Peace activists march in D.C. tomorrow
By: Neal Jones January 17, 2003
SOUTH COUNTY - Traveling eight hours on a cramped school bus, standing in the cold for hours on end to get a message across and fighting against the will of the United States government is by no means fun.
But for those South County residents who will join hundreds of Rhode Islanders and potentially hundreds of thousands of others at a march in Washington, D.C., tomorrow to protest the seemingly inevitable war against Iraq, it isn't about fun, it's about duty.
"The bottom line is if we don't stop this madness we will be killing innocent people," said Wakefield resident Martin Lepkowski, who leaves for the March at 1 a.m. Saturday. "I don't like doing this. There is nothing to like. But this is a duty. It is my duty as an American citizen to ask what is really going on here?"
Lepkowski is one of many South County residents participating. The trip, organized by Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) is an effort to show solidarity with the hundreds of thousands of other protesters who will peacefully march to the Washington Navy yard.
A similar march in October drew more than 100,000, the largest anti-war protest in the nation's capital since the Vietnam War. A simultaneous protest is slated to take place in San Francisco as well as in 25 cities around the world.
"Sitting on a bus, standing out in the cold is small," said Peace Dale resident Carole Costanza, who attended the protest in October and another last April. "But, if I can't do that, how can I live with myself?"
ANSWER's Bill Bateman said they expect 500 Rhode Islanders to board "buses, trains, planes and cars" and participate.
It is no coincidence that the march will take place on the weekend of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday, Bateman said. The weekend also marks the start of the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq.
"The only war that we need is a war on poverty," Bateman said. "Not on the people of Iraq. We need to feed the people not the Pentagon."
Lepkowski has long been critical of US foreign policy, which he said is largely and most lately driven by US self -interests to feed and fuel a culture that depends too heavily on oil and has become increasingly and dangerously colonialist.
It is no surprise or secret, he said, that Iraq has the second-largest untapped oil reserves in the world, and while "everybody knows Saddam Hussein isn't a good guy," the reality is the Iraqi people will pay for his nefariousness and our thirst for oil. Innocent Iraqis have paid for the last ten years, both he and Costanza contend, as the US and allied planes have repeatedly bombed Iraqi sites, and sanctions have killed, by some estimations, 500,000 innocents, mostly children.
"The bottom line is that the people, not Saddam Hussein or George Bush will suffer," Lepkowski said. "It will be the innocent that pay. How many people are buried in the sand?"
Costanza said while war is never the answer, Bush has, at the very least, yet to provide a solid reason for the country's heavy war footing. Not only that, but a pre-emptive strike sets a dangerous precedent and is illegal under U.S. law, she said.
Other nations are increasingly hesitant to sign-off on military action without such justification, she said. Unilateral action will only increase hostility towards the U.S., a hostility that we can no longer afford to address with military might alone. Eliminating Hussein will not solve the problem, she and Lepkowski said.
"A least we should expect them to have a just reason for going to war," she said. "[Bush] cannot provide one. He cannot say this is just."
"Removing one person from Iraq is not going to change anything," Lepkowski said. "The best way of dealing with him, and with terrorism, is in a forceful but non-violent way. If we really work towards justice then we will have nothing to fear."
Several people have called Costanza, who is helping to organize the bus trip, to offer their support, even if they can't make the journey.
One woman who telephoned lost her husband in Korea, and Costanza will march in their honor.
"She really touched me," Costanza recalled. "She knew that nothing good comes from war."
Both Costanza and Lepkowski said people are increasingly fearful of speaking out against the government and said the government rarely provides the whole truth.
Costanza has more questions than answers, she said, but it is her duty, and the duty of the thousands of others who will march this weekend, to ask them.
"Why are American's afraid to say what they think?" she asked. "How did it get to that point? What is going on? When people really start looking at it, our government isn't telling us the whole story. I don't know if I am going to solve this, but at least I have to put my body and my voice there."
For more information or to secure a seat on the bus trip, contact Costanza today at 295-2888 before 3 p.m. Or contact Bateman and ANSWER at 726-2922 |
