ST PAUL, Minnesota (AFP) — They came in their thousands -- veterans, grandmothers, young families and even disgruntled Republicans bearing banners and peace flags, and calling in one voice to end the war in Iraq.
Under the watchful eye of scores of police in riot gear, thousands of protestors marched through the streets of St. Paul urging Republicans gathered for the party convention to bring US troops home.
Snipers looked on from nearby buildings and a helicopter hovered overhead, at times drowning out the shouts from the parade.
Trouble flared when one group split away from the beginning of the march and tussled with police, who fired pepper spray on the crowd, including at an AFP photographer. Reports said five people were arrested.
But the atmosphere was mostly festive with demonstrators keen to press home their message, even though they went unheeded as they funneled through a fenced-in walkway, barely within sight of the convention center.
"I'm here for all the Iraqi women who can't be here," said 72-year-old Mim Olsen, from Texas, a veteran of some of the country's most powerful civil rights marches.
"It can be very lonely out there, if you are grieving. So this kind of gathering is important for each other, to say to everyone that we are all members of the human family."
As the march got underway, some demonstrators tried to taunt the riot police stationed at key intersections, visors covering their faces, long wooden truncheons braced at the ready.
The mostly-women marshalls from the organizers of the "March on the RNC" rally anxiously shepherded people past potential flashpoints on the short parade from the capitol building.
Iraq veterans against the war fell in step with mothers pushing prams and rowdy students shouting anti-government slogans. Some estimated there were about 10,000 people in the crowd.
"We joined up with an altruistic vision of promoting freedom and justice around the world," said Vince Emanuel, a Marine lance corporal who did a tour of duty in Iraq from August 2004 to April 2005, explaining why he was marching.
"Except we saw the killing of innocent people and the destruction of property ... for a lot of us it was very disenfranchising."
The veterans group tried to hand a message to the campaign of Republican White House hopeful John McCain calling for a withdrawal from Iraq, reparations for the Iraqi people, and full medical benefits for veterans.
No-one from McCain's campaign received them, Emanuel said.
Earlier, demonstrators had gathered on the steps of the capitol building, listening to a giant rally.
Families lounged in the hot sun in park. "This is a once in a lifetime chance," said Allysen Hoberg, 32, from Minneapolis, who had brought her six-year-old son Henry to the rally.
"These days could go down in history if we elect a Democrat president."
As two rappers wearing masks of McCain and President George W. Bush sang out their toe-tapping "Insane in the McCain-Brain" rap, other demonstrators mopped their brows with water from a melting ice-sculpture of the word "Democracy"
Randy Harmen, from Colorado, was signing a giant poster bearing the preamble of the US constitution which starts with the words "We the people."
Harmen, a supporter of former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul -- who McCain defeated in the nominating contest -- acknowledged he was an unlikely demonstrator.
But he said: "The war was based on false premises. That's the thing we have in common with the peacenuts."
Members of the group "Grandmothers for Peace" rubbed shoulders with "Psychologists for Peace" at the event. There were even a group called "Loons for Peace," referring to Minnesota's state bird.
"Well I just think those lunatics in Washington are giving our state bird a bad name," said St Paul resident Barbara Peterson as she waved her home-made bird banner.
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