HUNDREDS of Bermudians took to the streets last Saturday to voice their opposition to war on Iraq.

After anti-war speeches by the likes of Anglican Bishop Ewen Ratteray and former Independent MP Stuart Hayward at City Hall, the peace campaigners took their signs and songs and marched all the way to the Arboretum.

It was part of a worldwide demonstration involving up to ten million people in 600 cities and 60 countries in what was the biggest anti-war protest since the public activism against the Vietnam war.

Such marches are highly unusual on the island and for many who took part it was the first time they had marched for any cause.

One such person is Jessica Siggins, a 24-year-old Bermudian who was one of the founder members of march organisers Bermuda For Peace.

Reporter JONATHAN KENT and photographer TAMELL SIMONS got together with Ms Siggins for a chat about the march and her beliefs.

Q: How did you get involved with the march?

A: David Northcott and James Burch are good friends of mine and they said they were keen on getting Bermuda involved in these marches that were happening worldwide. They mentioned it to me and I thought it was a great idea. A lot of people showed up to the first meeting but those two were the only people involved who I knew originally.

Q: When did the organising start?

A: Only about three weeks ago. So it was a last-minute decision to do it.

Q: Were you happy with the turnout and the way the march went?

A: Yes, it was fabulous. Actually I was pleasantly surprised that that many people turned out. We had hoped for maybe 100. We estimated that there five to six hundred there, although the Gazette estimated there could have been as many as 1,000. I was marching near the banners at the front and when I looked behind me, I could see a long line of people going round the corner.

Q: What's the point of little Bermuda staging a march like this?

A: Well actually, I think that Stuart Hayward made a really good comment about that in his speech at City Hall. He talked about trying to go to sleep when there's a mosquito in the room. We only have a small voice but everybody counts.

My own personal view is that if you should not accept the idea that, 'I'm just one person, how can I have any effect?' If everybody thought like that, nothing would ever get done. Everyone has to be able to say, 'My voice counts'.

Q: What exactly did the march stand for?

A: Basically, we do not want the war to happen. Everybody who was involved had their own view on why the war shouldn't happen. No two people had exactly the same ideas about why it shouldn't happen. We just wanted to make sure our voices were heard. It's part of the democratic process to be able to question your leaders.

Q: If war with Iraq starts, I understand Bermuda For Peace plans to stage a vigil outside the US Consulate. Is that true and how would it work?

A: Yes, something like a candlelit vigil. I think the plan is that if war breaks out, we would go down there after work. There's nothing really planned yet.

Q: Have you ever marched for any cause before?

A: No. This is my first time taking such a stand. But I felt really passionately about this one and I felt it was about time I had some involvement in a social cause.

Q: What is it about this particular issue that made you decide to march?

A: Initially, it was hearing that US and Britain were prepared to go against the UN. I don't agree with George Bush's stance that the UN is just some kind of figurehead that doesn't really do much.

That's such a horrible thing to say because the humanitarian aid they deal with across the world is so important. To just dismiss the UN is to undermine the good work they have done.

That's what stirred my feelings in the first place. Then I thought about the children in Iraq who are going to die. It's not as if they can send in a select group to target only Saddam Hussein. They're going to mass bomb the whole country and everybody's going to be affected by that. I don't think that's the best tactic. I think we can find another way around it.

When I think about the children, that touches me on an emotional level, so that made me really want to do something.

Q: Are there any circumstances that a military attack on Iraq would be acceptable to you?

A: My own personal belief is that it's got to be a last resort, that there is nothing else they could do. You can't tell me they couldn't find a way to do it that doesn't involve bombing the country.

On our web site (www.b4peace.com), we have a 'Your Comments' section and one of the things that I put down was that 'You don't burn down the whole house to get at the termites'.

If you want to get rid of Saddam Hussein, fine. He is not popular in Iraq. I heard some statistic that 94 per cent of the population of Iraq wished that Saddam was not in power. Why kill all those people just to get to him?

Plus, I haven't heard much about what humanitarian aid the US is going to give to Iraq. Turkey has said it will close off its borders to refugees, so these people will be stuck in Iraq with nowhere to go.

Q: Don't you think that those people in Iraq would welcome a war that toppled Saddam?

A: I think they'd welcome Saddam being taken out of power. I don't think death is the kind of freedom they are looking for. It's fine to say, 'Help us', but that means, 'Help us', not 'Kill us'.

