April 13 was marked by large-scale actions against U.S. drone warfare, which has been developed for decades and is now a central part of the U.S. government’s military and imperialist strategy. Hundreds of people of all backgrounds, drawn from all over the East Coast and as far away as Missouri, came to the White House gates to call for the immediate end to drone warfare.
The demonstration, called by the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) and endorsed by dozens other organizations, started with chanting around a large drone replica brought by CODEPINK and moved into a powerful picket on the White House sidewalk.
Protesters held signs reading “U.S. Drones out of Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Everywhere,” “Drones Kill Kids” and “Drone Strikes = War Crimes.” Giant banners were unfurled revealing names from President Obama’s kill list and challenging the fictional “humaneness” of drones.
The picket included chants such as “They say drone war—we say no more” and ended with strong speeches by organizers. ANSWER Coalition National Coordinator Brian Becker said: “The people pushing the button will never see the faces of the children who were killed while collecting firewood. They will see a group of people coming together and dispersing and coming together again, and they will consider them to be engaging in terrorist activity. And they will send a drone, and all those children and their families will be incinerated immediately. And then the people who ordered that action, people from Langley, Va., or Maryland, will go to their suburban homes and have a long weekend and spend time with their children.”
Becker continued: “They should be going to jail—for murder. But they are not. And this is not a hypothetical. This actually happens every day.”
The protesters then took to the streets in a powerful march to General Atomics, a company that produces drones. There, protesters laid replicas of flag-draped coffins on the steps of the building.
Powerful and moving speeches
Next, there were a number of moving speeches, including by the Rev. Graylan Hagler, senior minister of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ and CODEPINK Drone Campaign Coordinator Noor Mir. Mir read a list of names of children killed by drones and requested a moment of silence for the lives that have been claimed and continue to be claimed. A “die-in” followed, with people of all ages lying down on the ground and being draped in cloths with simulated bloodstains.
Afterward, everyone proceeded to march to George Washington University, where a conference on the issue of drones and occupation took place. A number of speakers from the endorsing organizations delivered their perspectives in a manifestation of solidarity against this new era of imperialist evil.
Diop Olugbala of the Black Is Back Coalition made the important connection between U.S. attacks on African soil and the unceasing attacks domestically on the Black population of the U.S. through racist policies and the prison-industrial complex.
Col. Ann Wright, retired from the U.S. military and currently an anti-war activist, pointed out that drones are now being delivered and tested at aerial bases all over the U.S., under our noses, to be used against innocent civilians in the name of U.S. citizens and with our tax dollars.
Bushra Maktari of the Progressive Youth Organization on Yemen shed light on the fact that drone bombings, while advertised as “surgical” and “more humane,” are in fact a means of distancing the U.S. people from the crimes committed by the U.S. government in their name, and to wage a one-sided war in which soldiers never see the faces of the people they kill.
Mara Verheyden-Hillard, executive director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, revealed the unrealistic approach that some take when they suggest that we “question drone use, but adapt to the future of drones in the United States.” Nothing was ever won by calls to question and adapt, Verheyden-Hillard stated—it was won through militant struggle in the streets.
Akbar Muhammad, international representative of the Nation of Islam, exposed the insidious nature of Islamophobic propaganda in the United States and how resisting such propaganda is crucial to any conscious struggle against imperialist wars.
Additional speakers throughout the day included: Zaki Baruti, president/general, Universal African Peoples Organization; Eric Edi, Committee of Actions for Cote D’Ivoire; Gnaka Lagoke, Reviving Pan-Africanism Forum; Leo Gnawa, CRI-Pan-Africain USA; representatives of Political Education and Action Committee, Howard University; Damián Fontanez and Valerie Kiebala, American University Students for Justice in Palestine; Paul Seltzer, Progressive Student Union, George Washington University; Pasamba Jow, Democratic Union of Gambian Activists; and others. The rallies at the White House and GWU were MC’d by Eugene Puryear of the ANSWER Coalition.
The event succeeded in bringing together people from many backgrounds and demonstrated the urgency of building a unified struggle against this new form of imperialist aggression. That unified struggle, a multinational fightback movement, is today and has historically been the answer to putting an end to crimes committed by the capitalist state and creating a new, better system that serves working people internationally.
You can read a round-up of anti-drone demonstrations around the country on LiberationNews.org.
