arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

Brussels. March 20th. Some 500 to 1000 people braved the whether in Brussels to protest against Bush. This snapshot of the cultural manifestation in Brussels on Sunday 20th against the visit of president Bush, as opening to the street manifestations on Monday and Tuesday, gives a good idea of what the protesters want to say to the president of the United States, over in Brussels to get the Europeans on his side. The slogan you see on the pillars of the Brussels Stock Exchange, is a quote. It comes from Hans von Sponeck, former UN Humanitarian coordinator in Iraq (who resigned over the sanctions), from a mail he wrote to support this action.

It summarizes, according to the organizers, all the criticisms against the Bush-administration. That it is responsible for crimes against peace and the crimes against international law and the war crimes that come with it, for crimes against human rights (from Patriot Act to Guantànamo and Abu Graib) and against the planet (by not implementing Kyoto), that it is responsible for the organised theft and plunder of the resources of the world. On these levels the politics of president Bush are considered by the protesters and a large part of the Belgian and European public as a form of extremism, as the worse possible scenario that America as a world leader can write out to the planet.

It is not by incident that the human rights organizations, the environmentalist movement and the peace movement have joined force - 80 organisations subscribed the platform, from the big NGO’s to the small organisations. They have joined forces to appeal to their whole basis in civil society to come to Brussels and protest. It might be called a beautiful touch that it is intellectuals and artists who open this wave of protest; independently from these NGOs, but in solidarity with them.

The manifestation on Sunday was organized by the BRussells tribunal, a temporary citizens initiative that organized a Russell-like tribunal against the ‘Project for the New American Century’ (the think tank behind the imperial war policies of the Bush administration) and its role in the invasion of Iraq. The BRussells Tribunal is part of the World Tribunal on Iraq, a series of hearings all over the planet on all aspects of the war in Iraq.

Lieven De Cauter
BrusselsTribunal

So many dead....and all for nothing. We must quit this path of tired desperation....rise up, and end the genocide and planet raping.