AROUND 150 members of the ‘Stop the War Alliance’ protested yesterday outside the United States embassy in Nicosia against a potential war in Iraq.
The protesters, including Iraqis, Palestinians and Cypriots, gathered in Nicosia’s Eleftherias Square at around 11am and marched to the heavily fortified embassy.
The noisy but mostly peaceful demonstrators waved Iraqi and Palestinian flags and carried placards, blew whistles and beat drums, chanting ‘We are all Iraqis’ and ‘We are all Palestinians’.
Police used barbed wire and blockades to seal the embassy off from the demonstrators.
Some protesters threw containers of red paint on to the tarmac in front of the embassy buildings.
Green Party deputy George Perdikis said his party opposed the “Anglo-American war against the people of Iraq”, and accused the government of providing facilities to turn Cyprus into a base for war operations against a neighbouring country.
The secretary-general of the Cyprus Peace Council, Donis Christofinis, said they had assembled in front of the US embassy to protest “against (US President George) Bush, (British Prime Minister Tony) Blair, and other imperialists who planned to attack for the oil in Iraq”.
“It is hypocrisy and a lie that they are supposedly going for the good of the people of Iraq, to rid them of (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein, who was put there by the Americans themselves, like they did with (Saudi terrorist Osama) bin Laden,” Christofinis said.
The Stop the War Alliance is a mixture of several organisations, activists and people from the Palestinian and Arab community living in Cyprus.
The Alliance has said it is planning to stage another demonstration at the Dhekelia SBA near Larnaca on February 15.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
