By THOMAS HARGROVE and KATY MARQUARDT, Scripps Howard News Service
A widespread anti-war movement has quickly emerged throughout the United States as global trade protesters and college students on dozens of campuses are objecting to America's military buildup.
''Many people who had been planning to come to Washington to focus on the World Bank probably won't come now. But there are many others who are concerned about war and will come instead,'' said Richard Becker, a coordinator for the International Action Center, which plans to march on the White House Saturday.
After the attacks, officials cancelled the World Bank and International Monetary Fund meetings that were to take place in Washington this month.
The center's planned protest against the IMF and World Bank has been renamed ANSWER, or Act Now to Stop War and End Racism. The group hopes to attract 10,000 demonstrators.
Dozens of anti-war groups with lineages back to the Vietnam War report a sudden spike of interest.
''Yes, the phones are ringing off the hooks,'' said Teresa Panepinto of the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors in Oakland, Calif. ''We are getting questions about the possibility of the draft being reinstated. We let them know what their options are, what it means to register for Selective Service and how to build a claim for being a conscientious objector.''
Hoping to counsel active military personnel and members of the military reserves who don't want to be posted to duty in the Middle East, Panepinto's group is opening counseling centers in Boston; Chicago; New Orleans; San Diego; Portland, Ore., New York City; Minneapolis; Cleveland; Philadelphia, and several other cities. It already has centers in Oakland, Washington, Fayetteville, N.C., and Seattle.
'There are people coming out of the woodwork to help us. These are people who were military counselors during the Persian Gulf War and even some conscientious objectors from World War II,'' Panepinto said.
Meanwhile, students at Wesleyan University in Connecticut have formed a group called Peaceful Justice that reports anti-war efforts mounting in more than 150 colleges and universities.
''We're opposing retaliatory violence on the theory that getting revenge is not going to solve the problem, only feed into the circle of hate,'' said Sarah Norr, a Wesleyan junior and member of the new group. ''We think the perpetrators (of terrorism) should be brought to justice, brought to the war crimes tribunal. But we want to make sure innocent people aren't killed along the way.''
The themes of the protests vary, some focusing on the consequences of war while others want to defend human rights in the Middle East.
''It's in its infant stages because everybody's really just getting started,'' said Christina Whitenton, a senior at the Georgia Institution of Technology and a member of the Human Rights Initiative, which led peace rallies last week at Emory and Georgia State universities.
Also joining the movement are students at the University of California-Berkeley, a campus still famous for its anti-war and anti-military protests during the Vietnam War.
''We're going to pass flyers out, making a parallel with Vietnam,'' said Ronald Cruz, an organizer of the Stop the War Coalition at Berkeley. ''The U.S. government is making it clear that they're planning a full-scale war. If they're going to do that, we want to make it clear that they're going to get the type of reaction they got in Vietnam.''
Whitenton said the new anti-war campaign will benefit from support from similar campaigns of previous generations.
''So many involved in the movement in the '60s still strongly believe in peace and in any political movement, numbers are very important,'' she said. ''It looks like, unfortunately, another similarity is that it will be a difficult and prolonged struggle for peace.''
Publication date: 09-24-01