By Joe Rukin
Haloween saw students across the country protesting against the threat of war in Iraq. Die-ins were held, roads were blocked, university buildings occupied and a Parliament Square was ground to a halt by protesters as anti-war slogans were projected onto the Houses of Parliament. But did the mainstream media even notice? Hardly.
Students at Essex University and Camberwell Arts College showed they had read the book on anti-war campaigning as they revived the preferred method of protest against the Vietnam war- The 'Die-In'. At Essex, the Peace Campaign got hundreds of students to attend a rally and 'die in'. The day began with anti-war banners hung from buildings and lecture theatres and by 1pm, a crowd of hundreds had gathered in the main square. The protest started with air raid sirens, followed by the deafening crash of bombs rolled over the campus, when they landed around 40-50 volunteers spontaneously 'died' and figures in white overalls, blue helmets and scream-horror masks then drew chalk lines around the bodies on the ground, with a large puppet of a hideous Blair/poodle mutant dog presiding over the whole scene.
Oscar Reyes of the Essex University Peace Campaign said;
"Students are becoming aware of the links between universities and weapons manufacturers. A quick look at the Essex University annual report, for example, shows funding from the US Navy, British Aerospace, and the old Defence Evaluation & Research Agency (DERA, MoD owned), so I'm trying to get various anti-war campaigns to collaborate to produce some kind of 'directory' on university/arms trade links."
Links with the arms trade was the reason for the
occupation of Sheffield University's Engineering Building, which is sponsored by arms manufacturer, Boeing. The same was true at Cambridge, where the Gordon Laboratory was chosen for its "strong links" with the defence companies QinetiQ and DSTL. These are the successor companies to DERA, the company which "stimulated", the creation of the Gordon Laboratory. Today, DSTL (Defence Science and Technology Laboratory) is still owned by the MoD, QinetiQ is being privatised, with the Carlyle Group, a US private equity firm which employs John Major and George Bush Senior, as the preferred bidder.
About 350 took part in the occupation, organised and lead by Cambridge Students Against the War (CamSAW). Nicholas Martin, CamSAW's Press Spokesman said;
"A case of legitimate self-defence against external attack can clearly not be made to justify this war, which means that the government is contemplating fighting a war of aggression. This is a war crime, sadly and simply."
In Manchester, the peace march had an estimated 1,000 turn out as people congregated after a series of smaller focused demonstrations and events around the city. The Critical Mass 'Stop the cycle of violence' demonstration started of riding slowly round the centre of town with all dressed in Halloween costumes, to the tinkling sound of cycle bells and the howls of ware wolves. As the protest continued it got louder and louder, noising up the car drivers and slowing traffic to walking pace. Traffic was then stopped for an hour on Oxford Road as demonstrators occupied pedestrian crossings until the police on horse back lowered the tone. The police were trying to push their horses into the crowd, and the horses were clearly in distress and a protester got stamped and ended up sat on the side of the road with his toe bleeding and his whole big toe-nail plus a chunk of flesh in his hand.
Students in Liverpool were busy with a rally, march, occupation, and teach-in. Their general rally also blocked Lime Street in the city centre. Working with the AUT, backed walkout of lectures at 10:30, followed by a rally at the Guild of Students. The group of around 80 students then marched to Senate House, the main finance and administrative building of The University of Liverpool and occupied it unopposed until 12:30.
In Brighton, again the University was occupied, but student protesters in the evening probably got the worst police reception outside of London, with reports of 20 arrests. The evening event consisted of a sit down road block. Police to lined up in front of the peaceful crowd and raised their batons above their head, most officers held a threatening stance and had the kind of expressions you see on drunken idiots about to deck someone. Pepper spray was then used on the crowd, which seemed to be a tactic design to push the crowd in to a violent response, we did not bite, what they did not get was the simple fact - *this was a peace demo* .
Protesters then changed tactics, getting up, moving and occupying roads somewhere else. When they got halfway up to the train station, someone realised we were about to be boxed in, so some started jumping over a low wall into a park. At this point the police started running, batons raised. One eye witness who ducked behind a parked car saw three or four officers come over to the car and began beating people in front of it, completely unprovoked.
Students from
Colchester Sixth Form decided to target the oil interests of the war machine, picketing a local Total filling station, sitting down and blockading the forecourt of the garage, and displaying banners proclaiming against a war for oil. The sit-down lasted for around half an hour, until the police arrived. Upon the arrival of the police, the group stood up, and held a 1 minute silence for all victims of war, before leaving, displaying banners and heading back towards the College. Sixth Form student, Sam Jones, present on the petrol station action, said of it
"The proposed war on Iraq is a war purely for profit. They pose no real threat to us and there is no evidence that they possess weapons of mass destruction, unlike the US and Britain. Any action taken would mean the destruction of innocent lives and as such I feel it to be important for people to take a stand against it."
But as always, the biggest action was in London. SOAS and UCL protesters decided to occupy the old haunt of Marx & Engels, the British Museum, on their way to parliament. LSE students did the teach in and a short occupation before joining up with their London counterparts to march on parliament.
