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As
moods deepen against the war in Iraq, a new Northern California antiwar coalition has
organized several successful meetings to give the most far-reaching
expression to the growing antiwar sentiment among U.S. troops and the majority
antiwar sentiment in the United States.
The
“Stop the War Now Coalition“ has a steering
committee that includes individuals representing 107 local and regional
organizations and leading activists.
Stop
the War activists come from many organizations that support human
rights, peace and justice, the labor movement, and civil liberties.
They include groups that back the causes of Arab-American, Muslim,
Latino, and Black rights, Military Families Against the War, Gold Star
Mothers, and Iraq Veterans Against War.
The
coalition’s adopted Statement of Purpose
focuses on the demand, “End the War in Iraq and Bring the Troops Home
Now!” Additional demands call for ending the “war at home” and express
opposition to “U.S. wars and occupations from Palestine to Haiti, from Iran to Cuba, from Afghanistan to Venezuela.”
At
a Feb. 25 meeting, a body of almost 100 groups and leading activists
voted to endorse all national antiwar protests on March 15-22 as well
as several Northern California regional actions organized
by peace and justice groups that work with the coalition.
The
coalition’s first major event will be an antiwar conference on May 13,
tentatively at Oakland’s Laney College.
Some
50 workshops are in preparation as well as entertainment, prominent
speakers, a mass rally, and a plenary session where decisions about the
future of the coalition and proposals for future activities would be
democratically (one person, one vote) discussed and decided. Proposals
would include a mass mobilization against the war in the fall. One
thousand are expected to attend the May 13 conference.
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