Donegal made it to Shannon.

by Ruairi - DAWA Sun Mar 02, 2003 20:48

Thinking Global, Acting local

They came from all ends of county to Donegal town square on Saturday to express their fear of war and hope for peace. As the nation’s attention focused on the protests and actions against the U.S army presence at Shannon airport, the Donegal Anti-War Alliance put their energies into bringing the spirit of peace to the streets.

Donegal peace gathering calls on Minster Coughlan to take action.

They came from all ends of county to Donegal town square on Saturday to express their fear of war and hope for peace. As the nation’s attention focused on the protests and actions against the U.S army presence at Shannon airport, the Donegal Anti-War Alliance put their energies into bringing the spirit of peace to the streets.

Banners, paintings and balloons added colour to the vibrant sound of flutes, drums and a fiddle. The Falcarragh contingent brought songs galore while local man Keith Corcoran read his chilling poem From darkness be light. The gathering was circled by up to 50 people at any one time and amongst them were plenty of children who seemed to embody the spirit of the day with their musical shakers and innocent smiles.

The Donegal Anti-War Alliance has had meetings throughout the county for the last month and has sent representatives to the national demonstrations in Shannon and Dublin. The Alliance is growing at a rapid pace as Donegal people take up the growing people’s movement opposed to Bush, Blair - and Hussein.

One Alliance member stated ‘the world knows that this war is economic in nature. It is about oil. It is about a new style colonialism, not human rights. I cannot stand by and listen to the lies of my leaders any longer. I needed to come out here today to express my concerns. This is serious. It affects all of us and it’s time our Texan Taoiseach listened’.

Differing political spectrums were represented as a Labour party banner read ‘Not in my name’ while a Green Party poster stated ‘People and planet before oil and profit’. Kathy Dillon from Ballyshannon said ‘I am not normally interested in politics but how can I choose not to be now? Fianna Fail are following Bush’s mad path to world war three and I cannot allow my children to enter a world like that. I am here today to show my children the positive aspects of life. The sharing, the music and the good craic’. One Englishman agreed ‘I don’t support Blair. Nobody in Britain does. The English government are at it again – invading other countries just like they did here in Ireland. It makes me sad but events like today give me hope. In fact, today is the firest time in weeks I’ve relaxed and laughed’.

The event seemed to have a global flavour as accents from the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Ghana joined the chorus of voices for peace. Nancy Vario, a tourist from New York, when asked about the allegations that peace supporters were anti-American replied ‘that is ridiculous. I don’t support Bush. Most Americans don’t. The guy wasn’t even properly elected. So does that make me anti-American too?’.

The focal point of the afternoon was a petition requesting that local T.D and Cabinet Minister Mary Coughlan ask her Government colleagues to support a peaceful resolution to the current crisis and to withdraw support for the U.S military at Shannon. The petition was more popular than expected as people queued in the spring sun to put their name to it. By the time the gathering finished the petition had over 200 signatures and it is continuing to do the rounds. Copies are available at the health food shops in Ballyshannon and Donegal Town.

A follow-up event is being planned for next Saturday from 2-4pm and the Alliance is inviting all concerned people to come along, rain or shine, and bring their friends and families and their music, literature, prayers, poems, songs and stories. Women are especially welcome as the event will mark international women’s day and events will be taking place internationally. Those interested in helping organise should call 087 9672549 or check out www.irishantiwar.org and www.indymedia.ie.

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COMMENTS
Shannon Support
by Ruairi - Donegal Anti War Alliance Sun, Mar 2 2003, 7:49am

While there was a wide range of political beliefs represented and plenty of debate about the shananigans at Shannon, the Donegal mob generally supported and were in solidarity with both Shannon actions.

Personally, a massive thank you and 'more power to ya' to all involved in the Direct Action. Marching up and down the square is great but the goverment doesn't seem to be listening. They seem more interested in their lovely fence than in the Iraqi people that they are so willing to help murder. Shannon is part of the death machine and 'pulling down a fence', whilst not achieved, was a symbolic show of seriousness and digust. Onwards and Upwards.

PHOTOS FROM DONEGAL
by Ruairi Sun, Mar 2 2003, 10:08am

For photos of Donegal event check out

http://uk.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=55629&group=webcast

by Ant Sun Mar 02, 2003 22:58

Well done on making the journey. It's not much fun travelling the distance from Dublin so I have all the more respect for those who travel from further afield.

by Fionan Lynch Mon Mar 03, 2003 13:06 komsomol at swirvemail dot com

I gave my address the Letterkenny section of the Donegal Anti War Coalition, but have not got any word at all back from them. Could you send me any updates on events in Donegal and ill try to turn up for them. You lads have any sort of mailing list?

by john throne - labors militant voice Thu Apr 10, 2003 13:48 loughfinn at aol dot com

I am originally from Lifford, Co Donegal. It was inspiring to read about your anti war proests in Donegal. I enclose a couple of reports below from participation in the closing of San Francisco. i hope this is acceptable to the list.

