Wednesday September 19, 03:21 PM

Anti-capitalist movement switches to anti-war

By Jeremy Lovell

LONDON (Reuters) - Activists say the global anti-capitalist movement plans to switch to an anti-war message as the prospect of military retribution for the attacks on the United States looms closer.

"We will be campaigning primarily against the war because you can't have global justice without a globe -- that is the way a lot of people are seeing it," Guy Taylor, spokesman for Britain's Globalise Resistance movement, told Reuters on Wednesday.

"We don't see any action against Afghanistan remaining just that. It will very quickly generalise and it will become a much wider proposition," he added.

Diplomats, led by Prime Minister Tony Blair, are on an urgent round of international consultations to try to drum up united support for U.S. president George Bush's declaration of war against terrorism after the multiple attacks last week.

The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats support the government's hawkish stance, and an opinion poll published on Tuesday showed that two-thirds of the population favoured military retribution for the attacks.

On Wednesday 14 charities called on the United States to act with restraint to avoid a "descent into a spiral of violence."

Nigel Chamberlain, spokesman for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which has close ties with the anti-capitalists, said his office had been inundated by people demanding to known what his organisation was planning to do to avert war.

"There is a huge concern at the implications. People see an escalating cycle of violence. They are asking if this is the start of World War Three," he said.

"We now have 25 organisations who want to form a peace network and an anti-war coalition," he added.

He said several hundred attended an impromptu demonstration in central London on Tuesday night and predicted a pick-up in the pace of anti-war demonstrations in coming days.

Taylor said the anti-capitalist movement -- which hit the headlines earlier this year with violent demonstrations at international meetings in Italy and Sweden -- was also networking worldwide to organise peace marches.

"A lot of people in the anti-capitalist movement will be forming the core of the anti-war movement," he added. "There will be a slight deviation in its immediate aim. We will be continuing it but with quite an accent on peace."

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2001

Answers

What a group! They have violent demonstrations for peace. They are against capitalists, which I guess means they want socialism as the ruling government agenda. And they want to play appeasement games with the radical Islamic groups. They should write a book.

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2001