PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

April 20th in DC- Pittsburgh IMC story
by Toni Bartone Sunday, Sep. 01, 2002 at 1:38 PM

Pittsburgh IMC coverage (better late than never) of the A20 demonstrations in DC.

Women in headscarves, strollers in tow, marched along pink- haired, pierced 19- year- olds in Washington, D.C., last weekend to outwardly criticize U.S. government policies. Their group swelled to about 75,000 people on Saturday, April 20, according to The Nation, the largest-scale expression of opposition to the Bush administration�€™s policies in the U.S. yet.

Demonstrators voiced a number of concerns over the weekend that focused on opposition to Bush�€™s proposals to expand the current war, increase military spending, to show Palestinian solidarity and to protest the American Isreal Public Affairs Committee meetings at the Washington Hilton. Smaller gatherings also assembled to protest the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) meetings in D.C. Saturday, and also U.S. policies in Latin America Sunday, which involve "PLAN Columbia" and the School of the Americas, a military training camp in Fort Benning, GA.

A myriad of national and grassroots groups organized the protests, including ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), the National Youth and Student Peace Coalition, the Mobilization for Global Justice and the A20 Mobilization to Stop the War at Home and Abroad ( a coalition which includes hundreds of organizations from across the country).

Saturday, activists held two separate morning rallies protesting the U.S. "War on Terrorism" which melded into a pro- Palestinian/anti-war march during the afternoon ending at the Capitol, forming a group of thousands even larger than that of 1999�€™s Seattle protests against the World Bank and IMF.

At Sunday�€™s Columbia Mobilization rally, the Festival of Hope and Resistance, a crowd several hundred strong gathered in front of the Sylvan Theatre, a stage facing Washington Monument. The event sought to build opposition against PLAN Columbia and the School of the Americas (SOA), whose name was changed in January of 2001 to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC). The well-organized event featured a diverse group of folk musicians, speakers (including a few Spanish- speaking) and performance by Puppetista Collectiva.

The SOA trains trains Latin American soldiers in combat, counter-insurgency and counter- narcotics, according to the School of the Americas Watch website. SOA graduates are responsible for some of the worst human rights abuses in Latin America. PLAN Columbia provides Latin American counties�€™s militaries with U.S. funding, contributing to human rights abuses similar to those that the SOA causes. Both the SOA and PLAN Columbia are aimed at reducing the coca production in Latin America and consequently reducing the amount of cocaine illegally imported into the United States.

But, as Darrell Rogers, National Outreach Coordinator of Students for Sensible Drug Policy said, "Despite 20 years of �€˜just say no,�€™ demand [for drugs] has not been curtailed. Rogers also pointed out that one of the places illegal drugs are most frequently used is the U.S. prison.

Speakers and musicians repeatedly stated that the "war on drugs" being waged on Latin America by the U. S. is backfiring since coca production has actually increased 20% since it began. Sanho Tree of the Institute for Policy Studies and later Illinois Rep. Janice Schakowsky both said that George W. Bush should observe the rule of holes: "when you find yourself in one, stop digging."

Schakowsky, who appeared at the annual SOA protest at Fort Benning last fall, praised activists�€™ work saying, "you have exposed the hidden and often ugly truth." She also stated that Latin American countries "won�€™t run out of desparate campesinos willing to grow illicit crops."

Politically charged entertainment was interspersed frequently and smoothly with the speakers, reinforcing the message of the rally. Pittsburgh natives Mike Stoutand the Human Union performed as well as bigger names Tao Rodriquez- Seeger and Jolie Rickman, who regularly appears at Columbia- related protests.

Aside from the variety of color, age and gender within the crowd, the most spectacular sight of the rally was the Puppetista Collectiva�€™s performance, where volunteers were first called from the crowd to carry the immense, homemade puppet structures. Puppeteers then depicted the story of governmental oppression in Latin America, ending it hopefully as the largest puppet, a sun- like character named "Justice", was paraded around the stage.

www.indypgh.org

add your comments