Some 150 trade unionists protested in Kuala Lumpur this morning against the impending war o­n Iraq, marking the latest in a series of demonstrations held in the vicinity of the United States embassy.

The protesters, representing the Union Network International - Malaysian Liaison Council (UNI-MLC), were restricted to demonstrate peacefully at the foot of the Tabung Haji building in Jalan Tun Razak after police denied a request by the group to gather outside the embassy building.

The group led by MTUC deputy president Mohamed Shafie BP Mammal, carried banners and posters bearing "No to War" messages. A memorandum addressed to US President George W Bush was later handed over to a representative of the US embassy.

The UNI-MLC represents 120,000 Malaysian workers from 26 trade union affiliates. Among the groups represented at the demonstration were National Union of Telekom Employees (NUTE), the National Union of Newspaper Workers (NUNW), Union of Pos Malaysia Uniformed Staff (UPUS) and the Resort World Employees' Union (RWEU).

Shafie, accompanied by NUNW vice-president R Chandrasekaran and NUTE general-secretary Mohd Jafar Abd Majid, were later allowed into the tightly-guarded embassy to hand over the three-page memorandum.

Not political

According to the Shafie, the trio were received by the embassy's political officer Alexis Ludwig who was said to have promised to forward the document to the White House.

"We (the unions) are in support of Malaysia's position against a war in Iraq because we want to see that the Iraqis are safe (from a war). (Ludwig) tried to explain some of the issues but as we are not a political organisation, we just listened," he said outside the embassy after handing over the memorandum.

The document expressed the union's "deep consternation occasioned by the threat to world peace of unilateral military action by the US and its allies to seek regime change in Iraq".

"We strongly emphasise that any unilateral decision by any government to go to war or to act with preventive strikes against any country in the world, for whatever reason, will be a deliberate violation of international law," said Shafie in the memorandum.

In addition, he said the UNI-MLC supported the declaration by several other international trade union groups that there has been no clear proof of Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction.

Shafie stressed that, by its actions, the US had wasted much of the goodwill and solidarity generated in the days and months after Sept 11, 2001.

"(The US) has squandered much of that goodwill, managed to insult many of its strong allies and (to divide) the world, when it should speak as o­ne,"said the union leader, echoing the words of another American trade union group.

Peaceful protest

Speaking to reporters, the union leader said the main UNI group had recently submitted an anti-war memorandum to the United Nations headquarters in New York.

Today's demonstration and procession proceeded without incident from the Tabung Haji building to the US embassy.

About 10 police officers from the Pudu police station stopped the group several metres from the embassy's main gate, and allowed three persons to proceed into the embassy compound.

The protest this morning contrasted sharply with the large-scale demonstration organised last Friday by opposition party PAS. Police had stopped the 5,000 protesters from marching to the US embassy.

Opposition Leader and PAS acting president Abdul Hadi Awang was, however, allowed to submit a memorandum to the embassy's representatives.