Several hundred people rallied Saturday in the city center of Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, to voice disagreement with the planned stationing of a US radar base in the country.

 

The demonstrators demanded a referendum on the issue and criticized the position of the coalition government over the radar base.

 

The protesters unfolded the banners saying "War is the biggest business," "No missiles are peaceful" and "Trokavec and 70 percent of Czechs want to live without the radar."

 

Jan Neoral, mayor of the village of Trokavec, situated near the planned site of the radar installations, said: "We will be ruled again by corrupt and base people."

 

The rally was called by the No to Bases group at Prague's Wenceslas Square. It was attended by trade union activists and deputy chairman of the Chamber of Deputies Bohuslav Sobotka.

 

Washington initiated the plan to deploy an anti-missile radar base in the Czech Republic and a missile interceptor base in Poland earlier this year.

 

A recent opinion poll showed that most of Czechs oppose the establishment of the base, which is to be built on the Brdy military grounds some 90 kilometers southwest of Prague.

 

(Xinhua News Agency November 18, 2007)