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4,000 Spaniards call for end to U.S. "occupation" of Iraq(EFE Ingles Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)Madrid, Mar 19 (EFE).- Some 4,000 people protested here Sunday against the "U.S. occupation of Iraq," expressing their support for the "resistance" of the Iraqi and Palestinian people and demanding that the Spanish government withdraw its troops from Afghanistan and Haiti. On the third anniversary of the start of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the demonstrators here marched through several downtown streets to the foreign ministry at the behest of some 30 leftist social and political organizations. Writer Belen Gopegui publicly read a manifesto representing the stance of the marchers in which they said that the administration of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero was "complicit" in what they called the U.S. strategy of global war that had involved the Spanish government in "imperialist adventures in the service of the Spanish multinationals, which are not part of our people." "The announced withdrawal of Spanish troops from Haiti," read the communique, "includes an implied stepping up of Operation Enduring Freedom in the Afghan theater of operations." Spain maintains a contingent of 264 soldiers in Afghanistan who are integral members of the ISAF international security and assistance force there, and it has another 200 troops in Haiti assigned to the U.N. Minustah peacekeeping mission and whose return to Spain has been scheduled for April 5. During the march, which transpired without incident, the demonstrators shouted slogans against NATO and against "looting and torture" in Iraq. One of the placards carried by the protesters called for justice for Jose Couso, the Telecinco cameraman who was killed on April 3, 2003, in the attack on Baghdad by a U.S. tank round fired at the hotel where foreign journalists were housed. Among the marchers were members of the United Left, Red Current, Civic Union for the Republic, the General Labor Confederation and other unions and anti-capitalist and anti-globalization organizations. Similar protests were held on the weekend in dozens of cities worldwide, although mainly in Europe. EFE jl/bp |