Belfast anti war report

national | miscellaneous | news report Friday February 07, 2003 11:37 by Davy Carlin - West Belfast SWP carlindavid at hotmail dot com

Standing room only once again.

Belfast anti war movement grows

Another meeting called by the Belfast anti war movement drew a gathering of over one hundred and thirty people last night with again standing room only. In the next few days further activists meetings will take place in South and North Belfast with politicans, leading trade unionists and other anti war activists speaking. A meeting in East Belfast is also in preparation.

Update on 'school students against war'. Following the recent launch of schoolstudents against war which initially drew over fifty school students to its first meeting it has now grown to have representatives from around fifteen schools around Belfast. They have arranged their own activity and have already featured regularly in the main press despite only recently having been formed. They have now set up their first inter-school debate on the war with a pro war assembly politican against a speaker from the Anti War Movement in Belfast. This meeting is expected to draw around three hundred school students.

Following the fifty strong activists meeting in West Belfast a commitee has now been set up to amongst other things to build a feeder march from W/Belfast to the main march on Feb15th. There are also work place/branch groups now being set up

The anti war coalition hopes to see thousands on Belfast Streets on Feb 15th but we need people to get active. We cannot have the same people postering, setting up meetings, knocking on doors, doing all the ground work etc. It must be a collective task moreso with so many groups and organisations now involved. Now that other groups are holding meetings this is good to see and we need more of it but as Eamonn McCann said at yesterday's talk, we also need more people to take in into our workplaces, our schools our communites. Tell our neighbours our friends our relatives. Let them know we are active against this war and ask them to get active. Our immediate task may be to to prepare for Feb15th, we need also though to look now and prepare for beyond that