I agree with my fellow protesters. A war on Iraq smacks of neo-imperialism. It has little to do with fighting terrorism or destroying weapons of mass destruction. The US wants to grab access to Saddam's huge oil reserves, and create a pro-western client state in the Middle East.

Nevertheless, it is deeply disturbing the way the Stop The War campaign is ignoring the Iraqi government's monstrous human rights violations, and offering no counter-plan for overthrowing the murderous regime in Baghdad. The leaflets and posters of the Stop The War coalition do not mention Saddam's repression of his own people. There is not a word about the brutalities of detention without trial, torture, execution and the ethnic cleansing of Kurds and Shiites. Iraqi jails are full of journalists, students, lawyers, socialists, clerics, trade unionists and human rights advocates. The anti-war campaign ignores their plight and has no proposals to help to free them.

Most lamentably, the organisers of Saturday's march refused to support regime change. They demanded freedom for Palestine but not freedom for the Iraqi people. This omission is an appalling betrayal of Iraqis struggling for democracy and social justice. The bottom line is this: there can be no toleration of any regime that violates human rights. Saddam must be removed from power.

Those who refuse to support the overthrow of the Butcher of Baghdad are, in effect, colluding with his tyranny. The issue is not whether there should be regime change, but how. There is a credible alternative to a western-engineered invasion. It is an uprising by the Iraqi people: a Vietnamese-style guerrilla war in tandem with a 'people power' campaign of civilian resistance, like they had in Czechoslovakia and the Philippines in the 1980s. This is what the anti-war movement should be supporting loud and clear.

We must press Britain and other countries to aid Iraq's democratic opposition, in particular the Iraqi national congress. This aid should include simple, effective things such as funding pirate TV and radio stations to break Saddam's censorship of the media and give the Iraqi opposition a means to mobilise resistance inside the country. A campaign of civilian resistance could include tactics such as workplace go-slows, mass sick leaves, industrial and military sabotage, and rent and tax refusals.

In parallel, Britain should help to train and arm a free Iraq army inside the northern and southern no-fly zones. From these safe havens, the Iraqi opposition forces could launch military operations against Saddam; creating liberated areas around the major towns, leading to an eventual assault on Baghdad. Internally-based civilian and military resistance may take longer than a US-led war to effect regime change, but it is likely to ensure a more stable and enduring post-Saddam democracy.

Unlike a US invasion, a rebellion by the Iraqi people would lessen the likelihood of Arab states feeling obliged to rush to Saddam's defence. It would also diminish the danger that Islamist fundamentalists could respond by mobilising the whole Arab world in a holy war against the West's armies of occupation. A democratic Iraq would be a beacon for human rights throughout the Middle East. It could give the Arab people their first taste of freedom in a region that is dominated by brutal Islamist fundamentalist regimes. Perhaps, in time, it might even encourage similar, long overdue uprisings in neighbouring tyrannies such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria.