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LOCAL News :: Peace : Protest Activity

7000 Protest War March 18: Tribune & CBS Stories

[Here's the text of two stories, which downplay the Union Park rally and the feeder marches. On the TV video coverage, one major station emphasized Michigan Ave while another focused on Union Park. --CarlD ]

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chicagotribune.com

Downtown braces for war protest:

Thousands downtown protest war

By James Janega and Jason George

Tribune staff reporters

Published March 18, 2006, 9:49 PM CST

As many as 7,000 Iraq war protesters clanged bells, blew whistles and caused a gleeful cacophony Saturday evening as they spilled onto Chicago's well-heeled North Michigan Avenue in an anti-war pageant to lambaste the war and demand an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops.

The rally came on the third anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and capped three increasingly fitful years during which polls have shown falling public support for the war.

The frustration has simmered mainly in lonely pockets, with few rallying points for a national anti-war movement. Still, a cross-section of the Midwest showed up Saturday night in Chicago.

On Saturday night, a cross-section of the Midwest showed up to give voice to simmering frustration.

The rally included the white-haired and middle-aged, people carrying Puerto Rican flags and an upside-down Stars-and-Stripes. Youthful anarchists and children barely aware of the event's significance filled out the crowd's ranks.

March organizers said they expected a crowd of a few thousand; police Supt. Phil Cline said the numbers had swelled to 7,000 by the parade's end, with no one arrested. The multitude was sizeable and raucous, a movable, growing street celebration that felt like a Mardi Gras jazz procession.

'The anti-Vietnam movement started with protests like these!' organizer Andy Thayer shouted as the throngs gathered in the Ogden Elementary School playground at Walton Street and Wabash Avenue. 'If you're going to stop the war, it's not going to be because of some great leader, it's going to be due to regular people like you.'

According to the Pentagon, 2,313 U.S. service members have been killed in Iraq so far. , with other news sources reporting another 206 coalition troops and uncounted Iraqi troops, policemen and civilians killed in the Iraq war over the last three years. Another 278 U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan since a U.S.-led attack began there on Oct. 7, 2001.

When it was on the move, the crowd of protestors stretched for blocks, the cold making apples of cheeks and numbing hands as people clapped and called out, flags and placards fluttering. It glowed sporadically with flashlights and the flicker of candles.

A quartet of floats led the march, followed by clamorous thousands that included a marching band wedged into the crowd, marchers with bicycles and children in strollers. Helicopters rattled overhead.

Bystanders watched from sidewalks and police patrolled the median as traffic in the still-open northbound lanes of Michigan Avenue honked in support.

The dark shadows of store employees lined the dimmed windows at the J. Crew store and Nordstrom shopping center like mannequins, watching the tumult pass below.

The crowd seemed to grow as supporters joined the procession from the warmth of restaurants and coffee shops along the fence-lined route.

Bob McAnulty had protested on college campuses against Richard Nixon in the 1970s. His 16-year-old son Mac wondered what it had been like. Together, they walked in a noisy section near the front of the parade, occasionally joining the chants, the father pumping his fist in the air, the son's face blank and watching everything.

'I had no clue that it would be this big,' Bob Mcanulty said, transported to his youth.

'Cool,' his son said.

It was a cocktail of social causes. There were socialist groups, calls for Puerto Rican rights, gay and lesbian groups, nurses, civil rights workers and education activists.

'We are all here for our different reasons, but together our voice is so much more powerful,' said 28-year-old Elisa Armea of Pilsen, who marched with her friends. 'It's time to stop this imperialism and the occupation.'

Throughout the U.S., protesters took their anger and frustration to the streets in a handful of major cities, from New York to Boston to San Francisco.

Protests also were held in Australia, Asia and Europe, but many events were far smaller than organizers had hoped. In London, police said 15,000 people joined a march from Parliament and Big Ben to a rally in Trafalgar Square. The anniversary last year attracted 45,000 protesters.

In Chicago, rally organizers had sought protest permits to march down Michigan Avenue since the war's first anniversary, only to have their proposals rejected on grounds the proposed march would snarl traffic.

To get around the obstacles, organizers copied the parade application for the annual Magnificent Mile Lights Festival. Unable to reject the march for its content, the city relented. A spokeswoman for the city's Law Department this week said the politics of protesters were never considered in the application process.

The march was a spectacle, but not a disruption, and to participants, it felt like a cathartic release.

On Saturday, Michigan Avenue became the Midwest's kitchen table, its glittering spine of skyscrapers a collective back fence across which angry citizens exchanged worries.

