]. Wim van Wijk of the local anti war movement strongly criticized the scapegoating of innocent Muslims by people like Silvio Berlusconi and European Union Commissioner Bolkestein.

A representative of the Leiden Anti War Committee asked the people of Rotterdam to come also to the peace demonstration in Leiden, Saturday 24 November, 2 pm, starting from the peace monument at the Garenmarkt. Also, on 14 December peace activists should be at the big demonstration against the pro corporate and militarist policy of the European Union in Brussels. A Moroccan, speaking in Spanish, also addressed the crowd.

Then, the demonstration through the city center of Rotterdam started. People varied from one year old in a perambulator to eightyish. From Mohican haired teenage punk rocker with anarchist sign to middle aged Yugoslav Dutch lady with anti depleted uranium sign. From African to Iranian refugee to (many) Afghan refugee. In front were banners of the local committee and a big red and yellow Stop the War Stop the cycle of violence banner. Around the middle, other banners said: An eye for an eye makes everybody blind. Kurdish people want peace. Near the end was the banner of the Free Mumia Abu Jamal Committee. One of the slogans which people shouted was familiar from demonstrations for this ex Black Panther political prisoner in the US, threatened by the death penalty: George Bush, we know you; your father is a killer too!, referring to Bush's love for the death penalty and the Gulf War. One could also hear: What do we want? Peace! When do we want it? Yesterday! For whom do we want it? Everyone! And: Stop the war, stop it now! One, two, three, four, we do not want war here; five, six, seven, let the Afghans live [Dutch: leven]! [Dutch Prime Minister] Kok, shame on you, blood is on your hands! George Bush, assassin (in French, by Moroccan Dutch). One could also hear slogans in Turkish and Kurdish. If one looked back at a big roundabout from the first ranks of the demonstration one could see very many demonstrators, but definitely not all. So, there were definitely over a thousand demonstrators, who got much support from clapping people on sidewalks and honking motorists on main roads. The end of the demonstration came, again, at Plein 1940.

There were also many demonstrations elsewhere in The Netherlands. On Friday 9 November, the day of the 1938 Nazi anti Semite "Kristallnacht", demonstrators in Leiden remembered the victims of Hitler; and of today. In a speech, Kok's decision to send Dutch soldiers to the Middle East was denounced. In Heerlen, the Kristallnacht was also remembered, with the local Afghan refugee community participating. In Amsterdam, there was a speaker of the Afghan Cultural Society at the Kristallnacht commemoration.

On 9 November, over 300 people joined an anti war demonstration in Wageningen, a small town with an agricultural educational institution in the Eastern Netherlands. Among the organizers were the Political Information Center Wageningen, Refugees Support Organization, and Syrian Kurds in The Netherlands.
There were speeches on civil liberties, the Kristallnacht, refugees, and of course the war. Around the march,
Food not Bombs Wageningen provided for soup, apples, and bread.

Many more actions against this war will happen around the world, until it is over.