Express Solidarity with Anti-War Resisters in the U.S.

international | anti-war / imperialism | news report Monday September 06, 2004 10:56 by Charles NYC, USA

They're in the Courts & Jails for Us! We're on the Loose for Them!

Nonviolent direct resistance to the war is growing inside and outside the U.S. military. The 1700 arrests at the Republican Convention in New York City was a hight tide this year. The discipline and solidarity of the movement not to walk into a Bush teev trap was outstanding. Now is the time for solidarity!

August 31
Day of Direct Action and Civil Disobedience
On Tuesday, August 31, direct actions and civil disobedience protests swept Manhattan -- using street theatre, disrupting Republican National Convention parties and events, reclaiming the site of the World Trade Center attacks from co-option by Bush, and targeting government offices, monopoly headquarters and other symbols of the agenda of repression and war. The day was marked by the undaunted defiance of the youth and other participants in the face of increasingly violent and arbitrary police attacks.

Police showed their plans for the day by erecting a double-barricade four-blocks around the convention site in all directions and making early-morning "pre-emptive" arrests of two costumed street theatre groups. Protesters countered by floating "intelligence" that there would be an action at the New York Stock Exchange. Hundreds of police were sent to surround it while no protesters showed up.

A powerful noon-time demonstration against the U.S.'s inhuman torture systems and detention and deportation policies set the tone for the politically-focused resistance actions that followed throughout the day. Hundreds converged at Columbus Park in Chinatown for a spirited rally targeting the unjust racist profiling and "disappeared in America" perpetrated by the government's Department of Homeland Security's Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (BICE, formerly the INS). The action was mainly organized by the Philadelphia Cluster.



The action also honoured the life of Palestinian activist Farouk Abdul-Muhti, who represented the growing resistance of the peoples at home and abroad. Abdul-Muhti was imprisoned by BICE for 718 days as one of the thousands of illegal and unjust detentions by BICE. He died in Philadelphia July 21, hours after speaking at a panel entitled "Detentions and Torture: Building Resistance." His fiancée, son and lawyer were among the speakers at Columbus Park. "We have to remember all the martyrs -- in Palestine, the U.S. and the world -- who have given their lives to fight against oppression and for human rights. I think that Farouk can only be remembered if we continue this fight," his fiancée said.

Following the speeches, a street theatre piece depicted the brutal U.S. torture system as seen in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, with activists depicting prisoners remaining defiant despite being hooded and berated by a U.S. military "general." With the crowd now swelling to 600 people, participants embarked on an unpermitted march to Thomas Paine Park near the BICE headquarters in Federal Plaza. Chants of "Stop the detentions! No one is illegal!" "Open the borders! Close the RNC!" and "Ya basta! Enough is enough!" rang out through the streets as the energetic march refused to be intimidated by the massive police presence. One participant was arrested for climbing a tree in the park.

Between 3 and 4pm in the afternoon, major actions simultaneously took place across Manhattan. Police attempted to block them with a large show of force and use of pens and netting of protesters and hundreds of arrests. But repeatedly, it was the demonstrators, with determination and defiance, who won out.

At the World Trade Center site, more than a thousand people gathered for a vigil called by the War Resisters League, School of Americas Watch and others. "Our aim is to confront the administration with the death and suffering for which they are responsible: more than 10,000 Iraqis and Afghanis, as many as 1,000 Americans killed, thousands more wounded and scarred, as well as the economic victims of Bush policies -- the unemployed, the uninsured, the undereducated," the call for the action said. "The Republicans have chosen to hold their convention in New York City to link George Bush and 'Ground Zero.' Bush's policies have created 'ground zeros' of death and suffering throughout the world and we hold him accountable for that." Organizers then negotiated with police to march single-file on the sidewalk to Madison Square Garden, where participants planned to stage a "die-in" to symbolize the countless victims of the U.S. "war on terror."

As participants organized to march, police swept in with orange netting and began encircling protestors, arbitrarily arresting 100. As one participant put it, they were arrested for the "crime" of walking on the sidewalk, without impeding foot or vehicle traffic, but having "dissenting thoughts" in their heads. Hundreds continued toward the convention site, successfully carrying out their act of civil disobedience at 28th and Broadway, blocking traffic for several hours.

Twenty blocks away, hundreds gathered outside the headquarters of Fox News, targeting the network as a symbol of the disinformation and unending lies of the monopolies and their media in service to the agenda of war and repression. "Shut up Fox!" echoed off the buildings for hours.
Banner refers to Folsom Prison in North Carolina;
singer Johnny Cash wrote about and performed at the prison.

Uptown, a "guitar and pompadour bloc" and a "men in black bloc" were quickly joined by more than a thousand people at Sotheby's Auction House where an RNC event featured the auctioning of Johnny Cash memorabilia. With numerous references to the late performer's rebel image, and frequently mimicking his well-known photo "giving the finger," the protest remained a boisterous and spirited convergence for several hours. "No Cash for the rich!" was a frequent chant as RNC delegates and others made their way in and out of Sotheby's.

At the New York Public Library, an action which began as two women attempting a banner drop over one of the building's lion statues erupted into a fierce display of defiance and rejection of impunity for police repression. Police officers violently arrested the two women, throwing them to the ground. Within minutes, they were surrounded by hundreds of youth, other activists and passers-by. Police attempted to pen-in and arrest protestors and onlookers alike, at one point throwing everyone emerging from the subway station to the ground. This once again showed that the militarization of New York had nothing to do with the security of the people.

Throughout the day, Union Square remained a centre of activity, with marches setting off for Madison Square Garden on at least three separate occasions. The Bike Bloc, declaring "Still We Ride" after being targeted by some of the most violent police attacks on Friday and Sunday, made a spirited pass through the square. The largest group of riders withstood both the new flexible-orange netting tactic and pepper-spray and large numbers of arrests to re-converge with thousands of others at Herald Square in the evening.

For hours at Herald Square, police attempted to contain the youth and others, only to be continuously met with non-compliance and resistance to being penned in. Participants report that police began targeting individuals not based on any action on their part, but apparently based on "intelligence" that they played leading roles in the protests. Yet each time police moved in to make arrests, they were swarmed by hundreds of protestors.

Throughout the day, other affinity groups organized disruptions and direct actions around the city targeting, among others, the Westin Hotel (housing an RNC delegation), the headquarters of the Carlyle Group, Rand Corp. and Lockheed Martin Corp., and a banner drop at the Port Authority.

Into the night, another 3,000 people gathered at the historic Riverside Church in Harlem to "call attention to the real moral, social and economic issues of this election," as Senior Minister Rev. James A. Forbes put it. At 8:30pm, places of worship throughout the city rang their bells, while members gathered in the streets for an "interfaith ring of hope around Manhattan" in support of social justice.

According to news reports, more than 1,500 protesters were arrested between Friday and Tuesday. Police violence and arrests were characterized by their arbitrariness throughout the Days of Action. Some reported that it was as though a switch was being turned on and off, as police claimed to "allow" whatever actions they determined were "peaceful" and then attack, often the same demonstration or action, whenever they determined to do so. Over the course of the several days' events, it became clear that various police efforts to divide protesters on the basis of their tactics and labeling some violent and others peaceful had not succeeded. Protesters rallied together to defend and protect each other from the police violence and repeatedly affirmed their rights to freedom of speech and assembly. Into the night Tuesday, activists organized to ensure everyone's safety and the safety of their arrested comrades, and began summing up the day's experiences so as to utilize them to further develop their methods and tactics of resistance.

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September 1