DC hosts largest anti-war protest in US since Vietnam

Around 100,000 people marched against war on Sat., Oct. 26, 2002, in Washington, D.C.

By Celene DeLoach and Willy Rosencrans

Asheville, North Carolina, Oct. 28 (AGR) – Hundreds of thousands gathered in streets across the US on Oct. 26, the one-year anniversary of the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, to protest the Bush administration’s impending invasion of Iraq. International ANSWER, the group which called for the day of protests, said the numbers far exceeded their expectations.

Between 150,000 and 200,000 people gathered in Washington, DC’s Constitution Gardens, making it DC’s largest anti-war demonstration since Vietnam. The demonstration culminated in a march that encompassed nearly 30 blocks before drawing to a close; when marchers at the front of the procession returned to Constitution Avenue on their way back, they had to wait to allow demonstrators at the tail of the march to pass. Police blocked protesters from approaching the White House; three arrests were made.

Protesters voiced a variety of concerns about a US offensive against Iraq. Some felt that it drew attention from increasingly worsening economic woes at home.

Anti-Bush sentiment was apparent, not only as shown here in Washington, DC, but at many of the peace rallies across the US on Sat., Oct. 26, 2002.

“This Iraq war is 100 percent bullshit,” said Martin Freed of No Nukes North in Fairbanks, AK. “It’s a political ploy to take people’s minds off the loss of social services and civil rights in our country and the failed ‘terror war.’”
Tina Plummer, of Fayetteville, NC, agreed. “I haven’t met many people who are in favor of a military offensive. They’re more concerned about jobs. We’re in an economic slump.”

Others focused on the international ramifications of an offensive. Suk Jong Hong, of the Korean community development group Nodutdol (Stepping Stone), came from New York with a group of Koreans and Korean-Americans to draw connections between the US occupation of Korea and the probable aftermath of a US invasion of Iraq.

“Korean civilians suffer from murder and rape committed with impunity by US soldiers,” said Hong. “The Status of Forces Agreement permits the US to have legal jurisdiction over all its bases. It also gives the US the use of natural resources... It’s a colonial relationship.”

Maria Gnecco of Colombia saw similar motives behind US interventions in Colombia and Iraq. “It’s all about oil. Colombia has oil, and the US has set up protection for oil there. Colombia’s oil has been taken over by the US. They don’t care about the people.”

Luis Cardoza, an organizer with Colombia’s SINALTRAINAL union who was once kidnapped by paramilitaries allegedly working for Coca Cola, agreed. “It’s all done for the resources and raw materials of the country.”

Rashid, a Syrian living in Baltimore, gave this message to Bush: “Start a war with Israel if you want to fight countries with nuclear weapons.”

Osman, originally from Iraq but a resident of New Jersey for the past 18 years, came with his wife and three children “because only innocent people are killed in wars.” He remembered the hundreds of civilians killed in the Amiriyah bunker in Iraq by a US “smart” bomb in 1991.

Many demonstrators had simpler, angrier messages. Santino, an Italian living in New York, came with a sign bearing the likeness of George Bush and the words

“Guerra? Ma vavangulo, stronzo di merda!” [War? Go screw yourself, you piece of shit!]

“Fuck you, bastard,” exclaimed Freed when asked if he had any words for the president.

In San Francisco, demonstrators filled a mile-long stretch of city blocks as they marched from the financial district to City Hall. At one point the crowd numbered 42,000.

“I’m out here because I think this whole idea of bombing Iraq is atrocious,” said Hilary Hann, a 43-year-old social worker. “Everybody should be out here doing what I’m doing because it’s the only way we’re going to have any voice.”

“What I see is blame, retaliation, vengeance and war, and it doesn’t help,” said Scott Valentino. “It doesn’t do anything except cause more bloodshed and endanger more Americans.”

The demonstration was peaceful, though a splinter group of about 600 broke off, wandered through the financial district and stood briefly outside an Army reserve office, according to police spokesman Dewayne Tully. They spray-painted slogans on streets, but there was no other property damage and no arrests.

In Taos, NM a crowd estimated at 2,500 marched to Donald Rumsfeld’s home in El Prado, north of town, many wearing Halloween skull masks. At least 10 state and federal agents stood guard. Protesters hung their placards along a wooden fence lining the driveway. Some of the protesters staged a die-in in front of the home.
“Taos is an international peace zone,” Mayor Peralta said.

Marvin Gladstone, 75, of Albuquerque, came dressed as Uncle Sam and wore a sign on his chest that said: “I Want You to Die for Oil.”

