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GV East Berlin band marches through streets
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SCU Wreath being carried through streets
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Leading Communist official heads marchers
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GV Marchers with uniform windcheater jackets carry flags (2 shots)
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SV & GV PAN Crowds following the marchers
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Initials BB/0200 FC/PN/BB/0208



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: On Sunday (14 January) thousands of East Berliners turned their annual anniversary demonstrations into an anti-Vietnam protest march. The march normally commemorates the death of two founders of the German Communist party, Karl Liebkencht and Rosa Luxemburg who were murdered in 1919, after a Communist uprising in Berlin. The Secretary of the country's Communist Party, Erich Honecker, surrounded by a cluster of senior officials, led the long march. The demonstrators carried placards and banners calling for an end to the War in Vietnam.

SYNOPSIS: East German Communists today, commemorated the anniversary of the violent death of two founders of their party. Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg were murdered following an uprising in January 1919. Today's party leaders, including Erich Honecker, lead this March.

But the demonstrators concentrated more on the present than the past. The march became a gigantic protest against the American involvement in Vietnam. Placards and banners screamed out: "Dirty American War in Vietnam". There were thousands of marches--150,000 of them according to the official East German newsagency--but compared with western protest marches, this demonstration was a placed and orderly affair.