ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT TO HOLD MAJOR DEMONSTRATION AGAINST WAR CRIMINAL BLAIR

ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT TO HOLD MAJOR DEMONSTRATION AGAINST WAR CRIMINAL BLAIR DURING FORTHCOMING DUBLIN VIST
IRISH ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT

Press Release – August 21st

ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT TO HOLD MAJOR DEMONSTRATION AGAINST WAR CRIMINAL BLAIR DURING FORTHCOMING DUBLIN VIST

In a statement the Irish Anti-War Movement (IAWM) has announced plans to hold a major demonstration to protest during the planned visit to Dublin of former British Prime minister, Tony Blair on September 3rd/4th.

The demonstration will coincide with the book launch and signing event for Mr Blair’s soon to be published autobiography, due to take place in Eason’s on O’ Connell St in Dublin on Saturday September 4th.

The protest will assemble at 11.30am at the Garden of Remembrance in Parnell Square, before marching to Eason’s where the book signing will be taking place.

The IAWM protest will focus on Tony Blair’s key role in launching the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and devastated both countries.

The protest will also focus on Blair’s effective complicity - both as Prime Minister and now as EU envoy to the Middle East - with the war crimes and human rights abuses committed by Israel against the Palestinians.

The protest will also seek to highlight the continued complicity of the Irish government with the wars launched by former US president George Bush and Mr Blair – in allowing US troops to use Shannon airport on route to participate in those wars, and through the direct involvement of a small number of Irish troops in the Afghan conflict.

Over the coming days, the IAWM will undertake a major national mobilisation for the demonstration and will be contacting and seeking the support of the widest possible range of political and civil society groups for the protest.

Richard Boyd Barrett, chairperson of the IAWM said:

“By any reasonable standard, Tony Blair is a war criminal. He played a key role in fabricating the lies and bogus justifications for an illegal and murderous war in Iraq and the equally immoral war in Afghanistan.

Credible estimates put the numbers of dead in Iraq as a result of the war launched by Blair and Bush at over a million. Millions more have been made refugees and the infrastructure of Iraqi society has been utterly devastated.

In Afghanistan, tens of thousands have died and the body count continues to rise daily as result of the war and occupation spearheaded by the US and UK, under Bush and Blair, and now continued by Barack Obama and David Cameron.

By every objective humanitarian criterion, life for the Afghan people is worse now than it was before Blair and Bush launched their brutal war.

While Blair has justified his murderous military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan with bogus talk of fighting “terrorism” and spreading “democracy,” he has done absolutely nothing to restrain or sanction Israel for its deliberate murder of thousands of Palestinians and systematic denial of their most elementary human and civil rights.

Worse than that - both as Prime Minister and now as EU envoy - Blair has given effective moral support to Israel in its criminal siege of Gaza by refusing to recognise the democratically elected representatives of the Palestinian people. The refusal of the major western powers, including Britain and the EU, to recognise the outcome of democratic elections in Palestine, gave the green light to Israel to besiege and assault Gaza in the name of fighting “terrorism.”

The idea of Tony Blair celebrating or justifying his war crimes in a book and generating money from it, regardless of where that money goes, is nauseating in the extreme. It is blood money pure and simple, and Blair’s agenda in writing this book is a purely cynical manoeuvre to whitewash responsibility for war crimes and mass murder. The only book of Tony Blair’s that those opposed to war should look forward to is his prison memoirs.

In 2003, 100,000 people came onto the streets to oppose Blair and Bush’s war. They have been utterly vindicated in their opposition to that war. We hope that many of those people will once again come onto the streets on 4th September to express their outrage at what Blair has done and the terrible suffering he has inflicted.

Crucially, this protest is not just about what has happened in the past but what is still going on now in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine, where people continue to die and suffer every day as a result of the policies initiated by Blair and Bush.

This protest therefore will also seek to, once again, demand that our government end its complicity with US/UK warmongering by ejecting US troops from Shannon, withdrawing Irish troops from Afghanistan and imposing sanctions on Israel for its inhuman treatment of the Palestinians.”

For more info/confirmation contact: Richard Boyd Barrett 086-7814520

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