Locals join S.F. peace rally

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More than 150,000 fill 12 city blocks

February 17, 2003
Staff and wire report

SAN FRANCISCO - More than 100,000 people hit the streets of San Francisco on Sunday to join the voices around the world this weekend protesting a possible U.S. invasion of Iraq.
“It was unbelievable,” said Robin Cohen, a member of the Salinas Action League, who joined demonstrators with her husband, Peter Kwiek, and others. “This is a democratic surge of activity saying: We understand the situation, and we don’t think war is the solution.”
A group of students from California State University, Monterey Bay, were also scheduled to travel to San Francisco in vans to join 600 colleges and universities in protest against war in Iraq. The event marked the first public action taken by CSUMB students against the war.
Demonstrators had postponed their event one day to make way for the city’s popular Chinese New Year parade and celebration. But the delay didn’t hamper turnout, which appeared to swell throughout the day.
“Finally it seems there is a worldwide movement saying this is obviously a catastrophic path we’re on,” said Deborah Hoffmann, 55, part of the Bay Area Women In Black, a group of Jewish feminists. “And now everybody is out in the streets.”
“It is so clearly really on the edge of madness what Bush is doing so you have to be out on the streets,” said Hoffman, who held a sign reading Jewish Women for Peace.
A steady stream of chanting, sign-waving protesters filled 12 large city blocks stretching from the waterfront to City Hall. Police estimated the crowd at 150,000 people. Organizers claimed 250,000.
Cohen, of Salinas, said instead of a traditional “wave” that fans often do at ball games, thousands of demonstrators on Sunday performed a wave of sound, in which enthusiastic shouting was “passed” through the crowds.
“It was an interesting way of connecting yourself to all the people that you can’t see who are marching with you,” she said. “You can feel the power and solidarity of all these people.”
Some Salinas-area residents also attended a peace rally in Santa Cruz on Saturday.
Deanne Gwinn of Soledad and friends from Salinas demonstrated alongside 5,000 people that day.
“I was very relieved to see that there were that many people that feel this way,” Gwinn said Sunday. “It made me feel optimistic about what’s going to happen in the future.”
After Sunday’s demonstration, a splinter group of a few hundred people, some of them wearing bandanas across their faces, marched to the city’s posh Union Square shopping area, where they squared off with police officers.
Demonstrators climbed atop a cable car, linked hands in front of police lines and pelted officers with rocks, food and other objects. Police in riot gear closed the entrances to some stores to prevent looting.
April Haynes, who was part of a human chain pushed off one street by police, said her group broke off from the main demonstration to exercise their right to assemble without a permit.
“Part of the reason I stayed so long is because I feel like we were more threatened if we left as individuals then if we stayed and consciously broke the law as civil disobedients as a group,” said Haynes, 28, shaking and holding her pink bandanna. “We feel dissent is really under fire in this country.”
At the main demonstration, protesters, including actor Danny Glover, writer Alice Walker and singers Bonnie Raitt and Joan Baez, tied the San Francisco event to a worldwide series of demonstrations held Saturday around the world.
“We know that we have not been shown enough evidence for a pre-emptive strike,” said Raitt said. “There are a million people around the globe who have shown they feel the same way.”
Korean war veteran Don Prell, 73, of San Francisco, decried the looming military conflict as a ploy for big business.
“I think it’s stupid. I’ve already gone through (war), and I could see that it was a war for the rich people then, and this is one now,” Prell said. “It’s the same thing and it’s ridiculous.”
The United States and Britain continue to accuse Iraq of concealing weapons of mass destruction prohibited under U.N. resolutions adopted at the end of the 1991 Gulf War. They say they will disarm Iraq by force if necessary.
Still, many at San Francisco’s mass rally said the United States hasn’t proved its case.
“We need to let President Bush know he woke us up,” said U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland. “All of us, we’re all from different walks of life and he brought us all together here today.”
San Francisco’s famous diversity was on display, especially in the sign carried by Alexis Dinno, 33, as she waded through the throng of protesters on Market Street: “Transsexual Vegan Lesbian Epidemiologist Punk for Peace.”
“My goal is not just to see no war in Iraq,” Dinno said. “That’s just one objective on the pathway to promoting human dignity around the planet, and that’s why I have so many identities reflected on this sign.”
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Californian staff writer JERRY JIMENEZ contributed to this report