IRAQ:LABOUR PARTY president and spokesman on foreign affairs Michael D Higgins called on the Government to halt flights by the American military through Shannon airport.
He was speaking at a rally organised by the Irish Anti-War Movement in Dublin to mark the fifth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq.
The demonstration was part of the World Against War global protests which saw large demonstrations in 50 cities around the world.
In spite of heavy rain and wind, several hundred protesters gathered on Saturday to march from Parnell Square to the GPO on O'Connell Street.
Ireland is complicit in war and torture, also referred to as "extraordinary rendition", by allowing the US military use of Shannon airport and Irish airspace, Mr Higgins said.
It was important to break the silence on a number of other issues currently on going in the world, he said. These included the plight of the people of the West Bank and Gaza, as well as the ongoing struggle for independence in Tibet.
The rally was also told that the plight of Iraq's dwindling and suffering Christian minority is being ignored by the western world.
Canon Patrick Comerford, director of spiritual formation at the Church of Ireland Theological College in Dublin, said he was disgusted that US President George Bush had "glibly" used the word "crusade" when attempting to justify the invasion of Iraq.
He said that taking up arms could never be considered a Christian virtue.
"We could never think it a Christian virtue to take up arms to attack our Muslim brothers and sisters, or to take up arms to advance the ideology of a government that consistently fails to feed the hungry, to heal the sick, to set the prisoner free," he said.
"On Thursday last, the Catholic Chaldean Archbishop of Mosul, Paulos Faraj Rahho, was found dead in a shallow grave . . .
"There could be no starker statement that the war over the past five years has not been a war to create democracy and to introduce pluralism. "Instead, the West's war in Iraq has created a ruthlessly intolerant Iraq where Christians and other minorities are targeted for their faith," Canon Comerford said.
Chairman of the Irish Anti-War Movement Richard Boyd Barrett said that five years after the invasion of Iraq, warnings given by the anti-war movement have been vindicated.
"The number of people fleeing their homes has increased dramatically since the US 'surge' and US bombing raids have increased by 500 per cent in the last year," Mr Boyd Barrett said. "The social and economic infrastructure of the country has been shattered.
"The US 'liberation' of Iraq has turned into a permanent and bloody military occupation."
Rallies were also held in other major cities around the world, including Glasgow and London, where tens of thousands of people took part.
