The rally was organized by the Committee Against War on Iraq comprising many
revolutionary, democratic and anti-imperialist organizations. Before
starting the march, a public meeting was organized in the College Square,
which was addressed by many prominent anti imperialist individuals and the
representatives of mass organizations. Of the speakers, Nithish
Bhattacharya, one of the leaders of CPI (ML) in 70s, Kanchan Kumar, writer
and the representative of All India League for Revolutionary Culture
(AILRC), Naveen Prasad of MKSP, Bihar were the main.

The rally, started from the College Square at 2 p.m., marched through the
main streets of the city and reached the American Centre at 4 p.m.
Throughout the 2 hours rally, slogans like, "Stop War on Iraq", "No Blood
for Oil", "No More Deaths for Hegemony", "Down with Imperialism", Boycott
the Goods of US MNCs", "World's No 1 Terrorists: Bush and Blair" etc, were
reverberated through the streets of Kolkata. The protesters carried
thousands of posters proclaiming the similar slogans.

Just as the rally was about to reach American Centre, the police of the
so-called left government stopped the protesters. The organizers decided to
hold one more public meeting on the road itself. Asit Ghosh, Raj Kishore of
Struggling Forum for Peoples Resistance (SFPR) and Darshan Pal of All India
Peoples Resistance Forum (AIPRF) addressed this public meeting. All the
speakers while delivering their speeches strongly condemned the US led war
on Iraqi people. They exposed the Indian government for its dual policy
about the war. They called upon the people to boycott the American and
British goods.

This rally is the one of the three biggest anti-war gatherings in India
since the US started preparing itself for this war. Even small children
wearing red dresses participated in rally. Many cultural troops preformed
very impressive cultural programmes having the theme of anti-US led war on
Iraq. At the end of the programme, a big effigy of Bush and the flags of
both America and Britain were set ablaze.



G N Saibaba

General Secretary

AIPRF