Ten Thousand Demonstrate in Boston

By Tarek El Heneidy

"Stop the War Before it Starts" was the theme of a Nov. 26 demonstration in Boston. Organizers of the demonstration, the Emergency Coalition for Peace, Justice, and Non-Intervention in the Middle East, reported that 10,000 persons rallied and marched from Copley Square to the Boston Commons.

"Hell no, we won't go" and other chants filled the air as Daniel Ellsberg, who exposed the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam era, reminded participants that the difference between this war and others in the past (referring primarily to the Vietnam War), is that the president is giving 45 days' notice not just to Saddam Hussein of Iraq, but to the people of the United States. Such an opportunity should not be wasted, Ellsberg said. It is up to the American people to hold the president and Congress responsible for the outbreak of war and its aftermath. Another difference between the current situation and Vietnam, Ellsberg said, "is that we are gathered for action today to avert the war before it actually starts."

Rabab Hadi of the Palestine Solidarity Committee questioned the lack of symmetry between the US government's response to the Israeli occupation of Palestine since 1967, and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait since last Aug. 2. A Palestinian herself, she called for one yardstick to be applied to all military occupations.

Other speakers called for Congress to convene and assume its responsibility for deciding on war or peace, especially at this crucial time, with some 400,000 US troops committed to the region. Speakers called upon individual citizens to press their representatives to allow enough time for sanctions to work, coupled with intensive diplomatic activity to avert a war and save hundreds of thousands of lives.

Gus Newport, former mayor of Berkeley, CA, warned Americans not to relax after the announcement that Secretary of State James Baker III will visit Iraq. Baker, he said, may be going there to demand President Saddam Hussein's surrender, rather than to put all the cards on the table and commence a real negotiating session. The area has an inherent problem that must be addressed, Mr. Newport reiterated, namely the Palestine-Israel conflict that has remained unresolved for many years at the expense of many lives, consistent Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights, and at considerable cost to American taxpayers.

While the demonstration was in progress in Boston, 35 persons were arrested in nearby Chicopee as they attempted to block the gates to Westover Air Force Base. Demonstrators at both sites urged the public to "stop the war before it starts," by calling the White House at (202) 456-1111 and also calling their representatives in Congress.

Tarek El Heneidy was a member of a Fellowship of Reconciliation delegation that recently returned from Iraq with freed American hostages.