JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- The United Nations must try President Bush and
his allies as war criminals, a top Indonesian politician demanded Monday as
protesters elsewhere denounced the war in Iraq as illegal and voiced
concern for its victims.
Amien Rais delivered a letter to the U.N. building in Jakarta demanding
that Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair be tried in an
international court "for their unjustified use of force against the people
of Iraq."
Rais heads one of the country's largest Islamic political parties and is
expected to run for president in 2004.
Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, has been a fierce
critic of the U.S.-led campaign. Between 100,000 and 300,000 people
demonstrated against the war Sunday in the capital, Jakarta.
Four doctors from an Indonesian humanitarian group, the Medical Emergency
Rescue Committee, announced they would fly to Iraq to treat civilian war
victims.
"We are concerned about all the innocent civilians that we see suffering on
our television screens," said spokeswoman Giri Inaya.
At an anti-war demonstration in Multan, in central Pakistan, about 400
doctors also asked that they be allowed to send teams of physicians to
treat wounded Iraqis.
The doctors, joined by nurses and paramedics, chanted anti-American
slogans, calling the United States the "No. 1 terrorist" and "an enemy of
peace."
Pakistan is a key ally of the United States in war in terror, but most
Pakistanis oppose the U.S.-led attacks on Iraq, and demonstrations against
the war have been a daily occurrence.
In Egypt, authorities ordered the release of 64 anti-war protesters,
including two lawmakers, detained after protests, prosecutors said.
Nasserite Party MP Hamdeen Sabahi, 50, and independent politician Mohammed
Farid Hassanein, 55, were freed Sunday after being among scores of people
detained over allegedly inciting anti-war protesters to destroy property
and attack police officers.
Protesters accused Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak of not doing enough to
stop the war. They also criticized his close relationship with America and
for allowing coalition warships to pass through Egypt's Suez Canal.
Mubarak has condemned the war but blamed it on what he calls Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein's failure to cooperate with the international
community.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2003/03/31/55020-ap.html
