Antiwar group seeks to shut port of Oakland with picket line

[thedrifter]

Protesters plan to stop war shipments

Antiwar group seeks to shut port of Oakland with picket line

By Tom Curry
MSNBC

April 3 ? Shifting protests against the war in Iraq to a new level, a San Francisco group says that it will set up a picket line Monday to block supplies being shipped to U.S. forces fighting in Iraq. The group, Direct Action to Stop the War, said will attempt to ?shut down the war merchants? at the port of Oakland by urging members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union to not cross the picket line.
THE TARGET OF Monday?s action is American President Lines, a cargo carrier that has contracts with the Defense Department to ship supplies to U.S. forces overseas.
The port of Oakland is the fourth-busiest cargo container port in the United States.

?UNJUST AND ILLEGAL?
?Whether or not war cargo is there on that day, we are trying to send a message to APL that we oppose their profiting off this unjust and illegal war,? said Sasha Wright, an organizer with Direct Action to Stop the War. ?We will hold them accountable.?
Patrick Reinsborough, a spokesman for the group, said it hoped that members of Local 10 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union would respect the picket line, as union members usually do, and thus shut down APL?s Oakland operations by refusing to work.
Asked whether cutting off supplies to American soldiers would jeopardize their lives, Wright said, ?We feel like the war is what?s putting their lives in danger. This is an effort to save lives by stopping the war as quickly as possible.?
ILWU spokesman Steve Stallone told MSNBC.com ?the union is much like the rest of American society, it?s split on the war.?
But, he said, ?Our contract is that we are supposed to load those ships ? and we have every intention of abiding by our contract.?
Although the ILWU opposed the Vietnam War in 1960s, its members continued to load cargo ships carrying military materiel to U.S. forces in Vietnam.





A source at the port who spoke on condition of anonymity said Direct Action?s protest was misplaced. ?Ninety-five percent of what?s shipped out of Oakland (to Iraq) is food which is going to help Iraqi citizens,? he said.
Reinsborough said that on Monday some antiwar activists would also seek to disrupt shipments at the Concord Naval Weapons Station, which is northeast of Oakland.
Across the bay from Oakland, antiwar demonstrators in San Francisco disrupted traffic in the city?s? financial district two weeks ago, leading Mayor Willie Brown to criticize them.
?Some protesters ... have chosen to specifically try to disrupt this city, rather than gather peacefully to voice their desire for peace, at the expense of the day-to-day lives of ordinary San Franciscans and at a great cost to this city,? Brown said.
?It is one of the painful ironies of this war that one of the most anti-war cities in the nation, San Francisco, is being disproportionately harmed by the tactics of anti-war protesters.?

Sempers,

Roger