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 News from Around the Americas | March 2007 
Rousing, Emotional Start for US War Protest
 Steve Vogel & Clarence Williams - Washington Post
| | A 1967 rally against the War in Vietnam held in Washington, DC included a march to the Pentagon. Saturday, protesters will commemorate the 40th anniversary of this historic march, which will coincide with the fourth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war. (Marwan Ibrahim/AP) |
Arrests made at White House; storm might trim weekend turnout.
Dozens of demonstrators, many of them Christian peace activists, were arrested outside the White House late last night and early this morning as part of a protest against the war in Iraq.
About 11:30 p.m., police began handcuffing the first of about 100 protesters who had assembled on the White House sidewalk to pray in a planned act of civil disobedience.
The protesters were part of a larger group that had assembled at the Washington National Cathedral for a service on the fourth anniversary of the start of the war. From the service, demonstrators marched through the wind, cold and dampness to the White House.
The demonstration began a weekend of protest that is to include a march on the Pentagon today. Last night's event, which was sponsored by more than two dozen religious groups, was not part of today's antiwar rally at the Pentagon.
Those who were arrested had been among almost 3,000 people who assembled at the cathedral at 7 p.m. for a rousing, emotional service that lasted more than 90 minutes.
Participants, whom the cathedral staff numbered at 2,825, heard speakers including Celeste Zappala of Philadelphia, whose son was killed in Iraq in 2004.
"I am here tonight as a witness to the true cost of war," she said, "the betrayal and madness that is the war in Iraq."
"We lay before God the sorrow that lives in all of us because of the war," she said.
Last night's procession was sponsored by Christian Peace Witness for Iraq.
Meanwhile, organizers of the march on the Pentagon expressed concern that the storm hitting the Northeast might affect turnout.
Protest leaders said they still expect tens of thousands of people for the march, which will begin at 12:30 p.m. north of the Lincoln Memorial and cross the Arlington Memorial Bridge to the Pentagon's north parking lot for a rally. Organizers are tying the protest to the 40th anniversary of the 1967 march on the Pentagon against the Vietnam War, saying it represents similar public anger.
Airlines canceled many flights in the Northeast yesterday, and driving conditions were poor. Organizers said many contingents from some of the hardest-hit areas, including New England and New York, are scheduled to travel in bus and car caravans.
"They are doing everything possible to continue to come," said Brian Becker, national coordinator for the ANSWER Coalition, the march's main sponsor.
Other contingents are coming from such places as New Orleans, Tucson, Houston, Salt Lake City and Florida and California, organizers said.
Yesterday's cold rain did not stop a small group of people from gathering on the sodden, muddy ground of the Mall's Constitution Gardens to preview their countermarch activities.
Members of the Gathering of Eagles group said they plan to voice support for the war and for the troops in Iraq and make sure that the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, near the war protest's starting place, is not desecrated. Antiwar demonstrators said that they, too, respect the memorial.
Organizers with Gathering of Eagles said they also will demonstrate against the protest along the march route. Many with Gathering of Eagles are Vietnam veterans or relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq.
"I've got some friends over there," said Rod Linkous of El Paso, gesturing toward the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. He served two tours in Vietnam in the 1960s and '70s.
"We defended their right to say whatever they want," Linkous, 59, said of war protesters past and present. "They have the freedom of speech. We gave that freedom by fighting and dying for it."
The rain prompted organizers of the war protest to move a news conference scheduled for their assembly grounds at 23rd Street and Constitution Avenue to George Washington University Law School.
Speakers, including the parents of a Marine killed in Iraq, denounced the war and called for the impeachment of President Bush.
Mike Marceau, a disabled Army veteran who served in Vietnam and is vice president of the D.C. chapter of Veterans for Peace, criticized the administration over recent reports of poor conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
"That is unconscionable, and we can't allow that to happen," said Marceau, who said he spent eight months at Walter Reed during 1970 and 1971 recuperating from wounds. "It's time to stop spending money on hurting people and start spending money on healing people."
Carlos Arredondo, who brought to the podium the boots his son Alex wore before he was killed in Iraq in 2004, said the march will honor service members and others who have died in the war. He echoed Marceau's comments about Walter Reed: "The veterans deserve much better."
Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson said Bush and Vice President Cheney should be removed from office for what he described as crimes against the Constitution.
Eugene Puryear, a student at Howard University who has coordinated the participation of college students from across the country, predicted a large showing of youths. "We're seeing new people, new energy, new blood," Puryear said. "People who never have been to a demonstration before are now organizing buses."
Staff writers Michael E. Ruane and Martin Weil contributed to this report.
Christians Gather for Anti-War Protest
Associated Press
Washington - Thousands of Christians prayed for peace at an anti-war service Friday night at the Washington National Cathedral, kicking off a weekend of protests around the country to mark the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq.
Afterward, participants marched with battery-operated faux candles through snow and wind toward the White House, where police began arresting protesters shortly before midnight. Protest guidelines require demonstrators to continue moving while on the White House sidewalk.
"We gave them three warnings, and they broke the guidelines," said Lt. Scott Fear. "There's an area on the White House sidewalk where you have to keep moving."
About 100 people crossed the street from Lafayette Park - where thousands of protesters were gathered - to demonstrate on the White House sidewalk late Friday. Police began cuffing them and putting them on busses to be taken for processing.
Police said they would not know the total number of protesters arrested until later Saturday.
The windows of the executive mansion were dark, as the president was away for the weekend at Camp David in Maryland.
John Pattison, 29, said he and his wife flew in from Portland, Ore., to attend his first anti-war rally. He said his opposition to the war had developed over time.
"Quite literally on the night that shock and awe commenced, my friend and I toasted the military might of the United States," Pattison said. "We were quite proud and thought we were doing the right thing."
He said the way the war had progressed and U.S. foreign policy since then had forced him to question his beliefs.
"A lot of the rhetoric that we hear coming from Christians has been dominated by the religious right and has been strong advocacy for the war," Pattison said. "That's just not the way I read my Gospel."
The ecumenical coalition that organized the event, Christian Peace Witness for Iraq, distributed 3,200 tickets for the service in the cathedral, with two smaller churches hosting overflow crowds. The cathedral appeared to be packed, although sleet and snow prevented some from attending.
"This war, from a Christian point of view, is morally wrong - and was from the beginning," the Rev. Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners/Call to Renewal, one of the event's sponsors, said toward the end of the service to cheers and applause. "This war is ... an offense against God."
In his speech, the Rev. Raphael G. Warnock, senior pastor at Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church, lashed out at Congress for being "too morally inept to intervene" to stop the war, but even more harshly against President Bush.
"Mr. Bush, my Christian brother, we do need a surge in troops. We need a surge in the nonviolent army of the Lord," he said. "We need a surge in conscience and a surge in activism and a surge in truth-telling."
Celeste Zappala of Philadelphia recounted how she learned of the death of her son, Sgt. Sherwood Baker, who served in the National Guard. When a uniformed man came to her door asking if she was Baker's mother, she said yes.
"'Yes,' and then I fell to the ground and somewhere outside of myself I heard someone screaming and screaming," she said.
The Friday night events mark the beginning of what is planned as a weekend of protests ahead of Tuesday's anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion, which began on March 20, 2003.
On Saturday morning, a coalition of protest groups has a permit for up to 30,000 people to march from the Vietnam War Memorial across the Potomac River to the Pentagon. Smaller demonstrations are planned in cities across the country. |
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