San Fransisco March 20th 2003. Report from R, member of the carpenters union and one of the leaders of the 1999 carpenters wildcat which shut down construction in Northern California. Also an activist with Labors Militant Voice.

1500 jailed in largest civil disobedience action in San Fransisco history

2,500 riot cops /extra cops dispatched across the city.

Possibly 20,000 people strike/sick-out against the war.

Direct Action to Stop the War closes down San Fransisco

We’d heard that the highway patrol cops had the been the most brutal to our people. When four hundred of us came up against their night stick line, the sergeant tapped me on the shoulder, “That way. You’re going that way,” he ordered. I immediately thought of what J had told us about the San Diego snake march the week before. “Lesson No.1” I bellowed on the megaphone to our crowd, “Lesson No.1 of direct action is you don’t let the cops tell you what to do!” The enraged sergeant shouted, “It’s that way or the hospital!” People couldn’t believe he was so blatant. This was probably a philosophy of dialogue he’d developed over many years of being a criminal in uniform. I let the crowd know what only twenty or so of us at the front had just heard. The crowd was disgusted. Several hundred youth began chanting “what’s your name – give us your name!” After letting me know that I would be the first to be arrested, the sergeant realized he’d been too public with his terrorist tactics and sheepishly disappeared into the line of cops.That was the kind of day it was.

Just before 7am the Labors Militant Voice affinity group arrived at the assembly point for our day of direct action against the war. Bush and corporate America had begun bombing Baghdad twelve hours before. Our Direct Action to Stop the War emergency spokes-council, had met into the late hours last night. With hard hats and pots and pans we let “orientation” know we’d arrived and were ready to take a group out to an action. There were about a thousand assembled and perhaps twice as many already spread out across the city at intersections and targeted corporations. We headed up Market Street and stopped at the first action at Pine and Market.When we arrived forty people were in the street and the intersection was effectively closed down. There were maybe twenty cops there. Wailing sirens signaled more were on their way. Within fifteen minutes a hundred were in the street and as workers arrived into the city hundreds more were beginning to gather watching from the sidewalks. The riot cops arrived, gave a loudspeaker warning to clear the street and as quick as lightning they rapid marched in two lines encircling those in the street. For a moment there was a panic. The cops were so fast. I leaped out of the circle by a hair.When I looked back, maybe fifty were encircled and not allowed to leave, including a mother and child and a number of seniors, but mostly youth. J and M, two LMV comrades were inside the circle. Martha was attending to an older woman who’d been shoved down by one of San Fransisco’s “finest.” She’d possibly had her shoulder dislocated or broken but the cops refused to let our medic look at her. As they dragged off those arrested the crowd had swelled to several hundred. Over the megaphone we let the crowd know who was being dragged off. The crowd cheered each individual as the cops tied their hands behind their backs and as they picked up J, we all chanted , “J, J, J” as a sign of support. We let the other protesters know that M, our other arrested comrade, was laid off as a teacher last Friday so that the government could spend our taxes on more cops and more bombs.I felt like making a dive through the riot cop line to join those being arrested just to irritate the cops but held back thinking that this was early in the day. And it was only 7.30.

R scorned the cops and led chants over our megaphone. “I want to let people know that we asked the police if those who were arrested will be allowed to use the bathroom some time today and they told us they didn’t know” Everyone looked at each other and started laughing. As we taunted the riot cop circle, I notice the Yoga for Peace group put their mats out on the sidewalk and start stretching. It was a great symbol of the diversity of the movement.As a second group of sitdowners were circled and arrested by the riot squad, the crowd was beginning to get nervous and only a few of us were left in the street. Morale got a big pickup when the direct action brass band came marching around the corner. Everyone grinned. They were loud and enlivened everyone. I noticed a young woman from the spokescouncil, possibly from orientation who’s job was to coordinate actions in as afar as where reinforcements were needed . I let her know we were about to lose the street and that our megaphone had run out of batteries!! I let her know that people were getting scared of joining us on the streets as more cops and prison wagons kept arriving.