In Des Moines, IA, police arrested 14 people for blocking the gates to an Iowa National Guard base. The 14, watched by 75 supporters across the street, had refused police orders to leave. They were handcuffed, taken to jail and charged with criminal trespass.

In November, five planes and 200 members of the 132nd Fighter Wing will leave from the base for a 30-day deployment to patrol the no-fly zones in northern Iraq. Iowa National Guard Officer Ed Graybill said the November patrol is routine and will be the sixth deployment in Iraq in six years.

“I felt that my conscience called me to do it,” said Eileen Hanson, 28, of the action. It was the first time she has been arrested for protesting. “I’ve tried to resist the war in Iraq within the boundaries of the law, but now this is what I had to do.”

At a later gathering in Des Moines, more than 200 people assmbled to demonstrate against a war on Iraq.

Around 10,500 rallied in St. Paul, MN and marched to the state Capitol.

“I haven’t personally seen this many people gathered for peace since Vietnam,” said Pat McPeak, a St. Paul school nurse.

The peace themes of the rally highlighted what many viewed as conflicting interests: corporations, oil companies, and the country’s wealthiest citizens vs. education, health, and housing for the average taxpayer.

“I’m old enough to remember Vietnam, and what we learned then was that sometimes our own government lies to us,” Fran Conklin said.

250 gathered in Durham, NC as police and private security guards stood by to arrest any “trespassers” on private property. “I haven’t been to a demonstration in 30 years!” exclaimed one protester.

There were some early unpleasantries with private security guards from the Brightleaf Square shopping center. The security guards prevented ralliers from parking in Brightleaf-operated lots under threat of towing, and threatened to have any ralliers who “walked across the property” arrested for trespassing.

A march in Montpelier, VT drew 1,100 people. Ten-year-old Ariel Goodman took her turn at the podium to call on the government to spend more money on schools — including her own century-old school building, which she said badly needs repairs — and less on the defense budget.

“It’s really, really, really stupid that we can kill people for oil,” she said.

“It’s crucially important that we tell the administration that we want no part of their warmongering on the suffering people of Iraq or any other country,” said Nancy Rice, 60. “I don’t think that we have any right to change regimes of other countries. War puts the whole world in a very vulnerable position.”

2,500 marched in Augusta, ME through a steady, cold rain to voice their opposition.

“As a [Vietnam] veteran, I’m asking you to do all you can to ensure your sons and daughters do not serve in this war,” Dud Hendrick urged the crowd.

Tom Jackson, an activist and filmmaker who produced Greetings from Missile Street, a documentary showing Iraqi citizens struggling to survive under economic sanctions, said modern warfare has the heaviest impact on children.

“The children of Iraq and Afghanistan have just as much value as ours do here in the United States,” Jackson said. He said people should consider not paying federal taxes so their money can’t be used to support war.

Additional information from Associated Press, Des Moines Register, Maine Sunday Telegram, NC Indymedia, St. Paul Pioneer Press,

Western North Carolina
residents denied input
on aerial pesticide spraying

Fletcher, North Carolina, Oct. 22—North Carolina Department of Agriculture (NCDA) officials have cancelled a public hearing that was scheduled for tonight to hear the public’s comments on a proposal to weaken crop dusting rules. Instead of a public hearing, the NC Pesticide Board will hold a question and answer session, but will not take any public comments into consideration, though written comments will be accepted through Nov. 12.

NCDA staff has called the proposed rule change the most important decision ever to face the NC Pesticide Board. The proposal was developed at the request of crop dusters who felt the current crop dusting regulations were too strict. It would delete the existing buffer zones around homes, schools, and businesses and replace them with a risk-based level of pesticides that crop dusters would be permitted to deposit on neighboring properties.

“The Pesticide Board has done the public a grave disservice by canceling the only public hearings accessible to western North Carolina residents,” said Fawn Pattison, Director of the Agricultural Resources Center in Carrboro. “It is unfair to expect residents from all over North Carolina to drive to Raleigh in the middle of a workday for a hearing that should have taken place in their region.”

Aerial spraying of pesticides poses a host of problems in the mountain region of North Carolina: drift from the spray can affect organic and other farms, kill trees and threaten endangered species native to the Blue Ridge. Helicopter spraying of herbicides along power lines and other right-of-way areas in the area is becoming increasingly common. Pesticides drifting from aerial spray operations can harm health, air and water quality, threaten wildlife, and put organic farmers at risk of losing their certification.

Pesticides have been found in the bodies of children living more than 1/4 mile from nearby pesticide spraying. Exposure to pesticides can cause health problems ranging from dizziness, nausea, headache, and skin rashes to learning disorders, asthma, some forms of cancer, and even death.

