[Peace-discuss] Washington Post Coverage of Jan 18th Demonstrations (fwd)

[patton paul]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: WED, 15 JAN 2003 06:37:00 -0400
From: VoteNoWar at InternationalAnswer.org
Reply-To: Info at VoteNoWar.org
To: ppatton at uiuc.edu
Subject: Washington Post Coverage of Jan 18th Demonstrations

Dear VoteNoWar Member:

With your support the anti-war movement has become a major
factor in U.S. politics. On the eve of war, the people of
this country are going into the streets in protests, joining
the People=92s Anti-War Referendum, and using every avenue
available to express their opposition to George Bush=92s
planned war. Below is a major article in the Washington Post
about the upcoming demonstrations, =93Antiwar Activists From
Across the U.S. Preparing for Weekend of Protests=94 (a link
to a graphic map of the march route follows the article,
below).

We are heartened by the enormous outpouring of support for
the People=92s Anti-War Referendum and by the tens of
thousands who are traveling to Washington DC and San
Francisco for the anti-war protests this Saturday, January
18. In an expression of global solidarity, people are
organizing demonstrations in 25 other countries. We just
learned yesterday that major protests have been scheduled
for January 18 in the capitals of every state in India.
Other protests are taking place throughout Europe, Asia and
Latin America, all calling for No War On Iraq. In Japan
there will be demonstrations in five major cities, and in
Argentina the Mothers of the Disappeared, who have
demonstrated every week for 25 years in the Plaza de Mayo
have called for protest in solidarity with the A.N.S.W.E.R.
Coalition=92s call and will be marching to the U.S. Embassy.

We need your help to make this weekend=92s demonstrations the
biggest success possible. We are grateful to all of you who
have helped with a financial contribution and who have
volunteered your time. The expenses involved in organizing a
massive protest are enormous even with a mobilization
consisting entirely of volunteers. To make a tax deductible
donation either online by credit card, or by sending a check,
visit http://www.votenowar.org/donate.html .

Antiwar Activists From Across U.S. Preparing for Weekend of
Protests

By Manny Fernandez
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 13, 2003; Page B01

Dallas lawyer Robert B. Dennis is headed to Washington this
week, one of about 50 Texans willing to endure a 22-hour bus
ride.

Amer Mirza, a Web developer from suburban Chicago, has been
signing up Muslims in his area for seats on a charter bus he
plans to ride.

Casey Chapman, a senior at Catholic Central High School in
Troy, N.Y., will join a dozen other teenagers in a
chaperone-driven van.

Dennis, Mirza and Chapman are a fraction of the thousands
coming to Washington for a national antiwar demonstration
Saturday, a rally and march that they and organizers say
will be their last chance for a massive display of dissent
before the United States goes to war with Iraq.

" The Iraqi people are not our enemy," said Dennis, 70, a
member of the Dallas Peace Center. "We don't need to subject
them to another war and more bombings."

Saturday's rally and march follow an October protest that
drew about 100,000, a turnout organizers and police said was
the largest antiwar demonstration in the nation's capital
since the protests against the Vietnam War. And like the
October protest, this action has drawn counter-demonstrators
who vow a loud but peaceful rally.

The same coalition that coordinated the October rally,
International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism),
is organizing this week's protest. Brian Becker, an ANSWER
spokesman, said it is too early to tell whether the crowd
will be as big as or bigger than that at the previous march.
But he said tens of thousands are planning to make the trip,
as organizers from Texas to New York to Wisconsin arrange
for charter buses, car caravans and flights to the District.

" The most important thing politically for us is to shatter
the false myth of consensus," Becker said.

D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey said he "wouldn't be
surprised" if the turnout in Washington matched that in
October. He said that his department will be ready for that
size crowd but that he does not expect disruptions. Previous
ANSWER protests -- including a pro-Palestinian rally in
April that attracted about 75,000 -- have been relatively
free of incidents. "We don't anticipate any problems,"
Ramsey said. "It's been a peaceful group to date."

The rally is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. on the Mall near
Third Street and Constitution Avenue NW just beyond the west
front of the Capitol. Scheduled speakers include actress
Jessica Lange, Vietnam veteran and author Ron Kovic, former
representative Cynthia A. McKinney (D-Ga.) and others from
labor, peace and Muslim organizations.

After the rally, participants plan to march to the gates of
the Washington Navy Yard, where organizers said they would
call for the elimination of U.S. weapons of mass destruction.
They emphasized that no civil disobedience is planned.

