Asheville NAACP President John Hayes speaks to people gathered in Pritchard Park in downtown Asheville on Monday, Oct. 22, 2001 to participate in a rally against police brutality. The event coincided with others across the country. This was the sixth year of nationwide demonstrations called by the Oct. 22 Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation. Photo by Cherie Pitre.

Peace movement grows in Triangle

By Matt Robinson
and Michael Steinberg

An outpouring of grief for the victims of the September 11 attacks, and anger towards the perpetrators of the crimes began to sweep the Triangle immediately after the tragic events that day. Thousands took part in memorial services, gave blood, and searched for ways to come to terms with the incredible violence of the suicide attacks.

Also almost immediately, some Triangle residents began discussing ways to respond to the crisis without bringing about the deaths of more innocent people. On September 13 some of them began a daily peace vigil in front of the post office on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill.

On the afternoon of September 20 Steve Woolford was among about a dozen vigilers gathered on the sidewalk there, holding signs facing traffic on Franklin Street and talking with passersby.

“A lot of people have been supportive, some are offended,” said Woolford.

At one point, a Chapel Hill police officer approached vigil participant Joan Walsh.

“He said he didn’t have a record of us having a permit to demonstrate here,”said Walsh. “He told me if we don’t have a permit here with us tomorrow then we can’t do this. I consider that harassment. I’ve been to plenty of protests here. This has never happened before.”

A permit was obtained in time for the next days gathering.

Great Hall gathering

On September 17 it was standing room only at the Great Hall in the student union at the University of Chapel Hill for a panel discussion of the aftermath of 9-11 sponsored by the Progressive Faculty. Well over 700 people were in attendance.

Participating in the panel discussion was Stan Goff, a retired US Army officer with 24 years of service, including action in 8 conflict areas.

Goff alleged that the Bush administration and US petroleum companies were using the tragedy to take military action to protect dwindling global oil reserves in the Middle East.

“The competition for reserves ultimately is a military issue,” he said. “The prospect is a military occupation of oil fields there, because without oil Western civilization collapses.”

Goff called on the US political left to fight back against such a war.

“The left has to be clear about this,” he said. “We can’t afford to back down. If 4% of Americans oppose war, that’s millions ... The time to resist is now, not after militarization and repression.”

Ex-CIA officer and author William Blum said that there had been “a great paucity of soul searching in the media and the American people” since 9-11.

“There has been no questioning of motive,” said Blum. He said assertions by US leaders that the nation was attacked because it is ‘a beacon of freedom’ are denial writ large with hypocrisy. Colin Powell directed the horrific bombings of Panama and Iraq.”

Blum went on to detail US alliances with terrorists such as anti-Castro Cubans and murderous regimes in Latin America and Indonesia: “There have been attempts to overthrow 40 governments and crush 30 movements for freedom. We have bombed 25 countries and killed several million people, and condemned many more to death.”

He also listed a series of violent US actions in the Middle East that have caused widespread and deep-seated resentment throughout the region.

“Terrorist attacks are not going to stop until we stop intervening in other countries,” he said.

Blum called Osama bin Laden “the quintessential usual suspect” and said that “if he is behind the attacks, we must also remember that he is a product of US foreign policy.” Blum said that in 1979 the US decided to overthrow a progressive government in Afghanistan because it supported the USSR.

“The CIA secretly began to aid the Mujahodeen, and Osama bin Laden was one of them,” he said. “The US provoked the USSR to invade Afghanistan and suffer its own Vietnam. The CIA became the coordinator of this holy war. It worked.”

Blum concluded by citing what he called the two Watergate laws: “No matter how paranoid you are, the government is always worse. And don’t believe anything until it’s been officially denied.”

Raleigh activist Rania Masri spoke out against the racist backlash against Arab Americans and Islamic peoples in the aftermath of the attacks. “I fear a rise of racism, the loss of more innocent lives, and further erosion of civil rights,” she said.

“It seems that simply looking Middle Eastern has become a crime,” she asserted.

Masri also condemned the Anti-Terrorist and Death Penalty Law that was created in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing. “This has allowed the US to detain, imprison, and deport people without presenting evidence,” she said. “Twenty-four people have been imprisoned on the basis of secret evidence, some for a long as four years.”

“We don’t want to speak their language of violence,” she said. “Instead it is vital and necessary to speak the language of understanding. That is our only security.”

Out of this Great Hall gathering emerged the Coalition To End the Cycle of Violence, an ad hoc group of Triangle residents. On Sunday, September 23 the coalition sponsored a rally and march in Chapel Hill which drew 500 people at UNC’s McCorkle Place.

The hastily arranged event, put together in less than five days, was facilitated by coalition member Jim Warren, and presented academic and community speakers who stressed the need for a peaceful resolution to the current crisis.

Rania Masri spoke passionately about US responsibility for global terror, and condemned the Bush Administration in particular for its militaristic approach toward resolving the crisis. “Bush is calling for an open-ended war where they will not give us information,” Masri said. “We will remain in the dark, while they continue to bomb ... But we are not alone. The peace movement is growing and is only going to get stronger.”

After the rally, the assembled masses marched through the UNC campus and Franklin Street.

Returning to McCorkle Place, Chatham County Commissioner and Reverend Gary Phillips led the crowd in a prayer of tolerance and peace.

Warren declared the event and turnout “great, especially with such short notice. It was very powerful. It shows that a lot of people are opposed to an attempted military solution to the crisis we’re in.”

On the following Sunday, September 30, some 300 people gathered for another coalition rally at the county courthouse in downtown Durham. Demonstrators held signs reading “Honor Victims With Peace,” “No More Innocent Victims,” and “Cruise Missiles Deliver Terror Not Justice.” Across the street four counter-demonstrators waved US flags and one held a sign that read “Peace Sucks, Nuke ‘Em.”

US Senate candidate Cynthia Brown, a former Durham city counsel member, told the crowd “We have to know what’s been done in our name in other countries. We have to have a global perspective. Terrorism is a result of our policies there. The people who committed the crimes should be punished. But I don’t think innocent lives should be lost as we flex our political and military might across the globe.”

Curtis Gatewood, president of the Durham NAACP, spoke about his recent experience of being castigated by the national NAACP and the local media after he raised criticisms of US foreign policy in his response to the Sept.11 tragedy.

“I am not representing the NAACP in my remarks today,” Gatewood said. “I spoke to 20,000 people at the rally against war and racism in Washington DC yesterday. God is showing that his mercy is being picked up in a time when America has lost its mind.

“I have received threats in the mail in this land of democracy. One letter started ‘Nigger coon Gatewood,’ and ended ‘A good nigger is six feet underground.’ It seems to me that’s terrorism, dealt by cowards who send letters they don’t sign. Our ancestors have known terrorism for 400 years. I have been attacked for getting out of line, for getting off the plantation.”

Gatewood quoted Martin Luthur King Jr. in concluding his remarks: “The measure of a man is where he stands in a time of challenge and controversy.”

Source: Triangle Free Press: www.trianglefreepress.com