EDWARD LIN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Westwood resident
Thomas Michael holds a sign while UCLA extension
student Stephanie Armstrong waves an American
flag.
By Chris Goodmacher
Daily Bruin Contributor
About 100 people from various organizations gathered outside the
Federal Building on Wilshire Boulevard Sunday to protest the United
States’ bombing of Afghanistan, which began that morning.
The sentiments expressed by most of the anti-war protesters were
essentially the same: U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan
would do more harm than good for both Afghans and Americans.
“Afghanistan has been war-torn for 25 years, six million
people there are on the brink of starvation,” said Gillian
Russom, a graduate student of education and a member of the
International Socialist Organization. “Intervention will
create more anger and bitterness toward the states.”
“Retaliation is what (Osama) bin Laden wants,” she
continued. “It will make more people desperate and angry at
the U.S.”
Early in the day, organizers of various groups called their
members to meet at 1 p.m. at the Federal Building for an emergency
protest, Russom said.
As people slowly began to arrive and the protest picked up
momentum, demonstrators holding signs chanted “1-2-3-4, we
don’t want your racist war; 5-6-7-8, stop the bombing, stop
the hate.”
Cars rolled by and drivers honked their horns in support.
Groups set up tables to hand out literature while people played
music. Men, women and children made posters on the street, talked
or even meditated in the shade of the building.
Los Angeles county resident Jon Sherman showed his support for a
peaceful resolution by beating a Native American drum.
“It represents the heartbeat of Mother Earth,”
Sherman said. “I wanted to bring that consciousness into this
situation.”
People had begun to gather on the lawn of the Federal Building
as early as noon when authorities told the protesters that all
federal property had been declared off limits for the day.
Jim Lafferty, executive director of the L.A. Lawyers Guild and a
member of the Los Angeles/Orange County Coalition to Stop the War,
said he negotiated with the FBI official for some space on the
sidewalk for the protesters.
The protest was moved onto the sidewalk where, 20 feet down,
there was a separate demonstration.
Suzanne Davidson, an executive assistant, has been demonstrating
outside the Federal Building with others every Sunday since July as
a show of support for Israel.
Later, police put up yellow tape across the sidewalk, separating
the two demonstrations “because (Davidson’s
demonstration) is pro-war and the other one is anti-war; this
barrier is for a buffer zone between the two,” a police
officer said.
But Davidson made it clear her demonstration was “not
pro-war but pro-Israel.”
The protests went on without incident side-by-side, separated by
the buffer zone.
The organizations present included the L.A./Orange County
Coalition to Stop the War; the Coalition for World Peace; Southern
California Schools Against War; and the L.A./Orange County Chapter
of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
At about 2:10 p.m., Lafferty got on a microphone to tell
everyone to disperse by 3 p.m. in order to attend other anti-war
events that had already been scheduled, causing the crowd to
gradually disperse.