Thousands of people marched through the streets of Vancouver against the
war on Iraq Saturday afternoon, March 22, 2003.
Along the way demonstrators closed the doors of businesses on Robson
Street, chanting "When people are dying, how can you be
buying?" A group of demonstrators spray-painted the wall of a
building, the street and the U.S. consulate building itself with
"Class War" and "Stop the war" slogans. A CityTV
corporate news van and a wall of the Art Gallery were spray-painted with
the anarchist circle A.
Demonstrators encircled the U.S. consulate and a group of students sat in
the street and blocked a road near the building for a short time.
The night before, on Friday, March 22, at 5pm about 200 people marched
through the streets of Vancouver against the war on Iraq.
A person in a red sports car drove right into the demonstration, speeding
up, hitting demonstrators and nearly killing several of them. Luckily
there were only minor injuries. Many people from the march chased after
the car but could not catch up. Reportedly someone got the license plate
of the vehicle. When one person who was hit by the car explained the
event to a police officer the cop responded by saying “I don’t care.”
The shocked but defiant group marched on to the Burrard Street Bridge,
stopped in the middle and blocked it off for a short time, yelling “US
out!”
The demonstrators then marched down to the US consulate and joined the
anti-war camp there.
On Thursday, March 20, hundreds of students walked out of classes,
marched around their campuses and then boarded busses to head downtown to
the US consulate. Throughout the day groups of students marched around
the city, sat and blocked streets and at one point sat down in front of a
Canadian Armed Forces Recruitment Centre.
Two fights broke out during the day outside the US consulate over
American flags. In the morning a man drove by in a car waving an American
flag and a demonstrator grabbed it and threw it on the ground. The man
got out of his car and a scuffle broke out as cops intervened and
demonstrators tugged on the flag. Eventually the flag was grabbed and
taken away. Later on, as demonstrators attempted to burn US and UK flags,
“peace activists” violently assaulted the demonstrators, pushing and
pulling, and grabbing the flags. At an anti-war rally later that night
demonstrators managed to climb on a platform and burn the US and UK flags
to the cheers of the crowd. A picture of George Bush was burned in effigy
as the crowd chanted, “burn Bush burn!”
On Wednesday night, hours after the beginning of the US-led war on Iraq,
hundreds of demonstrators gathered at the Vancouver Art Gallery in
opposition. The march through the streets of Vancouver that Wednesday
night arrived at the US consulate building, and the demonstrators
expressed their rage at the latest US imperialist attack. Later that
night a rock was thrown which smashed a window at the US consulate
building.
Link:
http://vancouver.indymedia.org
