More than 10,000 people marched through downtown Portland yesterday afternoon in support of the message, “Stop the War, and Bring the Troops Home.”MARCHERS: ON BROADWAY (photo: Christopher Line)

Mayor Tom Potter was among speakers at the event. “I was here in Vietnam and I stayed silent,” he told the crowd. “But I will stay silent no more. You look beautiful today!”

Keynote speaker Raed Jarrar, an Iraqi architect who was the first to conduct a survey of Iraqi casualties in the warzone, said: “The only way to stop the violence in Iraq, the only way—is to give Iraq back to the Iraqis.”

March organizers say they’re pleased with the turnout, but more importantly, that so many people took direct action for peace. Hundreds of people wrote personal letters that will be delivered to Senators Gordon Smith and Ron Wyden this week, and hundreds more signed up for nonviolent direct action training, courtesy of Portland’s raging grannies.

“The idea was, let’s not just march around and wave a sign, but do something about it,” says Kelly Campbell of the American Friends Service Committee, which co-organized the march.

The message of this year’s protest was also more focused than in years past, albeit with a peppering of off-topic signs like “9-11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB,” and even a few protesting the torture of students in Ethiopia.

Afterwards, a splinter group of 50 self-proclaimed anarchists led their own march on the Justice Center at SW 3rd and Madison, stopping on the way at NW Park and Morrison and again at 4th and Yamhill near Pioneer Place mall, to confront the police, yelling slogans including “Whose streets? Our streets!” Watch a YouTube of the first clash here.

At least 60 riot police lined up outside the Justice Center, accompanied by bike cops, to face off against a group of around 800—led by the anarchists with a banner reading, “No God, No Country, No Masters,” gathered opposite in the park. The police arrested 14 people, mainly on disorderly conduct charges, and for interfering with police officers. Things calmed down after darkness fell, with most protesters heading home. The riot police stood down at 9.30pm, with a group of bike police remaining on the steps of the justice center until the early hours.

“These people were not connected to the peace rally at all,” says Police spokesperson Catherine Kent. “It was a separate group of anarchists with a confrontational agenda.”

Campbell says the march organizers cannot be held responsible for the anarchists actions and that “people are going to do what they are going to do.”

Police say another “unpermitted protest” is planned for today, around 4.30pm. They don’t know where, or who’s involved.