DASW Announces Plans For Anniversary Actions

Press Conference:
11:00 a.m., Wednesday, March 17, 2004
San Francisco Federal Building (Polk and Golden Gate)

Direct Action to Stop the War, the group which coordinated the largest and most visible direct actions against the war inside the U.S., will join with representatives from United for Peace and Justice, People's Non-Violent Response Coalition, and the Committee to Defend ILWU Local 10's Jack Haymen to announce their direct action plans for the March 19th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The speakers, who represent a growing global majority united in opposition to the war, will include local healthcare professionals, students, teachers and members of the American-Arab Anti-Defamation Committee and Latinos Contra la Guerra. The parents of a GI stationed in Iraq will also address their concerns about the war. Speakers will discuss the spiraling impacts of war on Bay Area communities and social services that have stemmed from the occupation’s $89 billion price tag. “Children, the elderly, and the poor are being forced to pay dearly for this frankly imperialistic power-grab. The Bush administration’s foreign and domestic policies fly in the face of the democratic values this country holds,” said Susan Maxwell, an East Bay educator.

Pending communications, Zeyad al-Defaee, who is one of the doctors in charge of the Kadimiyah Teaching Hospital, the largest public hospital in Baghdad, will be making a statement by cell phone about the current state of Iraq's healthcare infrastructure.

Direct Action to Stop the War is a community-based mobilization organized through decentralized affinity groups and a directly democratic spokescouncil. The actions on March 19 will be the West Coast kick-off of a “Beyond Voting” campaign which will join the rising national challenge to the Bush administration’s policies of empire-building, permanent war and domestic cutbacks.

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