May Day rallies across the world

While the Australian media, including the ABC, gave very 
little attention to May Day celebrations in other countries or 
even in Australia, hundreds of thousands took to the streets in 
major cities around the world.

They called for labour rights, an end to the war in Iraq, the 
reunification of Korea, rights and education for young people, 
for women's rights, for the independence of countries and voiced 
many other demands being made by workers, farmers and others.

A huge march took place in Washington in support of 
women's rights and opposed the attempt of the Bush administration 
to turn back the clock and deny women the right to choose. (See 
article opposite.)

In Moscow a demonstration organised by the Communist Party 
and trade unions called for fair wages, pensions and benefits. 
Russian Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov lashed the US 
military campaign in Iraq.

In El Salvador, thousands of workers, some with signs 
reading "Yankees out of Iraq", marched through the capital, San 
Salvador. "This is not our war", said the Reverend Ricardo 
Cornejo. "There is no reason why our soldiers should die in Iraq. 
return of the troops."

In the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, about 20,000 people 
attended Communist-and Socialist-organised rallies, though 
hundreds broke away to take part in a sing-along. "We want to 
sing. We are tired of political rallies", said Vadym Shkavro, 
standing in line with his two-year-old daughter, Lena, in his 
arms.

In neighboring Moldova, the Communist Party President 
Vladimir Voronin reduced the price of a loaf of bread by five 
percent to 23 cents for the day.

Traditional labour-organised May Day rallies drew about half a 
million supporters across Germany. The leader of the DGB 
union federation Michael Sommer said the gap between Germany's 
rich and poor had widened and demanded that Chancellor Gerhard 
Schroeder end his unpopular drive to trim the welfare state. "We 
don't want a Europe where one needs three jobs just to get by," 
Sommer told a cheering crowd in Berlin.

In Spain's capital, thousands chanted "Terrorism, no" 
during a May Day march dedicated to the victims of the Madrid 
train bombings last month. "We are missing 192 workers and 
students of different nationalities who (could have) walked with 
us here for peace, the right to work and for a free and just 
society", Candido Mendez, secretary general of the General 
Workers Union said.

Thousands of striking transport workers marched through the 
Greek capital, Athens, demanding greater protection of 
workers' rights. Demonstrators marched to the US Embassy to 
protest the war in Iraq.

In Pyongyang, the capital of the Democratic People's 
Republic of Korea capital, 600 workers from the south and the 
north held a joint May Day celebration, expressing hopes for 
reunification of the Korean Peninsula.

About 20,000 Thai workers and labour activists wearing red 
shirts and waving flags denounced a government plan to partially 
privatise the state electricity company.

In Havana, President Fidel Castro said Cuba would defend 
itself "to the last drop of blood" and was unafraid of what he 
called new US measures to change the island's four-decade-old 
socialist system.

Across Brazil, hundreds of thousands of workers filled the 
streets of major cities. About 80 women from a rural workers' 
group marched toward the Amazon port of Santarem to protest the 
expansion of soy farming. They say it is destroying the rain 
forest.

In the Costa Rican capital of San Jose, union leaders and 
students broke through security barriers in front of the federal 
congress to protest a pending US trade agreement.

In Honduras, thousands of workers marched peacefully in 
the capital, Tegucigalpa, and five other cities to protest the 
proposed Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, which would extend 
from Alaska to Argentina.