Indonesian Politician Wants Bush Tried for War Crimes

JAKARTA, Indonesia – The United Nations must try President Bush and his allies as war criminals, a top Indonesian politician demanded Monday as protesters elsewhere denounced the war in Iraq as illegal and voiced concern for its victims.

Amien Rais delivered a letter to the U.N. building in Jakarta demanding that Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair be tried in an international court "for their unjustified use of force against the people of Iraq."

Rais heads one of the country's largest Islamic political parties and is expected to run for president in 2004.

Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, has been a fierce critic of the U.S.-led campaign. Between 100,000 and 300,000 people demonstrated against the war Sunday in the capital, Jakarta.

Four doctors from an Indonesian humanitarian group, the Medical Emergency Rescue Committee, announced they would fly to Iraq to treat civilian war victims.

"We are concerned about all the innocent civilians that we see suffering on our television screens," said spokeswoman Giri Inaya.

At an anti-war demonstration in Multan, in central Pakistan, about 400 doctors also asked that they be allowed to send teams of physicians to treat wounded Iraqis.

The doctors, joined by nurses and paramedics, chanted anti-American slogans, calling the United States the "No. 1 terrorist" and "an enemy of peace."

Pakistan is a key ally of the United States in war in terror, but most Pakistanis oppose the U.S.-led attacks on Iraq, and demonstrations against the war have been a daily occurrence.

In Egypt, authorities ordered the release of 64 anti-war protesters, including two lawmakers, detained after protests, prosecutors said.

Nasserite Party MP Hamdeen Sabahi, 50, and independent politician Mohammed Farid Hassanein, 55, were freed Sunday after being among scores of people detained over allegedly inciting anti-war protesters to destroy property and attack police officers.

Protesters accused Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak of not doing enough to stop the war. They also criticized his close relationship with America and for allowing coalition warships to pass through Egypt's Suez Canal.

Mubarak has condemned the war but blamed it on what he calls Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's failure to cooperate with the international community.