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World Socialist Web Site www.wsws.org
WSWS : News & Analysis : North America
75,000 march in Washington against US militarism and Israeli aggression
By Jerry Isaacs
22 April 2002
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Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched in Washington DC on Saturday to
oppose US militarism and the Bush administration�s attacks on democratic rights, as
well as Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people. The Capitol Police said the
protest was larger than anticipated, estimating 75,000 participants. It was the largest
anti-war demonstration in Washington since the Gulf War more than a decade ago.
The demonstration began with three separate rallies, which then converged in a
march up Pennsylvania Avenue to the US Capitol. The April 20th Mobilization to Stop
the War, a coalition of pacifist and radical groups, held a rally just south of the
Washington Monument. Another protest was held near the White House by a
separate coalition, International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism),
focusing on Israel�s invasion of the West Bank and attracting large numbers of
Palestinians.
Finally, anti-globalization protesters opposed to the policies of the World Bank and
International Monetary Fund demonstrated near the headquarters of those two
institutions, before feeding into the march to the Capitol.
Another 15,000 to 20,000 marched in San Francisco in a simultaneous protest on the
West Coast. Smaller demonstrations were held in a number of other cities.
A large contingent of Arab-Americans and Muslim immigrants, who have borne the
brunt of the anti-democratic measures carried out by the Bush administration since
September 11, attended the Washington demonstration to protest US backing for the
Israeli invasion of the West Bank.
Thousands of Palestinian-Americans made the 12-hour bus trip from Detroit or
traveled from other cities such as New York in what organizers said was the largest
pro-Palestinian demonstration in US history. They carried Palestinian flags, coffins
symbolizing those murdered in the Jenin refugee camp, and photos of massacred
civilians. Many denounced the US policy of arming and financing the Israeli military
machine, carrying signs that read: �Sharon and Bush are terrorists,� �Palestinians live
9-11 24/7,� and �Rocks vs. F-16s, Who�s the terrorist?�
Mahmoud Mansour came to the march with his wife and children from Groton,
Connecticut. He said that much of his family remained in Ramallah, Nablus and the
Gaza Strip. His wife�s cousin was shot dead in Ramallah a week earlier, while other
relatives had disappeared, he said.
�I�m here to object to US policy and to show my support for the people of Palestine,�
he said. �It is horrible for the people there. People cannot leave their homes without
being shot; they don�t have enough food or water.
�The truth is that most American people don�t understand what is happening. They
say it is a democracy here in America, but it is not really a democracy. The
politicians
are for sale and do not reflect real American values and ethics. That is the only way
you can explain a government that ignores Israeli massacres and says that it is
fighting to stop terrorism. What are they talking about? Democracy is supposed to be
the people running their own government, but here it is the one who has the money
who runs everything.�
At one point a group of Jewish demonstrators opposed to the Israeli occupation
joined the Arab-American protesters, chanting �Yes to Judaism! No to Zionism!�
Throughout the day, references to the refusal of Israeli military reservists to serve
in
the occupied territories evoked thunderous applause.
The atrocities carried out by the Israeli government further galvanized those opposed
to the war in Afghanistan and Bush�s open-ended �war on terrorism,� including the
planned military assault against Iraq and the dispatch of US troops to Central Asia,
Yemen, the Philippines and Latin America. Protesters denounced the bombing of
Afghan civilians and carried signs and banners reading, �No blank check for endless
war,� �Criminals in the White House again� and �War without an end. Not in our
name.�
Many protesters denounced the detention of 1,200 immigrants without due process
and the unprecedented powers given to the FBI and other government agencies to
carry out surveillance and wire-tapping. Others demanded funding for jobs, education
and social programs instead of increasing the already huge military budget and
giving more tax breaks to the rich.
The large turnout was particularly significant in the face of the campaign by the
media to promote pro-war and patriotic sentiment in the aftermath of the September
11 terrorist attacks, as well as the Bush administration�s efforts to silence dissent
and
brand government critics as accomplices to terror.
In the days leading up to the demonstration the media widely reported preparations
by the police, the FBI and National Guard troops for potential violence and hinted at
mass arrests. Both local and national media outlets quoted DC Police Chief Charles
Ramsey warning that the protest could become a cover for a terrorist attack. A total
of 65 protesters were arrested for minor infractions such as trespassing and
disrupting traffic, some arrests coming on the eve of the mass demonstration and
some on Saturday.
Less than two dozen people attended a small counterdemonstration organized by
Republican groups and addressed by ex-California Congressman Robert Dornan
and other right-wingers. This pro-war rally was soon surrounded by jeering
demonstrators, with mounted Washington police separating the two groups.
The marchers included large numbers of high school and college students attending
their first protest demonstration, as well as workers from across the US.
