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UNCA students protest Iraq war |
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Tuesday, 27 March 2007 |
By STEVE RASMUSSEN
About 50 students staged a walkout from their classes at UNC Asheville to protest the war in Iraq the morning of March 20. The students rallied on the university quad to hear speeches before marching to downtown.
Speakers at the rally included two UNCA professors and a candidate for student-body president. The event, organized nationally by Students for a Democratic Society and locally by the group’s UNCA chapter, the Socialist Unity League, was peaceful and drew no counter-protesters. The rally marked the fourth anniversary of war’s start.
“Let’s
show them we will not stand by as U.S. troops continue to kill and rape
in our name,” announced Kati Ketz, the league’s chair and the first
speaker at the rally.
“We are going to
take to the streets and build a national student anti-war movement that
has been missing from the anti-war movement,” she said, noting that 82
schools around the U.S. have SDS chapters participating in the protest.
Assistant
Political Science Professor Dolly Mullen, a last-minute addition to the
roster of speakers, thanked the crowd of students for joining the
walkout. She told them, “We study Martin Luther King all the time ...
We really applaud the direct-action methods he employed. People often
criticize your methods as illegitimate, but they’re often the only way
to get the government to listen.”
“For those of
you who support the troops, for God’s sake support them by bringing
them home!” Patrick Finn, a professor of English at the university,
said.
“What’s this war
about: Freedom? Democracy?” asked Randall Flagerty of the School of
Americas Watch. “This war’s about freedom to make a profit at the
expense of people.”
Tristyn Card
criticized the cost of the war, alleging that it diverts funds from
education. Charla Schlaeter denounced national Democratic Party leaders
and front-runners for the 2008 presidential race for reluctance to cut
funding for the war or commit to bringing the troops home by 2008.
The crowd had
grown to about 100 by the time the rally concluded at 12:30 p.m., an
hour after the walkout began. Following a student wearing a red Arabic
kaffiyeh, or headdress, and brandishing an Iraqi flag, a group of
protesters marched off the quad and toward downtown chanting “U.S. out
of Iraq! Let them have their country back!”
The march ended
at Pritchard Park, where the group joined about two dozen students from
Asheville High School who were also participating in the national
walkout.
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