----- Original Message ----- From: Matthew Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: IAC discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; FOR Iraq Action Digest <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, June 19, 2000 2:07 AM Subject: [iac-disc.] Albright speech at Northeastern U graduation disrupted On Saturday, June 17, Madeleine Albright spoke at the graduation ceremonies at Northeastern University in Boston and received an honorary degree. Outside of the building where the graduation ceremony was being held, about twenty five to thirty people held signs and distributed over 1,000 leaflets to the huge crowd of Northeastern graduates and their families attending the event; the leaflets detailed Albright's horrible human rights record, highlighting sanctions on Iraq and military aid to Colombia in particular. We brought one complete sound system and several bullhorns and got around the police's ban on using amplified sound by rotating between them, the users of each feigning ignorance of the orders the last set of people had received from the police to not use amplified sound. Given that it was a pretty chaotic, unstructured coalition (groups present included Boston Mobilization for Survival (parent group of the Campaign for the Iraqi People and the Boston Campus Action Network), the Colombia Support Network, the International Socialist Organization, Food Not Bombs, the Committee for Peace and Human Rights, and the New England War Tax Resisters), this would not have been entirely unbelieveable. The police finally allowed us to use a bullhorn from the concrete traffic island dividing the road near the building, from where the large crowd waiting to get in could still hear us--for police, they were actually being pretty reasonable. Speakers emphasized that we were not there to ruin any one's graduation, but to challenge the US government's abominable human rights record as represented by Albright's actions while in office. Twelve activists from Mobilization for Survival and the Colombia Support Network who managed to get tickets from sympathetic people with extras went into the graduation ceremony. Apparently hoping to prevent the sort of disruptions that have happenned when she has spoken, Albright started her speech while about a thousand people were still waiting to get in the building as everyone was made to walk through a metal detector and have their bags searched. Her speech got disrupted anyway. Four banners were dropped from balconies as she spoke and received her degree. The first banner, displayed as she began her speech, read "Iraq sanctions = weapons of mass destruction"--one woman sitting next to the activists actually helped hold the corner of this banner. Next, a banner that read "Sanctions will kill fourteen Iraqi children during this commencement" was unfurled as Albright was finishing her speech, followed by "No Blood for Oil" as she received her honorary degree. The last banner, which read "Stop U.S. Guns to Colombia" was displayed just afterwards. Ten of the twelve activists inside were escorted out; no one was arrested. Three of the banners were up for thirty seconds or so, but one stayed up for several minutes before the police were able to confiscate it and eject the protesters. Security was the tightest one security guard had ever seen, even "tighter than [a] Clinton" visit. Two of the banners were smuggled in under womens's skirts (they have not yet gotten to the point where they are willing to strip search people to avoid embarrassing Albright); the other two were overlooked when the police searched bags--although one was hidden in a date book that the cops flipped through twice and somehow didn't notice the banner. The activists escorted outside were later interviewed by an Associated Press reporter, and speakers from the rally were broadcast live on local AM news radio. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Help fight Diabetes and win $1500 We'll donate a $1 for research to end the fight! http://click.egroups.com/1/5603/5/_/790251/_/961376700/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------- *** Iraq Action Coalition Discussion Forum *** http://iraqaction.org/discussion.html ------------------------------------ *To Post a message, send it to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *To Subscribe, send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * To see the List Guidelines, go to: http://iraqaction.org/discussion.html *Any questions, contact the List Moderator at [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----------------------------------------------