�The Bush administration is using terrorism as a symbol to push through its own
agenda,� Gabe, a student from Buffalo State College in New York, told the World
Socialist Web Site. �Anyone who opposes this war is aiding and abetting terrorism,
according to Attorney General John Ashcroft.�
�I�m against war because it has no basis,� said Clark, a high school student from
Baltimore attending his first anti-war demonstration. �There was never an
investigation into what actually happened on September 11, and instead we are just
randomly killing people in Afghanistan without negotiations or anything. We�re wiping
out people and the media just filters this out.�
Shankar, an immigrant from the southern Indian state of Kerala, came to the rally on
a bus from New York City. �I don�t believe in the war in Afghanistan,� he said. �In the
name of all of us, that someone should wage a war and drop bombs on a place that
has already suffered so much, is wrong. They are just trying to divert attention away
from the real problems of the world, which are caused by capitalism. They are
carrying out a senseless devastation of life in a place that the people of this country
cannot see and do not know.�
Sammi Marconi, a high school student from Connecticut, called the September 11
attacks �the best thing that happened to Bush�s presidency. People did not like him
and now he was able to get people to rally around him and to use the attack to justify
any war he wants to carry out.�
He said he and several classmates had come to Washington �because we don�t like
what our government is doing, sending troops all over the world, including into the
Philippines and Colombia, and because our government is taking on issues that it
should not be involved in, all under the name of combating terrorism.�
At the morning rally near the Washington Monument, a 15-year-old girl from a
Palestinian refugee camp spoke. She said, �I don�t make any distinction between
Bush and Sharon. The soldiers might be Israeli, but the weapons are made in
America. Your tax money is going for F-16s, tanks and Apache helicopters that are
killing us.�
Her friend added, �It�s true that the weapons are strong and that we only have
stones, but our belief is strong. I ask myself, why do they call us terrorists? Ben
Gurion, the founder of the Zionist state, said that once we were expelled, the future
generations would forget their homeland. He was wrong.�
Those who lost family members in the terrorist attacks on September 11 gave some
of the most moving speeches opposing US aggression. They have set up an
organization��The Campaign for Peaceful Tomorrows��and several traveled to
Afghanistan to oppose the US attack.
Amber Amudsen, a 28-year-old mother who lost her husband, Craig, a multi-media
illustrator who worked at the Pentagon, quoted from a letter she wrote to Bush and
read outside the White House. In it she said, �I do not want anyone to use my
husband�s name to perpetuate violence.... So please, Mr. President, when you say
that vengeance is needed so the victims of September 11 did not die in vain, would
you please exclude Craig Scott Amudsen from your list of victims to justify further
attacks. I do not want my children growing up thinking that the reason so many
people died after September 11 was because of their father�s death.... He raised our
children to understand humanity and not to fight to get what you want.� Amudsen
concluded that her grief was not a call for war.
Derril Bodley lost a 20-year-old daughter, Diora, on Flight 93, which crashed in
Pennsylvania on September 11. He said he traveled to Afghanistan to call for an end
to the �barbarous bombing campaign there.� Just a few days after his daughter�s
death he spoke out against the possibility of war, saying, �Don�t kill more innocent
people in the name of my daughter.� He said thousands were suffering and dying by
the �perpetration of an aimless war.� The cause of terrorism, he said, was US
policies, including those that maintain an unequal distribution of the world�s
resources.
Other speakers denounced the attack on democratic rights that followed September
11. Michael Ratner, a human rights lawyer and president of the Center for
Constitutional Rights, said, �We are here today showing that there are people here in
the US who will fight back against repression here and abroad. Our government calls
this a war to make us safer. But we all know it has made us less safe. It is creating
chaos around the world. It is a war against all of us, against civil liberties, and
particularly against non-citizens, Moslems and immigrants from the Middle East. We
must all stand with those people now, here in this country.�
Ratner said his organization is representing the hundreds of detainees held by the
Justice Department, but that legal cases alone would not free them. He said US
citizens had to demonstrate and demand their freedom.
He then described the conditions in which hundreds of prisoners captured in
Afghanistan were being held at the US military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
�There are 300 people there right now, in dog cages, surrounded by chain-linked
fences, in temperatures of over 100 degrees, infested by vermin in a desert in Cuba.
We went to an international court, and the Organization of American States says this
is illegal. The US says: �We don�t care.�
�Guantanamo is America�s Devil�s Island. It is a US penal colony where no law
applies. According to the US, you can do whatever you want, including torturing
people, and no court can intervene. As the world�s only superpower, it believes it can
do what it chooses, when it chooses. And the result is more terror. America truly is a
rogue state.�
The politics of the march organizers
Although Saturday�s demonstration gave expression to the growing opposition to the
Bush administration�s foreign and domestic policy, the politics of the demonstration�s
organizers offered no viable way forward. The direction proposed by many of the
speakers was based on the notion that imperialist war and attacks on democratic
rights can be stopped by building bigger demonstrations to exert pressure on the
Democratic Party and Congress.
�We must demand more from our elected representatives and insist we have more
money for education, not war,� declared one of the principal speakers, Julia Beatty,
the president of the United States Students Association. �Demand that Congress not
fund the appropriations bill for the increase of the military budget and that it cease
military and economic aid to Israel,� she said.
The rally�s organizers brought Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, a Georgia
Democrat, onto the speakers� platform at end of the march. McKinney has come
under attack from the Bush administration and right-wing Republicans for calling for
an investigation of the September 11 events. She joined, however, in the near-
unanimous vote in the House of Representatives last autumn to give the Bush
administration an open-ended mandate to wage war.
McKinney�s lone appearance at the rally contrasted sharply with the turnout at an
April 16 Washington rally staged by Zionist groups to defend Israeli aggression,
where dozens of lawmakers, including House Democratic leader Richard Gephardt,
turned out. Bush sent Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to officially
represent his administration.
The Congressional Democrats have proven unable and unwilling to offer any serious
opposition to the extreme right-wing forces that dominate the Bush administration.
>From its cringing in the face of the conspiracy to impeach Clinton, to its
acquiescence to Bush�s theft of the 2000 election and its current line-up behind the
White House in the �war on terrorism,� the Democratic Party has prostrated itself
before the Republican right. As a political organization of the ruling elite, it
defends
the same basic social interests as the Republicans.
Those who counsel a turn to this party and to Congress as the way to stop war and
defend democratic rights are directing the emerging movement against the Bush
administration�s policies into a political blind alley.
The powerful feelings of outrage and revulsion expressed at the April 20 protest will
find a way forward only through the emergence of a new, independent political
movement of the working class, outside the Democratic and Republican parties, and
directed against the profit system.
Copyright 1998-2002
World Socialist Web Site
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