Another woman help me scramble up onto a newspaper box raising me five foot above the crowd. I said a few words about the war and repeated J’s chant “Bush, Cheney, CIA – how many kids did you kill today?” Then I made an appeal to the hundreds of people to move off the sidewalks and into the street. I let them know that they didn’t have to get arrested , that they can get out when the riot squad makes their move and get back in again after they retreat. I asked the woman from orientation if my appeal was okay. She said it was great but that I may want to cut down the profanities. “I was swearing? Oh shit, I didn’t realize” She laughed. As I jumped down, a woman grabbed my arm and said she was sorry but couldn’t risk arrest, but would support us from the sidewalk. That was fine I told her. All support was good, I said. (Later the same woman reappeared at the front of our march!!)

We went back into the street and people began to join us. Impromtu discussions: can we hold the street? How many more can we afford to get arrested? We were getting pushed along Market Street further and further. We had floated the idea that we snake march , closing down intersections then moving on. By concensus we agreed to hold the street as long as we could.One more group of a maybe twenty sitdowners got arrested. They were young anarchists who got arrested as a group. Those who were willing to get arrested had thinned out, so we decided to lead a march up Fremont towards the bay bridge, a key traffic artery. At first we weren’t sure everyone would follow. Remembering the lone student in front of the tank in Tiananmin Square a couple of us raced ahead of the crowd and stopped moving traffic. A yuppie in a SUV tried to pull forward, we refused to move. The crowd got inspired and we were off. Probably 200 of us were spread the width of the street chanting anti war slogans. We took a new intersection. Most of the backed up traffic were busy doing u-turns to get out of the jam. One pickup didn’t u-turn. The driver in his janitors shirt, stayed, honking his horn and fist saluting us in solidarity. Within seconds he let us get on the back of his pickup from where a couple of quick speeches were made. The crowd chanted the drivers name in appreciation. He was very happy.

A siren-blaring fire department pickup truck came speeding down the streets and as the y approached the driver hand waved us aside. We stood our ground. I went around to talk to the firefighter. “Is there a fire around here?’ The driver ignored me and began edging forward. I told him bluntly, ”Man, if you want to get through you better start co-operating. We’ve got the street. If you’ve got legit imate business we’ll let you through.” This time he was friendlier, noting some of the union jackets and hardhats. He said it was a medical emergency. We put it to a quick vote and let them through. Some time later a pro-war kid showed up and stood on top of his vehicle with his pro-war sign. A teenager grabbed the megaphone and yelled, “Dude, you’re wearing a Pink Floyd shirt? Don’t you get the fucking joke?” A ripple of laughter was followed by high fives.

We left the anti-anti-war protester behind and moved onto block another intersection. The u-turning cars had opened up a whole two blocks for us to take.A block or so from the highway patrol lines we dropped to the ground to discuss where to go next. There had been some confusion. “Communications” had a bicycle assigned to our group, as well as Legal who were kind of the copwatch. We huddled around the communications bicyclist to hear which lines around the city needed backup reinforcements. We then put three options to the crowd. A march on the bay bridge would lead to inevitable arrests and probably brutality against us. The group, probably about 400 people at this point voted to head back towards Market Street to try and retake it. This decision was changed and rechanged over the next two hours as we were updated by “communications” on which lines around the city were being held and which were being lost to the cops. We used a combination of concensus and “leadership” in deciding where to go. One young guy who’d (rightly) pushed for more consensus voting on our march later argued that we just need ed to decide where to go and lead the way!While sitting on the ground we had a moment of silence for the families being bombed in Baghdad.As we held another intersection, bicycles were dispatched off to find out where the cops were gathering.

People returned to tell us we could go back towards the bay bridge again if we did a race against the cops. We began our racing march. As we came under an underpass our chanting seemed to be amplified ten times over. Someone let the siren ring out of our megaphone and heads were turning a block up ahead. Our seething crowd arrived at our next intersection. Some fourteen or fifteen year old girls were handed the megaphone and sang their profanity-filled chant. Everyone got a kick out of that.At this intersection we were up against a very pissed off group of highway patrol officers. The crowd’s attention switched to some teen boys dancing in the middle of our blockade to the chant of “this is what democracy looks like.” Everyone applauded. Meanwhile the sneaky cops had allowed a little flow of traffic to turn the corner on our blocked intersection. We took off to get in front of the cars and take the street back.As the morning went on smaller groups would join us. Sometimes marching down the middle of the street, as they got closer they’d race up to our crowd , hugging complete strangers in solidarity and through the sheer pleasure characterized in the popular slogan of the day: “who’s streets – OUR STREETS!”

