Skip to comments.

Posted on 11/12/2001 12:26:25 PM PST by Drango

Anti-war students strategize

By Tom Lochner
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

BERKELEY -- Bracing for the possibility of a protracted war in Afghanistan, students from dozens of colleges along the West Coast met at UC Berkeley over the weekend to plot a long-term anti-war strategy.

In two days of workshops, panel discussions and plenary sessions, some 180 delegates to the West Coast Conference for Campus-based Antiwar Coalitions resolved to try to make their anti-war movement more broadbased by reaching outside the university environment.

They voted to form a committee of representatives from each campus anti-war coalition to coordinate future actions. They also debated whether their movement should target globalization, consumerism, capitalism and racism in its anti-war message or focus on the point of broader consensus: stopping the war.

In all, about 600 students attended the conference, said Snehal Shingavi, a UC Berkeley student who was a master of ceremonies at Sunday's plenary session. More than 60 campuses, including one in Mexico, sent a maximum of five delegates to the conference. Delegates were picked by anti-war activists on their respective campuses.

"It really was a superb turnout," said Ameena Ahmed of Berkeley Stop the War Coalition, adding that it meant that people are anxious to learn that "this war is not all it's cracked up to be."

"It's all about oil and about corporate interests," Ahmed said. "It's not going to stop terrorism. It's not in the interest of the average American, and it's certainly not in the interest of the average Afghan who has nothing to do with terrorism."

That thinking is mirrored in the newsletter published by the Berkeley anti-war coalition, which argues that the war is part of a greater United States geopolitical strategy that projects Afghanistan as a pipeline route for transporting oil from the Caspian Sea basin to Arabian Sea ports via Pakistan.

The plan for a coordinating committee passed handily at Sunday's plenary session. In the afternoon, the delegates discussed scheduling a national -- or even international -- anti-war conference.

"There are many people in Mexico against this war," said Meritxell Calderón, a delegate from the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, as other students applauded. "This can be a really big, international movement."

The delegates also bounced around ideas for a National Day of Action, among them a walkout and fast on a school day or a demonstration in Washington, D.C. early next year.

Speakers were identified only by first name and school affiliation. Claudio, a University of Southern California student, proposed joining a call by anti-globalization activists to stage demonstrations at shopping malls the day after Thanksgiving. He was one of many who wanted to expand the movement's message beyond the war in Afghanistan.

"This is really a question of global capitalism and imperialism," said Seth of Cal State Los Angeles. The movement against the Vietnam War was energized, Seth said, once Students for a Democratic Society "took an anti-imperialist stance."

But Keith of the University of Arizona warned that "we need to stay focused: Stop the war."

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.