SHARE YOUR CITY'S PEACE RALLY HERE.

nimh - Take a look at how South Africa worked pro-actively to show the world it was dismantling its weapons programs for a cue what Saddam promised to do, should be doing, is required to do to remain in power and alive, and will never ever do [..] I offered you an example of what Hussein could do if he wished to show the UN, the US, and the entire world that he wishes peace and is disarming or has disarmed. It has been done before, willingly and well, by South Africa. Their historical example is one that shows perfectly how a nation proactively shows the world it is eschewing weapons of mass destruction. You are free to ignore that example as you wish, but I wonder why you would be so uninterested in it.

20 februari 2003:

South-Africa not really fit to serve as example for Iraq

JOHANNESBURG, 20 FEBR. The head of the UN weapons inspectors Hans Blix started with it. [..] Colin Powell and his British colleague, Jack Straw, followed. And now the South-African president Thabo Mbeki says it too: "South-Afrika is the example of honest and voluntarily disarmament: nuclear, chemical and biological." Disarmament as it is expected of Iraq right now. [..]

But the president plays his role on the basis of a half truth. Only the dismantlement of South Africa's nuclear arsenal in the early nineties can be called a school example. The destruction of the chemical and biological weapons that were developed by the apartheid regime is still shrouded in mists.

That programme has never been subjected to the research of foreign weapon inspectors. Most documents that should confirm the destruction of the materials that were produced in the laboratoria have been destroyed. And the only expert who knows in full detail what has happened to the chemical and biological weapons after the end of the apartheid regime, is a man few South-Africans will dare believe on his word. His name is Wouter Basson, alias 'Doctor Death'. [..]

As open and transparant as the dismantlement of the nuclear weapons was, the destruction of chemical and biological weapons was shadowy. Chandré Gould researched the programme for the truth commission and co-authored the book Secrets and Lies about Wouter Basson. She calls the destruction "messy", "confusing" and "hard to confirm".

In the words of the 1998 interim-report of the truth commission: "The overview of the programme, the coordination and the direction it took, was in the hands of one person: Dr Basson." [..] The brilliant heart surgeon Wouter Basson had been appointed head of the secret weapons programme "Project Coast" in the late seventies. His assignment was to design vaccins and clothing that were to protect South-AFrica's troops against attacks with chemical and biological weapons.

Only when Basson was arrested in 1997 because of involvement in large-scale drug trafficking, South-Africa heard of what had happened all those years. [..] Hearings of the truth commission and the two and a half year-long trial against Basson have revealed his plans in detail. Project Coast was looking for kinds of poison that would affect only the black population. He was given great leeway by the apartheid regime. [..] Basson would be the inventor of a heart attack pill, an anti-fertility pill, chocolate with botulism, cigarettes with [spleen-fire, transl.?], sugar with salmonella.

In 1993 [..] president De Klerk ordered the dismantlement of the programme. De Klerk had just signed the Chemical Weapons Convention. [..] Fourthousand kilos of drugs, mandrax, cocaine and xtc were dumped in the sea. Countless pathogens would have been destroyed. The man who was responsible for this clean-up operation? Wouter Basson. "How much we had, what exactly happened with it: we still don't know", says Gould. "We are completely dependent on the testimonies of Basson."

South-African army policy prescribed that all documents concerning Project Coast should be destroyed every two years. According to the ATtorney General this has complicated the court case against Basson. The Pretoria court last year acquitted the heart surgeon of 46 cases for murder, conspiracy, fraud and drug possession.

A recommendation of the truth commission to the South-African government to install an independent inquiry on the dismantlement of the chemical and biological weapon programme has not been followed up. The South-African government still plays down the programme as a "Mickey Mouse-programme", that cannot be compared to Russian or Iraqi programmes. "We didn't have any programme", says Tom Markram, one of the weapon experts who will fly to Bagdad tomorrow. "Project Coast? The truth commission settled that."

The point of this thread was to share information about the rallies, world-wide. I don't wish to be rude to fellow A2K-ers, but would the supporters of a war in Iraq please direct their comments elsewhere at A2K & you can happily have your debate there. This is not the place for the debate you want to have.

In his internetcorner Sarwar types an empassioned plea about the "anti-war demonstrators in Europe who do not realise that the Iraqi's have to live with an old, open wound." Only when the wound is closed, can the Iraqis go on with their existence. "As long as they remove Saddam. I am sending this mail to all my penpals in Europe to make sure they won't demonstrate with the rest."

I am laughing so hard that my side hurts that the protesters do not wish to have those with varying opinions than theirs be heard in their thread.
You weekend warriors are really a piece of work.

maxsdadeo wrote:

I am laughing so hard that my side hurts that the protesters do not wish to have those with varying opinions than theirs be heard in their thread.
You weekend warriors are really a piece of work.

maxsdadeo, take a look at the NAME of this thread.
I think it clearly states it's purpose.
This was NOT an invitation to a debate.
I'm not offended by your desire to participate in a debate on Iraq. There are heaps of other political threads on A2K where you can choose to do this. (And I see you are participating.)
What I'm offended by is the deliberate subversion of what was intended to be an INFORMATION thread.
Do you get it now?

Joe - Lighten up. I can't help it if I find the idea of a peacenic punching out a warmonger funny. I just do. And it may be beneath you, but I may well be futher down the evolutionary ladder, so get off my back, Eloi. :wink:

tresspassers will

I have grown a little tired of explaining the intention of this thread. I've already said it, a number of times. I think it's pretty clear.

The problem was, comments like this one of yours (& really early in the piece, not after most of the big rallies were over & which I believe were mischievous at best) which attempted to divert attention from the spirit & intention of the thread:

trespassers will wrote:

Joe - Lighten up. I can't help it if I find the idea of a peacenic punching out a warmonger funny. I just do. And it may be beneath you, but I may well be futher down the evolutionary ladder, so get off my back, Eloi. :wink:

I don't think this was an *on-topic contribution*. Nor were a number of others throughout the discussion, from people of similar views to yours.
I think such comments diverted people from the actual point of the thread & stuffed it up.

"So why not send a report of YOUR rally here, so we can all share it?" ...I think Msolga's invitation was pretty clear.