1,000 PROTEST ROLE OF U.S. IN EL SALVADOR
215 ARRESTED IN BLOCKADE AT PENTAGON
By Dana Priest and Steve Bates
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, October 18, 1988
; Page B01
At least 1,000 rowdy but mostly peaceful protesters of U.S. involvement in
El Salvador blockaded the south entrances to the Pentagon early yesterday,
sitting in front of moving cars and buses and creating a sea of bodies at the
building's doorsteps.
At least 215 demonstrators were arrested, most of them charged with
obstructing a passageway, a misdemeanor that carries a maximum penalty of a
$1,000 fine and one year in jail. Only minor injuries were reported.
Pentagon employees arriving for work found themselves engulfed in swaying
human waves. Some workers broke through with help of helmeted police, while
others retreated to the unblocked entrances.
By sunrise, the protesters had managed to close the 3,700-space south
parking lot, causing major commuting delays on all roads around the complex
and halting bus service to the Pentagon, a major bus-subway transfer point,
between 6:30 and 9 a.m.
A Pentagon spokesman said it was business as usual inside.
The mood and tactics of the protest were reminiscent of the 1960s, although
many of those arrested yesterday were not yet born in 1967, when 35,000
demonstrators converged on the Pentagon to protest the Vietnam War.
Yesterday's demonstration united the two generations -- veteran dissidents
Daniel Ellsberg and David Dellinger representing the older side, and
18-year-old Len Riccio of Connecticut the new generation.
"I object to everything the United States is doing in El Salvador," said
Riccio, who was in handcuffs even before the sun came up. "If it's got to be
done, it's got to be done," he said of his arrest.
Peace activist Ellsberg, who in 1967 was a Pentagon employee working on
what became known as the Pentagon Papers, said there was a major difference
between the anti-Vietnam message and the one protesters were trying to make
yesterday about El Salvador.
"We are telling the administration and the people in this building that
they can't do what they're doing to America without arresting America,"
Ellsberg said. "This is different than Vietnam. We're acting before American
combat troops are sent . . . . For every person willing to get arrested now, a
hundred or thousand are willing to get arrested if they escalate this war."
The coalition behind yesterday's demonstration, part of a campaign called
"El Salvador: Steps to Freedom," is seeking an end to U.S. military aid,
including advisers, to the government of El Salvador, which has been waging a
war with leftist guerrillas for eight years. More than 65,000 people have been
killed in the war and related political violence, according to media accounts.
The coalition, which includes CISPES (Committee in Solidarity with the
People of El Salvador), the Winning Democracy Campaign and the Pledge of
Resistance, has charged that U.S. involvement in the Central American country
has prolonged and aggravated the war.
The Salvadoran government of President Jose Napoleon Duarte receives
nearly $100 million a year in U.S. military aid.
State Department spokeswoman Nancy Beck said yesterday that the U.S.
assistance "has helped {El Salvador} push back the threat of communist
revolution and move . . . toward a stable democracy."
Yesterday's demonstration at times resembled a nine-ring circus, with large
knots of protesters moving from barricade to barricade to fill in cracks in
the human fortress.
Although the demonstration was largely peaceful, some protesters threw red
paint at passing buses, set trash cans afire, burned an effigy and tussled
with police officers wielding riot clubs. Protest organizers blamed those
incidents on the militant May Day Anarchist Network, whose members said they
were not opposed to using violence.
At least four police officers received minor injuries, some from thrown
objects and others the result of carrying protesters who went limp during
their arrests.
On her way to the Pentagon Metro stop, commuter Mary Beth Greenleaf was
punched in the mouth by a protester, she said as she stood by an ambulance,
her mouth bleeding. Four protesters were sprayed with Mace by a Defense
Protective Service officer. The officer, whose badge identified him as H.G.
Meyer Jr., would not explain his actions when asked by a reporter, saying
only: "I had a good reason."
Most police maintained a low-key attitude and went out of their way to
avoid arrests, a tactic that frustrated many of the protesters and resulted in
a cat-and-mouse game in which the demonstrators barricaded the entrances and
the police carried some of them a few feet away to clear passageways and then
allowed them to move back in.
Try as he did, Bill Hawkins had a hard time getting arrested. A
mathematician from the 25-member "Orioles Against Death Squads" unit from
Baltimore, Hawkins helped block the Pentagon's southeast entrance. Police
picked him up by the arms and legs and gently threw his ample frame into the
bushes at least three times. Each time he got up and headed back for more.
Finally, police subdued him with plastic handcuffs. "I had to very
insistently position myself in front of the stairway, to make sure I was
obstructing something," he said after his arrest.
There were moments of drama and of humor.
Before dawn, angry confrontations sprouted between Pentagon employees
determined to park in the south lot and protesters determined not to let them.
"I'm not going to back up, I'll go through them," shouted a Navy officer as
a dozen people dropped to their knees in front of his van.
"If you move forward, they're going to get hurt and it may be terrible,"
pleaded Guy Burton, a CISPES "peace keeper."
"I don't care, I want to park my car," the officer shouted back.
"Don't hurt people . . . . We all have different opinions about it," said
Burton, his face inches away from the officer's. "People are going to get
hurt."
"This is causing stupidity for you all," the officer shot back.
A police officer stepped in, urging restraint. The Navy officer put his van
in reverse.
"Thank you, sir," said Burton. "We hope you resign."
Reaction to the protest varied among Pentagon employees. "Obviously they're
making their point," said Army Col. Herb Williams as he walked past
demonstrators. "I'm just glad we're living in a country where they can do what
they're doing."
Yvette Boyd of the Army Corps of Engineers was more critical. "I don't
think it's fair for people to have to rassle and scuffle to get to work."
About 7:30 a.m., two teen-age girls from the District pounded a wooden
cross into a mock graveyard of at least 100 crosses, each bearing the name of
a victim of the Salvadoran strife. Nearby, police officers knocked over
crosses.
Officer V.E. Starks approached the girls, pleading in a quiet voice:
"Please, I don't want to arrest you."
"Are you volunteering to be arrested?" Starks asked.
After the other crosses had been knocked down, the sisters slowly walked
off, with Clarity Haynes, 17, clasping a cross to her chest and looking
straight ahead.
An hour later, the sisters returned, erecting that cross and many others.
This time, they stayed up.
Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington
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