At one point G, a young LMVer, arrived at the head of another march. He was just beeming.We spent some twenty minutes at one intersection trying to figure out if we should reinforce one blockade , a block away , or if they wanted to join us. In the end we did neither.By 11AM we were a thousand strong and we took back Market Street, by a combination of size and speed. At Market Street, we had to decide to go back to the financial district or away towards the Federal Building. With a thousand people and no sound system (the megaphone could hardly be heard over the multitude of anti war chants) we voted to go back to the financial district so as to target the warmongers: corporate America. However, a chunk of the crowd had already begun marching towards the Federal building and there was no mood for splitting our volume!The federal building was a bit of a let down. Earlier it had been the scene of a lot of pushing and shoving with a big crowd. But when we showed up there was a skeleton picket of maybe fifty people. They were glad to see us. We marched around the building and by Noon the pull of the mass rally at the Civic Center organized by the less radical peace group was too much and most left the streets to join the rally.

I called J on my cell phone, to my absolute surprise he answered his cell phone from inside the jail! He said he’d refused to give his ID to the cops (a tactic passed by the spokes council) and he was going to likely spend the night in jail. This was a tactic to tie up the so-called justice system for the day. He mentioned that M had already been released.The LMV group decided to head out to find somewhere to eat. For the whole day we had been hoping to see the Food Not Bombs bike brigade for water or sandwiches but they were overwhelmed by the needs of the day. As the crowd merged into the rally several people walked up to us to thank us for our “leadership”. We got all sorts of compliments from old and young, and gave out any remaining Payback flyers we had.While waiting on our food and swapping stories, the cream on the cake was when M walked in off the street, fresh out of jail.It was a great day of defiance against American Imperialism’s goal to exploit all the worlds peoples to feed their profit addiction. Viva socialism. Viva the new post Seattle movement that has so much to teach us old Marxists. R

Report from RI member of the public employees union and for years senior steward in his blue collar workplace and also an activist with Labors Militant Voice.

This was one of the best political days of my life after the
British miners strike and the Greyhound strike. At the first intersection
that R describes there was a harrowing scene as the cops dragged a
child off the shoulders of its father. This couple and their child
were just walking by from what I understand and the mother was
dragged in to the arrest circle that R, myself and others had
narrowly escaped. The father, with the child on his shoulders was
outside and the mother threw a camera case with some film in it or
something. The father caught it but the police nabbed him and tried
to get it. A group of them were pulling at him and more moved in.
They grabbed the child and began trying to pull it from the fathers
shoulders and the father was being pulled further backwards. The
father as eventually knocked to the ground and cut his head badly. I
think he ended up in jail.

I was totally impressed with the organization and energy of the
direct action folks ands the youth. There were so many young girls
it seemed to me, full of energy and ready to fight. At the second
intersection we were real strong and holding it good. A Muni bus
driver was stopped, unable to move. I walked up to the driver side
window and started talking about the cuts etc. that they are facing,
then I turned to the people in the intersection (it seems
intersections were made for occupations) and shouted "do you know
what they're doing to her?" pointing at the driver, and I gave some
examples. Then I started shouting more wages and vacation, on-sight
child-care, stuff like that. And the crowd joined in. I remember
seeing this young girl about 15 or so with her two friends. She had
a tee shirt on that said Unfuck America, they chanted and danced all
the while.

At the next intersection, the one where the cop said we can go right,
left or to the hospital a guy was stopped in a pick up. I went over
to him because he had honked in support and also raised his fist. He
was a middle aged worker I think. I asked his name and he said Doug.
I started chanting, we love Doug, we love Doug, and the crowd
responded. Doug let us get into the back of his pickup and we
continued addressing the crowd, young women, guys, even a girl about
11 got in to the act.

The pro war guy thing was funny. Apart from the tee shirt as R
describes another guy held up a sign alongside him with an
arrow pointing to him painted below the words, I'm with stupid.

I had debated with myself about taking off work as I was told I couldn't
get the day. So we decided that if I got disciplined we would make
an issue of it and we raised this at the spokes council meeting that the
group should defend workers disciplined for taking off if we were
asking them to do so. This got a favorable response. I am so glad
that I decided to participate and I didn't get disciplined.

At one point looking at all these courageous young people and
learning from their methods and organizing skills I addressed them
through the megaphone and said that I had been in the labor movement
for a long time and that what they were doing was not new but was the
method that built the union movement. I thanked the young people for
showing the way forward and for bringing back the best traditions of
the U.S. working class. I think they appreciated this from an older
trade unionist.

Ri