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Peace Movement Growing Below U.S. Radar
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Peace
Movement Growing Below U.S. Radar
Anti-war protest hits Washington streets tomorrow `We're not about
to send children to die for oil'
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by
Allan Thompson
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WASHINGTON—Jane Coe says she cannot sit home any longer and listen to
the drums beating for war against Iraq. So, tomorrow, she'll take to the streets
of the U.S. capital to join this country's growing anti-war movement.
"I'm not an activist really. I much prefer letter-writing to marching,'' the 64-year-old
anthropologist said this weekend. "But I just couldn't sit at home any longer
amid this drift, and all the buildup to a war in Iraq that we don't need."
Coe is helping to organize a peace march in downtown Washington on International
Human Rights Day, a rally expected to bring together faith groups, seniors and
peace activists.
"The public discourse is: `Bomb 'em. Gear up for war.' But in terms of Iraq, they
didn't have anything to do with Al Qaeda, so linking them to terrorism is stretching
it. And we need to give weapons inspections a chance to work. That's a chance,
that's a hope,'' Coe said.
(The Bush administration blames Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terror network for
the Sept. 11 attacks against America that killed about 3,000 people in New York,
Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania last year.)
Saturday morning, Coe attended a meeting of the Washington, D.C., chapter of the
Gray Panthers, a group dominated by seniors that has lobbied for decades on social
justice issues. It's part of a growing coalition against war with Iraq.
In an auditorium foyer at the University of the District of Columbia, about 20
people pulled their chairs in a circle for the meeting; the Gray Panthers moved
their chairs closer together when one complained she could not hear.
"My motto is health care, not warfare,'' said Abe Bloom, 89, from his wheelchair,
a magnifying glass hanging on a cord around his neck to help him read the handouts.
"It seems to me that Bush is determined, no matter what, to get a war out of this;
but we're not about to send our children to die for oil,'' said Ethel Lubarsky,
85, who sat next to Bloom and leaned on a cane.
As the Gray Panthers met, President George W. Bush used his weekly radio address
to make clear he believes Iraq is hiding weapons of mass destruction, despite
its submitting thousands of pages of documents disavowing such weapons to U.N.
inspectors last week. "Inspectors do not have the duty, or the ability, to uncover
terrible weapons hidden in a vast country,'' he told listeners.
Largely below the radar of mainstream media, the anti-war coalition is gaining
momentum and members. They range from key labour unions, religious movements,
campus groups and such groups as Black Voices for Peace to traditional Marxists.
John J. Sweeney, president of the 13-million strong AFL-CIO labour union has joined
the movement, as has the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and the National
Council of Churches, representing 36 Protestant and Orthodox denominations.
United for Peace, the Web site a San Francisco-based human rights group set up
to track events commemorating Sept. 11, now has evolved into a clearing house
for anti-war groups.
Pat Elder, who owns a real estate title company in Bethesda, Md., says he got
involved with a Quaker group after attending an anti-war protest in October.
"A third of the people there were over 50 and I thought, `Jesus, man, that's not
what I remember from Vietnam. I'm 47 and I was a teenager when the big Vietnam
demos were going on."
Now, he said, it merges "the person in the suburbs, the conservative crowd and
the traditional activists ... to strike a tone that is more palatable to middle
America. So we're not 20-year-olds in bandanas, shouting that Bush is a bastard."
Copyright 1996-2002. Toronto Star Newspapers Limited
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