Q: Presumably Saddam will fight to hang on as long as he can. People are unable to vote him out. Surely the only way to get rid of him before he dies is by military means. Would you accept that that's true?

A: I don't know. But I think that in this day and age, there's got to be a better way than acting violently. Violence leads to more violence. If you want to break the cycle, you've got to find a different way to do it.

We trust our leaders to make intelligent decisions and to be able to fix things peacefully. It's probably a very naive view on my art, but I would just like to see them exhaust every other avenue before they have to go to war.

They're saying, 'We have to go to war now', but they haven't exhausted every other avenue. UN inspectors are saying they need more time.

And they are saying they want to go to war, because Saddam has weapons of mass destruction, not because they don't want him in power. You hear so many conflicting things from our leaders that it's difficult for anyone to understand why they're saying we have to go to war this second.

Q: What pleased you most about the march?

A: The energy of it, how many people turned up and how passionate they were. Everybody chanting and singing, holding up their own signs. It was just so great to see so many people come together.

We actually picked people up along the way. We started off at City Hall, but as we were going along Burnaby Street and Front Street, some people joined us. There were a couple of American tourists on Front Street, shopping. When they saw what was going on, they joined in and actually came all the way to the Arboretum with us.

Q: Many other marches were going on around the world at the same time. Did you feel part of a global demonstration?

A: Yes. And it was really great waking up the next morning and seeing the TV pictures of what happened in London, New York and elsewhere and the amazing turnouts they had.

One newscaster said: 'How can Blair and Bush not take it into consideration when this many people are out on the streets?'

Now it's got to the level of the protests against the Vietnam war. It's great to be a part of it. My mom came out to City Hall and she said: 'It's like I'm back in college, just like the protests back then.'

Q: Do you work?

A: Yes, I'm a web developer for Logic Communications and I put together the Bermuda For Peace web site.

Q: What do you do for fun?

A: I spend a lot of time with friends. I've been doing a lot of Bible study recently. I've been focusing a lot more on my faith over the last year or so. I've signed up for tai chi. I'll try anything.

Q: So is your religion where you found the inspiration to campaign for peace?

A: I guess so. I'm a very new Christian and I do feel passionately about not killing and finding peaceful resolutions to conflicts.

I have run into people who have said: 'Haven't you read Revelations? Don't you realise this is all supposed to happen? Why are you trying to stand up against it? It's what's been prophecised.' I'm not sure how much I believe that.

Q: Have you encountered much hostility over your stance?

A: On the whole, the response has been really positive. I've stood at the roundabout with Johnny Barnes and we stood outside Parliament on Valentine's Day and the response has been supportive.

People have often given us the thumbs-up and when we had a 'honk-for-peace' sign, there was just a blast of sound.

Only three or four people have ever said anything to me and even then, it was just comments, nothing confrontational.

Q: Has Bermuda For Peace got any plans to follow up the march?

A: We have a petition. We had it at the rally and got about 400 signatures there. We're aiming to get 5,000 names, so in the next few weeks we'll be circulating the petition.

That petition is addressed to Tony Blair. It says that we are a British Overseas Territory and we don't have a Member of Parliament and we don't think you should go to war in our name.

If the UK goes to war, then Bermuda is technically at war with Iraq and I don't want my country going to war. It may not affect us directly, in that our Regiment isn't going to have to go out there and fight but I just don't want my country connected with the war.

Q: Will you be collecting signatures on the street?

A: Yes, I think we're trying to arrange it, but we're still putting that together.

Q: How many people are members of Bermuda For Peace?

A: Well, the core group of us who actually started it is about eight. But since then, we've had so many volunteers through the web site that it's really grown.

One of the important things we want to get across is that we're not a group that has a hierarchy. It's not so much an organisation as a group of friends who came together to do something.

People come up to us and say, 'The next thing you should do is this'. And our response is, 'Yes, you should do that. You should take the initiative on that and we will definitely support you.' That way we can help people to get motivated to do things on their own.

Q: Will the issues Bermuda For Peace deal with go beyond the Iraq situation?

A: Definitely. We'll always be doing stuff for the war effort, because that was our main goal when we came together. I would like to see us do something about youth violence on the island.

That's something one of the speakers said on Saturday, that if you want peace worldwide, you've got to start at home. So with violence rising these days, I think that would be a good thing to approach next.