Men in Aztec dress pounded on drums and women in colorful headdresses danced as protesters held up signs to passing motorists, many of whom honked apparently in support and some yelled indecipherable jeers out their windows.
Protesters played flutes, held up rainbow flags with peace symbols and signs that read, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind -- Gandhi" and "The death of more innocents will not make us safe."
Sally Marr, an organizer for newly emerged Coalition for World Peace
said the vigil is the second one the group has held since the first one
Sunday at Griffith Park which attracted about 300 people.
"We are forming it to counterbalance the retaliatory and
militaristic attitudes in the country, and we are trying to
resolve this in a peaceful way," she said. "It's the beginning of an
anti-war movement.
"This is not going to be like any war we've ever known. We are
trying to stop this before it starts."
East Los Angeles resident Rudy Pisani, 71, a Korean War
veteran, said the U.S. foreign policy has caused enormous
suffering in war-torn Afghanistan and throughout the world.
"Now they have turned against the USA because the USA has
always bombed Muslim nations," Pisani said. "People live in
caves there. What are we going to bomb? My heart goes out to
the innocent people in Washington, D.C., and New York who
died. But violence will not solve this."
North Hollywood resident Pawel Chmielewski, 47, said he
opposes all wars because many civilians are killed.
"We need to normalize our relations with Iraq and end
sanctions against the Palestinians," he said. "This is the
reason for the terrorist attack. This has nothing to do with
the Muslim religion. They are just fighting back."
Marr said the United States needs to ask why its foreign
policies have sparked such hatred.
"The country has been practically leveled to the ground
already by what the Russians did. There are 30 million land
mines the Russians dug into the ground and dropped from
airplanes there. If we send in ground forces from America, can
you imagine how many people are going to come back without
their limbs?"
Organizers said they plan to hold another rally at noon
Saturday at the Federal Building in Westwood, and another
one a week later at the same location.
Sister Elizabeth Prus, 91, of the Catholic Sisters of Social
Services said war is useless. "We are coming down to the
level of the people we abhor," she said. "We are not here to
do vengeance."