Protesters hang signs at VAFB

Santa Barbarans attend peace fest

By NORA K. WALLACE and LEAH ETLING
NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITERS
March 24, 2003

While some peace activists gathered in a Santa Barbara
park Sunday,
others were attempting to breach Vandenberg Air Force
Base's security
perimeter.

The Vandenberg protesters claimed they succeeded and
hung antiwar
banners off fences and a water tower, but military
officials say the
displays were left in areas accessible to anyone.

Protesters alleged Sunday that small groups of
activists -- called affinity
groups -- remain in the backcountry of the sprawling
base and are attempting to disrupt military
operations.

Before dawn Sunday, three people -- calling
themselves Hobbits Arising
--
scaled a small barrier and
climbed a base water tower before unfurling a "Not in
our Name" banner. The
banner apparently went unnoticed by security for
several hours. Although the tower is on base
property near a former military
mobile home park, it is accessible to the public from
Highway 1.

Base security officer Capt. Paul Quigley said patrols
found the banner
and removed it. Officers also
found a Vandenberg property sign that had been
spray-painted with an anarchy symbol and left near
the north base radar tracking station. Another sign
was discovered and
removed from a fence near the
south gate, off Ocean Avenue.

"No one actually came into the fenced area of the
base," said 2nd Lt.
Michelle Mayo, a base
spokeswoman. "We have 99,000 acres. Not all of them
are fenced in."

Security police, she added, "haven't seen any signs
of them (protesters)
anywhere the average person
couldn't go."

Affinity group organizer Jake Pace, a UC Santa Cruz
student, said at least 20 people made it onto the
base at some point between Saturday night and early
Sunday morning by hiking the rugged terrain.

The groups, Mr. Pace said, "dodged intensive military
patrols, leaving banners around strategic radar
domes and satellite command centers that play key
roles in guiding the assault on Iraq."

Micah Posner, owner of a Santa Cruz-based bike
messenger company, was among those who climbed
the water tower around 5 a.m. Sunday.

"We went for the water take because we weren't sure
how we felt about
disrupting military operations.
We wouldn't want to do something that would mean more
Americans getting
killed in Iraq. But we feel
strongly in expressing our disobedience to the
military going to war over
this. We wanted to express
our outrage and lack of compliance in a way that
wouldn't mess anything up."

By climbing the tower and leaving the banner, Mr.
Posner said the action sent the military a message
that "we can disrupt their operations. We could have
climbed a radar tower."

A number of people remained camped out or were hiking
through the northern part of the base Sunday
evening, Mr. Pace said. Security forces did turn away
a van full of people around 5:30 a.m. Sunday at
the end of Miguelito Canyon Road, which runs into
Vandenberg property.
Its occupants said they were
looking for a place to camp, a base spokeswoman said.

Vandenberg officials said last week that they would
take every measure
necessary to protect base
personnel and property. That included the use of
deadly force, if
necessary, according to base
commander Col. Robert M. Worley II.

Throughout the weekend, military patrols roamed the
base on horseback
and in trucks and all-terrain
vehicles while helicopters buzzed overhead.

On Saturday, three people were arrested when they
walked onto base property
following a peace rally at
the main gate.

In Santa Barbara Sunday, a festival of peace held at
Pershing Park
celebrated nonviolence and
compassion against the backdrop of war.

"We hope that people take home that true feeling of
peace and ideas
about how to live in new ways to
promote peace," said organizer Hannah Eckberg of the
Universal Life
Church.

Goleta resident Emily Lawson came to the festival
with her husband and
young son, carrying a sign that
said: "Question the rulers, dissent is patriotic."

Ms. Lawson, a legal secretary, said she sees the war
as "unjust" and
"an excuse to expand our empire."

"We had a chance to be a leader. Instead we went
backward," she said
of U.S. actions.

She has spent much of the four days since the war
started worrying
about
the Iraqi people, she said.

"It has spiritually wracked me and I'm doing my best
to have
compassion and
realize this is just a
moment in time."

Although Ms. Eckberg said the festival was "not
antiwar at all, it's
pro-peace," she created a large
banner with a resolution opposing the war for
festival attendees to
sign.

The resolution reads:

"We, the undersigned citizens of Santa Barbara, call
upon the U.S.
government to stop its pursuit for
war against Iraq. We believe that war is no longer a
viable policy for
resolving regional or global conflicts
and that a war with Iraq will have the unintended
consequence of
increasing instability in the Middle East
and decreasing security for our nation. We instead
urge the United
States to lead the world in resolving
conflicts by peaceful means, through assistance
rather than coercion."

Ms. Eckberg plans to deliver the banner to Rep. Lois
Capps and ask her
to take it to Washington, D.C.