A leading Cuban Baptist preacher expressed solidarity with churches in Iraq and the world in their calls for peace as the island's communist government rallied several thousand people Saturday for an anti-war protest.
"To invoke the name of God to launch a war truly is sacrilege," declared the Rev. Raul Suarez, among speakers at the government gathering outside a major Havana hospital. Suarez is a Cuban lawmaker and director of the non-governmental Martin Luther King Community Center.
"It is our spiritual obligation to lift our voices against the war in Iraq," Suarez said, reading from the recent pronouncements of church councils around the world. "We choose, we decide, for peace."
Presiding over the rally was Gen. Raul Castro, Cuba's Defense Minister and Cuba's No. 2 leader after his older brother President Fidel Castro.
Raul Castro, accompanied by other uniformed commanders from the 1959 revolution, did not address the crowd. Fidel Castro was not present.
The Cuban president on Friday warned against an "unnecessary" U.S.-led war against Iraq, telling hundreds of foreign economists that such a conflict could kill many innocent people and harm the world economy.
"How long will this war last?" Castro asked. "How many deaths will it cause?"
If such a conflict erupts, "the world will be exposed to economic dangers," the Cuban president said.
"The immense majority of world opinion rejects the new war," said Castro. "It is an unnecessary war based on pretexts that are neither credible nor proven."
Christians make up about five percent of Iraq's 22 million people.