February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
The strength of last Saturday’s anti-war sentiment in Belfast took even the rally’s organizers by surprise with statements from the main religious denominations read to the huge crowd.
Speakers were at pains to say that they were not anti-American, but — to use McCann’s words — against the “anti-democratic, military clique which has seized power in the U.S.”
By and large, the community is breaking down with nationalists more opposed to the potential war and unionists more sympathetic. The only large party which is unambiguously pro-war against Saddam is the Rev. Ian Paisley’s DUP.
Archbishop Sean Brady, Catholic primate of All Ireland, and the Church of Ireland archbishop, Robin Eames, both gave the “Stop the War” rally organizers anti-war statements.
“Military action against Iraq would impose tremendous suffering on a people that has already suffered too much,” Brady said. “We must do all we can to change the hearts and minds of those who now are determined to wage war.”
Said Eames: “I share the concerns of you all that any future military action against Iraq will cause death and injuries on a huge scale for countless innocent people.”
The rally was coordinated by the Northern Ireland Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the coalition they gathered together came out in force on a bitterly cold Belfast day.
Belfast-born Peter Bunting, assistant general secretary of the ICTU, Nobel Peace laureate Mairead Maguire and others spoke to the crowd. Bunting said he was unequivocal in condemning Saddam Hussein’s “brutal totalitarian regime.”
“However, the oppressed citizens of Iraq will not be liberated by having bombs rain down on them from U.S. and British war planes. After decades of misrule by Saddam Hussein, and over a decade of U.N. sanctions, Iraq is on the brink of a humanitarian disaster.
“What do Tony Blair or George Bush know about the realities of war? The people of Northern Ireland have some idea and this is why we are so against military action. We want peace, not just for all our people, but for all people, everywhere,” Bunting said.