Counter-protesters say they will rally at Constitution
Gardens on the Mall at 9 a.m. Saturday and later greet
marchers outside the U.S. Marine Corps barracks at Eighth
and I streets SE. The D.C. chapter of the national
organization Free Republic, a frequent counter-presence at
protests, and MOVE-OUT! (Marines and Other Veterans Engaging
Outrageous Un-American Traitors) are organizing this event.

The ANSWER protest, which will have counterparts in San
Francisco, Canada, Spain and elsewhere, organizers say, is
one of several Washington antiwar rallies coinciding with
the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. ANSWER
organizers also have planned a youth and student march at 11
a.m. Sunday from the Justice Department to the White House.

Also Sunday, two antiwar coalitions, D.C. Iraq Pledge of
Resistance and United for Peace, plan an 11:30 a.m. rally at
Farragut Square followed by a march to the White House,
where organizers said at least 50 people will conduct civil
disobedience, though details are being worked out. Activists
said they wanted to link King's opposition to the Vietnam
War to the current peace movement.

Monday, the holiday marking King's birthday, the national
activist group Black Voices for Peace plans a rally to
celebrate King's legacy and oppose war against Iraq. It is
set for 3 p.m. at Plymouth Congregational Church in
Northeast Washington.

About 220 organizing centers in 45 states are coordinating
transportation and spreading the word about Saturday's
ANSWER rally, 70 more than in October, said ANSWER organizer
Sarah Sloan. Some groups that brought one busload to the
rally in October said the response this time required them
to have two or three buses, while others that were unable to
attend the previous demonstration said they are now making
the trek.

Sara Iglesias, 29, an activist and writer in Miami Beach,
said she has been fielding up to 10 phone calls and up to 15
e-mails daily from people seeking transportation to
Washington. "We have three charter buses now, and we may do
another, and that's not counting the people who are in
caravans or flying up," she said. A high school teacher, a
civil rights lawyer and a Holocaust survivor are among those
who have signed up for seats, she said.

In October, Iglesias helped organize one bus of protesters.
"We've been in touch with many more people due to the fact
that we've made more connections and the fact that this
antiwar movement is going more mainstream and getting more
publicity," she said.

Mirza, 23, of Glendale Heights, Ill., said one 55-seat bus
is almost filled with Muslims and supporters, and another
might be needed. "There has been a lot of hate crimes in
Chicago after 9/11. Now, the fear is they will get more
extreme" if the United States wages war against Iraq, said
Mirza, a founder of the Muslim League.

College and high school students from 400 campuses
nationwide are planning to attend, organizers said.
University of Iowa student David Goodner is joining
classmates on a 17-hour bus ride to Washington. Student Carl
Sack at Northland College in Ashland, Wis., who attended a
march there in October, is set to board one of three buses
for the national rally.

Chapman, 17, is coming to the District with fellow members
of a youth group called Free the Children. "I think that
people have to realize that it's never too young for people
to be involved with activism and making your voice heard,"
said Chapman, who also marched in October.

Activists said they hope the demonstration energizes a U.S.
antiwar movement that has shown signs of gaining momentum in
recent weeks, as military preparations and troop deployments
for an assault on Iraq have escalated. The march was timed
to precede the Jan. 27 deadline for the first major report
by weapons inspectors to the U.N. Security Council.

That date had been viewed by some Bush administration
officials as a decision point on whether Iraq's cooperation
has been sufficient to head off a military strike. Last week,
though, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell played down the
date's importance.
Organizers said they fear they are running out of time.
"The American people have very little time left to tell
President Bush -- in their voice, which he can't ignore --
they don't want our United States of America to become an
aggressor nation and attack Iraq," former U.S. attorney
general Ramsey Clark said at an ANSWER news conference in
Washington last week.

Clark founded the International Action Center, one of the
groups that led the effort to create International ANSWER as
a response to the Bush administration's war on terrorism. He
has drawn criticism as an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam
War who traveled to that country during the war.

Subsequently, he has served as a lawyer for Slobodan
Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president on trial for war
crimes, and Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the Egyptian cleric
convicted of masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center
bombing.
But many of those planning to come to Washington said that
the views of the organizers are of little concern to them
and that the larger antiwar movement is bigger than any
organizing group.

" I'm told they're some kind of radicals, but I don't care,
" said Dennis, of ANSWER. "Good organizers are worth their
weight in gold."

Staff writer David A. Fahrenthold contributed to this
report.



--->March Route Map
For a graphics map of the march route for Saturday's
National March on Washington, and for Sunday's Youth and
Student March and Rally, visit http://www.washingtonpost.
com/wp-srv/metro/daily/graphics/protest_011303.html.

For a link to the above article, visit http://www.
washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47595-2003Jan12.html .

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