As "our" government supports every decision of the US administration, and former president Havel signed the letter of "eight", expressing complete support for the Bush-Iraq policy, people feel not just betrayed but angry. That is reason why so many people joined today’s protests which for the Czech Republic were quite large.

Prague demonstrations show opposition to war

There were two demonstrations against war in Prague. We participated on the smaller one of 500 people which had a large proportion of young people who were demonstrating for the first time. The Initiative against War (composed of unorganised youth and left groups including ourselves, Socialistická alternativa Budoucnost [CWI – Czech Republic]) called this demonstration. It was joined by by people from international communities living in Prague in organisations such as the International Peace March and Palestinian students. Our slogans were not just against war, but also against Bush and Hussein. We sold nearly 80 of the new issue of our newspaper as well as a number of copies of an anti-war statement we produced. We also met a number of young people who are interested in working with us as part of a socialist anti-war campaign.

The second demonstration was organised by the Communist party with between 1000-1500 people, mostly party members, but also few unorganised, on it.

These demonstrations together with the publicity about the protests internationally will give a huge boost to the anti-war movement. Our call for a student strike against the war was enthusiastically taken up by those school studetns we met.

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