A New York City ad hoc antiwar coalition including WRL held a rally for peace in the Balkans April 23. Despite cold pelting rain, 500 people listened for two hours as folksingers Bev Grant, Chris Seymour and Pat Humphries joined speakers including David McReynolds, Pacifica Radio’s Amy Goodman and Jeremy Scahill and civil-rights attorney Michael Ratner in demanding an end to the bombing and a search for civil and diplomatic solutions to the crisis in Kosovo/a. Photo: David McReynolds.

s the bombing continued over Yugoslavia, activists across the United States and in Europe gathered to protest, at first in small groups, then in coalitions re-formed from anti-Gulf War efforts or formed anew.

• Many war tax resistance efforts April 15 focused on the Balkan war. In Milwaukee, four war tax protesters were arrested for blocking the entrance to the IRS with signs saying “Stop Paying for the Wars in Kosova and Iraq,” and in Washington, Seattle and Philadelphia people held signs reading “Bombs Don’t End Violence” and “No More Bombs” in front of IRS and post offices. An Albuquerque, NM, Tax Day action was covered in local papers as an anti-bombing protest, and after a Concord, NH, Tax Day vigil focused on the war, a headline in a nearby Massachusetts paper said, “His [New Hampshire Peace Action Coordinator Sean Donahue’s] $615 Won’t Pay for NATO Bombs.” In Minnesota, members of the Minneapolis Friends Meeting placed a National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund ad in Twin Cities papers reading “Would You Drop a Bomb on This Child?”

• In Clam Lake, WI, protesters were arrested April 18 and 20 during demonstrations against the Navy Project ELF facility there. The giant transmitter sends commands to deeply submerged U.S. and British submarines around the world, including possibly the two U.S. fast attack subs now in the Adriatic Sea armada attacking Yugoslavia.

According to the Coalition to Stop Project ELF, the Ashland County Sheriff’s Dept. arrested three people April 20 for trespassing after the group carried a banner to the facility’s front gate that read, “Abolish the Nuclear Navy and Project ELF.” They were booked at the Ashland County jail and released pending a May 18 court appearance. Two days earlier, five anti-war protesters were charged with trespass for a similar protest.

At the ELF gate April 20, the protesters read a statement condemning the U.S.-led naval and Air Force bombardment of Yugoslavia, detailing the number of civilians already killed by NATO forces, and imploring Navy personnel to dissociate themselves from the war. It said in part, “In view of [the] bombings of protected persons in Yugoslavia, your participation in the operation of Project ELF and the submarine system may implicate you in the commission of war crimes, crimes against peace and crimes against humanity.”

• The pace of the protests picked up the week of April 23, when President Clinton met with other NATO chiefs in Washington to celebrate NATO’s 50th anniversary. In the United States, rallies and vigils across the country demanded an end to the bombing, and on April 23, a delegation from a large coalition of peace groups around the world handed a “Citizens Summons” to NATO Secretary General Solana and the 19 NATO leaders. In Europe, a week after British and German demonstrations, the NATO anniversary was met by protests in Greece, Italy and the Netherlands. In Belgium, 51 activists were arrested April 25 in a For Mother Earth- and War Resisters’ International-sponsored “funeral for democracy” near the Kleine Brogel NATO nuclear weapons base.

• And for those seeking legal as well as moral arguments against the war, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the New York-based civil and human rights group, declared April 27 that the “war in Kosova is flatly illegal” and “violates both the U.S. Constitution and U.N. Charter.”

CCR has litigated numerous cases challenging the legality of war-making, including Dellums v. Bush, which forced the Bush administration to obtain congressional consent for the 1991 Gulf War. According to CCR attorney Michael Ratner, “By bypassing Congress and the United Nations, the United States and NATO have jeopardized the entire system of international restraints on war-making. Under this standard any nation can go to war whenever it wants.”

Noted CCR, “This is the first major war since WWII that has neither U.N. nor congressional consent. Korea had U.N. consent, Vietnam was arguably authorized under the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, and Congress also approved the Gulf War. Additionally, under the War Powers Resolution the president must withdraw all troops within 60 days of the commencement of hostilities. This means they must be out by approximately May 26 unless Congress affirmatively approves their engagement.”

Activists in the United States and in Europe, however, fearful of relying on either Clinton or the Congress to do the right thing, are organizing for the long haul to oppose the war. Check out WRL’s website at www.warresisters.org for a flyer opposing the bombing and for updates and links to other antiwar sites.

In response to “Stopping the Prison-Industrial Juggernaut” (Jan.-Feb.): I’m a Moslem inmate and I have a Red Crescent service of providing survival advice to inmates about to parole, like how to start over again outside working from what one has brought with them from prison, how to use the prison schedule to formulate an outside schedule and how to use one’s prison lifestyle in developing an occupation and with a focus on being a part of the solution.

Please print this in the next issue of the NVA along with my mailing address (Robert Thrower, #47717, CSP Box 777 Unit A8/15, Canon City, CO 81215-0777) so that anyone who wants to take part in this can. God bless you and thanks.

I am incarcerated and writing to ask for information on and/or addresses of groups from whom I may be able to obtain information on nonviolent training, lifestyle and/or conflict resolution.

As you know, most of us here are acting out old habits, often from lack of information, demonstration and skillful practice. Not to say we are not responsible for all our thoughts and resulting actions, rather to say many of us would like to use our time to learn about and begin practicing more skillful, thought-out means to allow us to have a more viable future for ourselves, our families and our communities.

It is a sad time in our country when we hear every day how we must bomb and kill. I bow deeply to you and what you are doing.