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Politics : Stop the War! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: matthew (Hijacked) who wrote (3622)	3/26/2003 11:38:17 PM
From: Just_Observing	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 21614

Americans and Dollars Not Welcome By Kevin O'Flynn Staff Writer Wednesday, Mar. 26, 2003. Page 3 A few regional businessmen have joined a worldwide boycott brought on by the Iraq war and are refusing to serve U.S. and British customers or sell American products. The five grocery shops owned by Nikolai Gerasimov in Kstovo, in the Nizhny Novgorod region, now have signs reading "Yankee! Go Home!" to show their opposition to the U.S.-led war. "It's a form of protest against the politicians of the U.S.,'' Gerasimov said, adding that the attack on Iraq was being orchestrated by a bully. "It's like walking into a zoo carrying a gun with a sight," he said in a telephone interview Tuesday. The boycotts at the Kstovo stores stand out in a country where most of the public is against the war, but action has been muted. So far, anti-American sentiment has been limited mostly to a few small gatherings of protesters at the U.S. Embassy. Meanwhile, waiters in dozens of bars and restaurants in Hamburg, Berlin, Munich, Bonn and other German cities are telling patrons, "Sorry, Coca-Cola is not available any more due to the current political situation." Several international web sites have also been set up, such as Consumers-against-war.de, which calls for boycotts of 27 top American firms, from Microsoft to Kodak. Demonstrators in Paris smashed the windows of a McDonald's restaurant last week. In Indonesia, anti-war protesters have pasted signs on McDonald's and other American food outlets, trying to force them to close by "sealing them" and urging Indonesians to avoid them. In Kstovo, Gerasimov has also stripped his shop of American goods, including "Bush legs,'' the nickname for chicken legs imported from the United States. So far, most of his customers have welcomed the protest, he said. Although his signs say Americans and British customers will not be served, Gerasimov was more conciliatory in the telephone interview. "It is not the American people whom we are against but the American government," he said. "We have to be humane. If an American goes to the bakery department, we will sell him some bread." Except for one American. "I will not serve Bush," Gerasimov said with conviction. Meanwhile, businessmen in the seaside birthplace of playwright Anton Chekhov have begun their own boycott. In Taganrog, on the Sea of Azov, the local industrial union is urging everyone to use "the only way to stop the aggressive politics of the U.S." and refrain from using dollars in import-export deals. It also is calling on shops to "replace American products with those of countries that do not support the aggression of the U.S." "Civil society cannot remain indifferent to the suffering of people. World War III will totally destroy all the progress of the civilizations of the whole world," the union said in a statement. This was not the first time that Taganrog has shown its anti-war fervor. A local cafe said last week that it has barred U.S. President George W. Bush and other top U.S. officials from its premises. themoscowtimes.com