ENGLAND: AT LEAST 1,500 PEOPLE HOLD AN ANTI-NATO MARCH AND RALLY AT LONDON'S TRAFALGAR SQUARE TO PROTEST AGAINST THE AIRSTRIKES ON YUGOSLAVIA

Record ID: 214898

  • Title: ENGLAND: AT LEAST 1,500 PEOPLE HOLD AN ANTI-NATO MARCH AND RALLY AT LONDON'S TRAFALGAR SQUARE TO PROTEST AGAINST THE AIRSTRIKES ON YUGOSLAVIA
  • Date: 11th April 1999
  • Summary: LONDON, ENGLAND; UK (APRIL 11, 1999) (RTN - ACCESS ALL) 1. TV OF ANTI-NATO MARCH ALONG EMBANKMENT TOWARDS LONDON'S TRAFALGAR SQUARE/ LINE OF POLICE 0.14 2. SLV/SV MARCHERS CARRYING BANNER SAYING: STOP NATO BOMBING OF YUGOSLAVIA /BRITISH LABOUR MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT TONY BENN (WHITE HAIR, TIE, WALKING BEHIND BANNER) LEADING ANTI-NATO DEMONSTRATION (3
  • Embargoed: 26th April 1999 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: LONDON, ENGLAND; UNITED KINGDOM
  • City:
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Reuters ID: LVA7ASB97CHKHMFA18QWDQJED28E
  • Story Text: At least 1,500 people have held an anti-NATO march and
    rally at London's Trafalgar Square to protest against the
    western alliance's airstrikes on Yugoslavia.

    As the protesters approached the rally point at Trafalgar
    Square, they were jeered by about 200 pro-NATO demonstrators
    who were calling for ground troops to be sent into Kosovo.

    Large numbers of police provided security to prevent
    the two sides from confronting each other during Sunday's
    (April 11) anti-NATO and pro-NATO demonstrations in London.

    The anti-NATO rally began with a march along the
    Embankment, along the Thames River, past Big Ben and the prime
    minister's office at Number 10 Downing Street towards
    Trafalgar Square.Protesters carried banners saying: "Hands
    off Yugoslavia", and "Stop NATO Bombing of Yugoslavia".Some
    of the marchers chanted "Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia." Police lined
    the march route, which had been cordoned off from traffic.

    But as the anti-NATO demonstrators approached Trafalgar
    Square, they were jeered by a group of about 200 pro-NATO
    demonstrators -- mostly ethnic Albanians.

    The pro-NATO demonstrators booed and hissed at the
    anti-NATO demonstrators.Several dozen police provided a
    buffer zone between the two groups so there was no
    confrontation.

    Pro-NATO demonstrator Gynej Zekiqi, an ethnic Albanian from
    Kosovo, said he wanted to see NATO send ground troops into
    Kosovo.

    "We want NATO'S ground troops in Kosovo as soon as
    possible because these air strikes, they work, but they can't
    stop the killing and the terrorism that they (Serbian
    paramilitaries) do in Kosovo," he said.

    Zekiqi added: "You can see every day the children, the
    older people and women getting raped and they are getting
    killed.This is not acceptable any longer."
    At the anti-NATO Trafalgar Square rally, anti-NATO
    demonstrator Tatijan Bura, 22, said she feared for her
    relatives in Yugoslavia.She said that she had just learned
    that one of her relatives had been killed in the recent
    airstrike on Aleksinac, where 24 people died.

    "They're bombing our families -- it's Easter.Last time we
    were bombed it was when the Nazis bombed us in 1941 at Easter.

    It's reminiscent of that," said Bura, who has been in the UK
    for ten years.

    NATO has been attacking Serb strategic and military
    targets in Yugoslavia since March 24 in a bid to reverse what
    it calls Belgrade's ethnic cleansing of the mainly Moslem
    Albanian majority in Kosovo.NATO also wants the ethnic
    Albanian refugees to return to the southern Serbian province
    with a NATO-led military force to protect them.

    Belgrade says its forces are merely fighting the rebel
    Kosovo Liberation Army while NATO is violating international
    law, sponsoring terrorism and seeking to dismember Serbia.


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