M19 Bechtel and Housing Actions

More than 1,000 activists organized by Direct Action to Stop the War gathered in San Francisco on Friday, March 19, the one-year anniversary of the start of the Bush war on Iraq. Led by medical workers and teachers, marchers demanded money for healthcare and education, not for war and occupation.

"The other side of the war in the Mideast is the war against the poor and the homeless at home," said Michael Kozart, MD, who works at San Francisco General Hospital. "This society has values that are terribly misplaced."

About a dozen protesters locked themselves together in front of the Bechtel building on Beale Street, calling attention to corporate profiteering from the war while people in this country and around the world suffer.

Activists later marched to Page Street to support a group that had squatted a building overnight. "The Thorn," as the squat was known, became the site of rooftop guerilla garden. The building owner, a real estate development group, plans to convert the location to market-rate apartments.

"We will take over more buildings and keep squatting, keep squatting, keep squatting, until they make enough housing," said Ralowe Ampu, one of the occupiers.

About 11:30 am police raided and evicted the squat. The occupiers were cited and released.

"We're sorry we couldn't stay," said Meddle Bolger of the Green Bloc. "But this is just the beginning of a year long campaign for democracy and against empire."