Anti NATO demos last night
(21 Nov 2002)
Night Shots
1. Various anti-Nato demonstrations
STORYLINE:
Several hundred protesters gathered in downtown Prague on Wednesday to demonstrate against NATO and military conflicts, but heavy security and
chilly weather appeared to ease the threat of large-scale actions.
Supporters of the Czech Communist Party gathered at the picturesque Old Town square under damp and foggy skies to voice their disagreement with the alliance's existence and the two-day summit, which officially gets under way Thursday.
Marta Semelova, a Prague-based party official, said communists have always been opposed to NATO and the Czech Republic's membership in it. The country joined the
alliance in 1999 along with Hungary and Poland. «After the end of the Warsaw Pact, we consider it to be a useless organization,» Semelova said.
She said money spent to host the summit could have been better spent on repairs needed after devastating floods that struck the Czech capital and other parts of the
country in August.
Police estimated the crowd at 400 _ far smaller than the large and boisterous crowds that authorities said they were bracing for _ but demonstrators planned other events, including a protest to be staged in a quarter of Prague where NATO foreign ministers planned to dine.
About 250 people gathered at that site not far from Prague's famed Wenceslas Square, blowing whistles and banging drums. No violence was reported.
«We are planning to protest the dinner of the big shots, who will eat here while elsewhere people are dying,» protester Ondrej Slacalek told The Associated Press. Others served up meals to onlookers with names such as «Revolution-Flavored Bush Goulash.»
Wednesday's protest was peaceful and did not frighten away tour groups, which continued to come to the square.
Jiri Martinek, a 61-year-old retiree, wore a red vest emblazoned with the words «NATO? What for? Stop!» He said his opinion of the alliance soured after he saw photographs of people slain in Yugoslavia during NATO airstrikes that punished Belgrade for its crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo.
About three dozen leftists from groups called REVO and the Initiative Against War held banners calling for «No war in the name of democracy» and «Don't drop bombs! Drop Bush!»
A possible war with Iraq would be «only about oil _ and will only bring more suffering to the Iraqis, nothing else,» said protester Jan Majicek, 18, a student.
Majicek said organizers had hoped more people would come to the protest, but he said the low turnout was a result of the Czech Republic's former communist rule, which discouraged freedom of expression. The country, then Czechoslovakia, threw off communism in 1989.
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