“Even the pesticide industry admits that the proposed rule can damage crops and other plants, at levels below what they’re recommending for human exposure. There is no preventive measure to protect the livelihoods of organic farmers,” said Martin Webster, an organic gardener from Burnsvillle.

The “official” public hearings on aerial spray rules will be held in Raleigh on Tues., Nov. 12. Written comments should be sent to the NC Pesticide Board, 2109 Blue Ridge Rd, Raleigh, NC 27611. For more information, contact the Agricultural Resources Center at www.ibiblio.org/arc.

Source: Dogwood Alliance: www.dogwoodalliance.org

US plans to send Marines to Colombia

By Peter Gorman

Iquitos, Peru, Oct. 25— Two battalions of US Marine Jungle Expeditionary Forces have recently received deployment orders for insertion into Colombia this coming February, 2003.

According to reliable sources, the battalions, which with support will total roughly 1,100 men, will rotate in and out of southern Colombia, with orders to eliminate all high officers of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), scattering those who escape to the remote corners of the Amazon. The FARC hierarchy has been the subject of intensive US intelligence scrutiny for several years. The offensive will mean that the US is fighting wars on three fronts simultaneously: Afghanistan, Iraq and Colombia.

While this reporter did not see a battle plan, according to sources the offensive will be led by the Colombian military, which will push the FARC south toward the waiting Marines. A similar but much smaller operation involving former US-SEALS was called off at the last minute two years ago. The Bush Administration is supposedly prepared to take the heat as many innocent Indigenous peoples and Colombian campesinos — a number that could reach the thousands — as might be killed in the offensive.

The presence of US troops in battle in Colombia will be in direct contravention of the Congressional parameters of both Clinton’s Plan Colombia and Bush’s expanded Andean Initiative. But with the propaganda that has been churned out in the US media during the past year regarding terrorism — including Assistant Secretary of State Rand Beers’ claim that the FARC were training with al-Qaida (a statement he has recently and quietly rescinded -- see Narco News, Sept. 10, 2002, “Beers Corrects Falsehood Under Oath in DynCorp Case”) — the administration feels the American public’s outrage will be controllable.

The plan was sealed at a late September lunch between Colombia’s new right wing president Alvaro Uribe and Bush in Washington. The orders for the insertion were cut shortly afterwards.

The luncheon took place at the tail end of a UNITAS exercise between US Marine Expeditionary Forces and the Peruvian military, during which, for the first time ever, 600 Marines aboard the USS Portland, made their way up the international waters of the Amazon river to Peruvian territory on the Nanay river just outside of Iquitos.

Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo denied that the US presence indicated any future involvement of US troops on Peruvian soil, or the presence of a US base in Peru — which is not permissible under Peruvian law unless specifically authorized by the Peruvian Congress. But insiders saw the arrival of the USS Portland as a message to both the FARC and Peru. To the FARC the message was that the US can show up any time and cut off their southern river escape routes to Brazil, Peru, and Ecuador in the face of a Colombian military offensive push to the south. To the Peruvians, and to Toledo personally, the arrival of the Portland with 600 Marine jungle troops was a reminder that he had crossed the line when he abruptly cancelled a joint Peruvian-US military training exercise called New Horizons in April, after a year of planning and less than a month before it was set to begin.

Planning for the Portland’s arrival on the Nanay river as part of the UNITAS exercise began at almost the same time Toledo cancelled the New Horizons program.

The US troops will probably operate out of both the US base at Manta, on the coast of Ecuador, as well as at a base built deep in the Peruvian jungle near the Putumayo river — Peru’s border with Colombia — in 1998-1999. That secret base was intended for joint use by both Peru and the US in the event of a Colombian military offensive that would push the FARC south to the Putumayo, but on its completion, then-president Alberto Fujimori ordered the US to leave it. That slap in the face of the US by the US-bought-and-paid-for Fujimori led directly to the coup, arranged by the US, which forced him into exile.

According to sources, the administration will try to keep the presence of the Marines in Colombia secret for as long as possible, claiming casualties to be the result of training exercises or legal assistance to the Colombian military. But in the event that the American public discovers that the US is actively engaging in an offensive war, the administration is said to be prepared to deal with that as it comes.

Bush’s enthusiasm for a “war on terror” allegedly extends to war on the FARC. Reliable sources say that to ensure that the rest of the US sees them similarly, US government operatives at work in Colombia have been responsible for many of the bombings that have been laid at the feet of the FARC in recent months.

Source: Narco News Bulletin