'There's no flag big enough to cover the shame of innocent civilians dying,' said Jeff Tobis, 47, a guitar-carrying artist from Northampton, Mass., who trailed in the rear of the march. 'You always hope for more folks, but any effort for peace is worth it.'

The crowd rolled into Daley Plaza at 8 p.m. sharp, jamming the cavernous square under the giant Picasso statue, the masses dwarfed by empty office buildings before people trickled away into the Loop.

By 9 p.m., the assembly was gone, with only the blue police lights and yellow Streets and Sanitation truck blinkers flashing in the darkness.

Tribune staff reporters Tom Rybarczyk and Dave Wischnowsky contributed to this report.

jjanega (at) tribune.com
jageorge (at) tribune.com


*********

CBS News:

Anti-War Activists Take To The Stree
s
March Draws Strong Police Presence,
But No Arrests Are Made

Rafael Romo
Reporting

(CBS) CHICAGO On the eve of the third anniversary of the Iraq invasion, protesters took to the streets in Chicago and around the world in the name of peace.

As CBS 2’s Rafael Romo reports, in Chicago, it was a parade, a march and a protest all at the same time, and the message was loud and clear as demonstrators chanted: 'No more war!'

There were many students and young people, but there were also mothers worried about their children.

'I worry about our sons who are going out to war,' said protester Stephanie Frank, 'our sons and daughters are going who are being killed over in Iraq and don't want any more sons or daughters to go over to Iraq.'

The marchers proceeded south along Michigan Avenue to Wacker Drive, and the event was concluded Daley Plaza. No arrests were reported, although the protesters were surrounded by police officers in riot gear.

'It's our patriotic duty to speak up,' said protester Mark Messing. 'Seventy-two percent of the troops in Iraq say they want to withdraw, so we're here to support them.'

Protest organizers were expecting as many as 10,000 people from across the Chicagoland area, but the number of protesters was much smaller, estimated around 7,000.

This was the first time since 2003 that the protest included a march down Michigan Avenue; in the past two years, permits for that roadway were denied. In 2003, several people were arrested after protesters at Michigan and Chicago avenues flooded Lake Shore Drive.

Many anti-war activists began the day at federal plaza at Adams and Dearborn streets, where about 150 demonstrators passed out leaflets and listened to speeches. Many of the signs called for an end to United States involvement in Iraq.

At the federal plaza rally, wearing an olive green T-shirt that expressed opposition to R.O.T.C programs in high schools, 56-year-old volleyball coach Ron Kunde said he was getting a chilly response from most pedestrians he approached with his anti-war flyers.

'Most people just pass me by,' he said. 'They don't wish to make eye contact.'

But rally organizer John Beacham said he is optimistic that opposition to the Iraq war is growing.

'People are tired of the war. They don't really see any reason for it,' he said. 'One thing we know for sure is that the movement will continue to grow. ... People aren't going to start to agree with the war more. History has shown that things go the other way.'

Virgil Killebrew, a 56-year-old homeless man, came to the rally to try and sell his poetry.

'Some wars are necessary, but I don't think this war is necessary to continue,' Killebrew said. 'So many people could use that money for survival, like me.'

At least one bystander showed up to express his support for President Bush's policies in Iraq.

'I support freeing Iraqi's from tyranny,' said Ryan Stiles, 33, of Chicago. 'I came here to show there are American who support what bush is doing in Iraq.'

The demonstrators at federal plaza later joined marchers from across the city and suburbs at Union Park, at Lake Street and Ashland Avenue. U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) was among the featured speakers there.

'This reminds me clearly of Vietnam all over again where everyone kept saying -- let's not withdraw; it will turn into another chaos,' Gutierrez said. 'Well, there is chaos and there is civil war.'

Vietnam War veteran Barry Romo said, 'After Vietnam, and 60,000 lives for an immoral and illegal war, we've now thrown away 2,500 lives in another immoral and illegal war.'

One group of mock counter-protesters, calling themselves 'Billionaires for Bush,' held signs with such slogans as 'Warfare, not health care,' and chanted, 'One, two, three, four, we make money when there’s war; five, six, seven, eight, no-bid contracts are really great.'

A podium was set up for several public speakers who gave both Spanish and English language anti-war presentations.

One protest organizer said, 'Today we're the majority, so let the majority be heard.'

Anti-war activists held similar demonstrations around the world Saturday to mark the third anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. The streets surrounding London's shopping and theater district were shut down by authorities for a demonstration that police said attracted about 15,000 people, while roughly 2,000 people rallied in a park in Tokyo.

2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.
 
 

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