------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the July 8, 2004 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
IRELAND, TURKEY: MASS PROTESTS GREET BUSH AT NATO SUMMIT
By John Catalinotto
The Bush administration faced potential setbacks on two levels at the NATO summit in Istanbul, Turkey, June 28-29: mass protests in the streets and lukewarm support from imperialist rivals in the alliance.
The mass mood against the U.S. occupation of Iraq was first made clear on June 25 in Dublin, Ireland. There, over 10,000 demonstrators, many wearing Bush masks, protested the U.S. president's visit.
Rallying under the "Stop Bush Campaign" banner, the crowd waved signs denouncing Bush as a warmonger. In particular, they called for an end to U.S. military flights through Dublin's Shannon Airport, a refueling point and layover for thousands of U.S. troops each month.
One group of 2,000 protesters tried to get closer to the castle where George W. Bush was meeting European leaders. Though police and military held them miles away from Bush, they still managed to delay his news conference by holding up reporters for an hour.
In Turkey, the demonstrators were determined not to let 23,000 police and troops stop them from waging an effective protest demanding an end to the occupation of neighboring Iraq. Already on June 26 several cities saw protest actions, from Diyarbakir in Turkish Kurdistan, to the capital, Ankara, where police attacked 5,000 NATO opponents with tear gas and clubs.
Solidarity protests took place the same day in London; Cologne, Munich, Stutt gart and Berlin, Germany; Amster dam, Netherlands; Vienna, Austria; Paris and Strassbourg, France.
Istanbul's 15 million residents are split by the Bosporus strait into a European and Asian half. Police refused to let the protest march in the European half, where the NATO summit was being held. On June 27, some 50,000 people marched in the Asian part of Istanbul. The Alli ance Against NATO and Bush-- a coalition including labor union confederations, the Turkish Com mun ist Party, the Freedom and Soli darity Party, and other communist and anarchist groups--called the action.
The Berlin Daily Junge Welt of June 27 quoted Sami Evren, chair of the Public Service Workers of Turkey, telling the crowd, "Today Istanbul is the center of anti-imperialism."
The crowd carried banners reading, "Yankees go home," "This is our country," and "United States murderers, leave the Middle East."
Protesters burned an effigy of the U.S. president. They wore anti-Bush and anti-NATO T-shirts.
As the NATO summit opened the following day, some 2,000 demonstrators bravely challenged thousands of police armed with tanks, as Turkish gunboats plied the Bosporus and helicopters and warplanes crisscrossed Istanbul's skies.
Police launched heavy tear-gas attacks on the protesters.
UNEASY ALLIANCE
The NATO meeting did underwrite the new Iraqi government and authorize additional NATO troops for Afghanistan. But help for the United States in Iraq will have its limitations.
The main continental European powers, France and Germany, had opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq last year. While the U.S. bombs were dropped on Iraqis, U.S. imperialism's monopoly control of Iraq's oil resources also threatened French and German economic interests. This could be seen when the occupation regime effectively cut French and German companies out of oil and construction contracts in Iraq.
Then reality struck. The Iraqi resistance showed that unilateral U.S. rule of Iraq is impossible. This forced Bush to seek international support for a failed occupation. Bush's original plan for the summit was to ask NATO to send troops to support the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq. When this was headed for failure, Bush pulled back.
France's President Jacques Chirac made this coldly clear on June 28. "I do not believe it is the purpose of NATO to be in or intervene in Iraq," he told journalists at Istanbul's military museum. "I believe there would be tremendous negative consequences of this." Chirac also attacked Bush for urging that the European Union admit Turkey as a member, calling this not part of Bush's "domain."
German Chancellor Gerhardt Schroeder and Spanish Prime Minister Juan Zap atero also made it clear they would not be sending troops to Iraq. It has become apparent that after U.S. imperialism attempted to cut out French and German interests completely, the European imperialists are not so quick to pull the U.S. irons out of the fire.
Even Bush's scaled-down request for NATO trainers of Iraqi security forces got only limited backing, though France, Germany and Spain did offer to train Iraqis outside Iraq.
Bush is trying to put a happy face on these results, as relations inside NATO have also become an issue in the U.S. national election. Democrat John Kerry claims he could get more help from the Europeans with the Iraq occupation.
"Today's papers are filled with stories about how angry these countries are at the way they've been treated by this administration," Kerry said on June 28. "It may well be that it takes a new president to be able to reestablish the relationships that wehad in the past."
The anti-imperialist demonstrators in Istanbul made it clear they had no confidence in either the U.S. or Western European imperialists. One big banner read, "Imperialism and NATO are the biggest enemies of peace."
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