On July 16, over 150 people gathered around the Vancouver Art Gallery for the Mobilization Against War & Occupation (MAWO) demonstration demanding, “Bring the Troops Home Now!” “US/UK Out of Iraq!” “Canada Out of Afghanistan and Haiti!” “Self Determination for Oppressed Nations!” “No to Attacks on Iran and Syria!” and “End the Occupations of Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Haiti, and Indigenous Nations in Canada!”

The demonstration attracted many different backgrounds of oppressed and working class people to the rally and speakers to match the crowd’s diversity. The demonstration attracted oppressed and working class people from many different backgrounds and the speakers matched the crowd’s diversity. The demonstration opened with MC’s Alison Bodine and Nicole Burton outlining the situation of war and occupation around the world. They then introduced the first speaker, Dalal Assad who is an Iraqi woman activist and media activist. She spoke about the conditions facing the people of Iraq throughout the more than two years of continuous war and occupation.

Following this was Claudio Ekdahl, Latin American Solidarity activist and organizer for the Mapuche Defense Committee in Vancouver. He spoke on the Mapuche struggle and its connections to people in Iraq and people around the world fighting imperialism. He was followed by Noah Fine, an organizer with Vancouver Communities in Solidarity with Cuba, who spoke about the hypocrisy of the US “war on terror” and related it to US attacks on Cuba, including more than 40 years of blockade on Cuba.

To wrap up the speakers, Kasia Machelak, co-coordinator of Kwantlen Students Against War and Occupation (KSAWO) brought the understanding of the oppression and plunder of third-world countries by imperialist powers home to the occupation of Indigenous Nations in Canada and talked about the growing campaign from the US and EU against Iran and Syria.







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