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Half a million Italian anti-war protesters marched through Rome on Saturday to demonstrate their opposition to the allied offensive in Iraq which toppled the Iraqi regime.
Organizers claimed that more than a half a million people took part in the march which was marred by several acts of vandalism by the so-called Disobedient groups who targeted bank ATM machines and American interests.
Organizers admitted that Saturday's demonstration was much smaller than the one last February 15 when an estimate about 3 million people marched in the capital.
The reason for this, they explained was that the last march was organized over a month while Saturday's was put together in a week and could not benefit from special trains services.
According to a poll published in today's edition of the Corriere della Sera daily, 60 percent of Italians interviewed said they believed that Saturday's peace march was still useful. Of these 17 percent said it was useful in any case while 43 percent said it was useful if it was against all wars and not just the one in Iraq.
(Xinhua News Agency April 13, 2003)
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