{"article":{"id":10599,"heading":"Anti-war rally in downtown LA draws hundreds","author":"L.A. Daily News","created":"2001-09-22 14:44:06","modified":"2001-09-22 14:44:06","last_modified":"Sat, 22 Sep 2001 21:44:06","article":"

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.\"<\/p>\n","contact":"","link":"","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/plain","summary":"An emerging anti-war movement in Los Angeles held its second vigil Thursday evening in Pershing Square in downtown, drawing 300 to 400 people.","numcomment":0,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2001\/09\/10599.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[]}