Peace Movements

Genevieve Hokanson, 11, has a friend in Germany. "My pen pal's name is Katja Hahnel, and she's also 11," Genevieve said. "She writes me about what's happening at her school in Germany, and I write her about what's happening at my school here." Smiling shyly, Genevieve added that she is proud to be part of a new international movement called Hands Across the Atlantic. "People in Katja's town (Torgau) didn't get to go many places because it used to be part of Communist East Germany," she said.

More than six months after mass protests began spreading through the streets of Syria, activists say they remain committed to a peaceful rebellion against the government of President Bashar Assad, despite a rising death toll, a wave of assassinations and the reported emergence of soldiers switching sides and battling security forces. "Our revolution remains a nonviolent one," Omar Edelbi, spokesman for a grass-roots opposition network, the Local Coordination Committees, said in an interview Saturday in Beirut.

The failure of talks between the United States and Iraq and the impending war powers vote in Congress have energized the nation's peace movement, which is preparing a wave of protests in hopes of halting the march to combat.

The deadly artillery barrages and sprawling street battles that have engulfed Yemen in recent days are rooted in a strategic power struggle among a renegade general, a billionaire tribal leader and the family of longtime President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The animosities among these three factions are eclipsing a largely peaceful protest movement that for the last eight months has been unable to force Saleh from office. The intense fighting in the capital, Sana, is rumbling closer to civil war as the president's main rivals attempt to exploit the chaos and maneuver for control of the nation.

As the debate over President Bush's plans for Iraq grows louder in Washington, the voice of the nation's peace movement has been muted. Far from the mainstream, often connected only by the stealth power of the unseen Internet or the quiet muscle of community activism, the peace lobby--robust during the Vietnam War and highly visible during the 1991 Persian Gulf War--has been on the sidelines of public debate.

Naama Rokem was still a preschooler when her leftist Israeli parents began taking her along to demonstrate against Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon. At 14, the dark-haired young girl started protesting on her own, standing each Friday on a Jerusalem street corner, holding signs that urged a succession of Israeli governments to make peace with the Palestinians.

KPFK-FM (90.7) can't do much to break through what it calls the Pentagon's control of information about the war with Iraq, so instead it has decided to cover peace. "We are an alternative voice," said Alan Fong, KPFK's general manager. "We are not able to be in Riyadh or Amman or Baghdad except through stringers, so we choose certain subjects like peace as a way of informing people about things that they might not be able to find elsewhere."

A month into the war in Lebanon, Israel's long-quiescent peace movement is suddenly issuing a ringing call to arms. Isolated and beset by infighting in the first weeks of the conflict, the still-small peace camp was spurred into action by the Israeli government's authorization this week of a broader ground invasion in Lebanon.

More than 20 years after the young rebels of the Brown Berets disbanded, a now-graying group of the Mexican-American activists made a noisy return from obscurity in East Los Angeles on Sunday, launching a new movement to end gang violence. In the late 1960s, the Brown Berets rose to prominence as self-described community protectors, battling racial discrimination and the Vietnam War.

It was Sunday morning, and Katya Komisaruk was standing in the kitchen of a friend's home in North Hollywood ironing a green corduroy dress, a gift her father had sent for her trial in federal court. The trial was two days away, but Komisaruk was planning to wear the dress that afternoon to a fund-raising event for her legal expenses. Noticing a spot on the dress, she announced with mock authority, "After the revolution, everyone will have Spray and Wash."

Syrians opposed to the regime of President Bashar Assad on Monday found inspiration in Libyan rebels' advance into their nation's capital as they battle Moammar Kadafi's forces. The developments in Libya, where fierce clashes continued in some areas, have made many Syrian activists more intent than ever on removing Assad from power. In the minds of protesters in Syria, the fate of their movement is very much influenced by events in Libya, as Arab countries that have been distant for decades have become united in their uprisings.

The antiwar movement isn't what it was in 2003. Then, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets across America to protest the lead-up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Today in Washington -- in what's billed as the largest peace protest since President Obama announced that he would send more soldiers to Afghanistan -- organizers are planning for a crowd of 1,500. "People are burned out," explained the rally's organizer, Laurie Dobson. As she and other antiwar activists struggle to remake their movement, they also acknowledge there are obstacles.

Bombings. Butyric acid attacks. Sniper shootings. Letters filled with fake anthrax. These are some of the tactics used over the years by antiabortion extremists. The slaying of Dr. George Tiller in his Kansas church Sunday was part of a decades-long history of domestic terrorism aimed at abortion providers, carried out by a small minority of the much broader and generally peaceful movement that opposes abortion.

During a solemn 10 a.m. Mass at St. John's Cathedral on Sunday, Deacon Lester Mackenzie recited the names and ages of six Americans who had lost their lives in Iraq the previous week. Pray for them, he told the congregation, and for prisoners of war and those missing in action. Then Mackenzie, who is being ordained today as an Episcopal priest, called on parishioners "to pray for the Iraqi people who have died, whose names we do not know." St.

A much-needed storm drenched Atlanta on Oct. 22, the day the Dalai Lama spoke to thousands in Centennial Olympic Park. For many, his words brought the kind of water that nourishes the seeds of compassion and humanity. On that day, Emory University installed the Dalai Lama as a presidential distinguished professor. He joins former President Carter and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., both of whom have important and impressive sites here, as the third Nobel peace laureate associated with Atlanta.

Drinking a cup of hot tea in the back room of the MacArthur Park band shell Saturday afternoon, Vietnamese activist Thich Nhat Hanh said he brought the "peace walk" to a neighborhood that needed healing. "This is a place where we can offer our peace. Where there is true suffering, there is misunderstanding," said Hanh, a Buddhist monk made world-famous by working to stop the Vietnam War; for that he was nominated by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. for a Nobel Peace Prize in 1967.

Not too long ago thousands marched against nuclear missiles in Europe and were dismissed by most Western governments as idealistic dreamers. What are they doing now that their dreams are turning into reality and the Cold War is fading into history? The peace movement, like the military and pro-nuclear establishment it fought for years, is seeking a new role.

An estimated 30,000 people--some wearing white headbands of mourning, some carrying brooms and plastic garbage bags--marched through Los Angeles' Koreatown on Saturday in a massive show of support for beleaguered merchants. "It hurts right here," said marcher Joyce Kim of Diamond Bar, putting her hand over her heart to show anguish over the Korean-owned stores that were looted or set afire since the Rodney G. King verdict. "Koreatown is all our family."

After 4 1/2 years of combat and hundreds of billions of dollars in funding, the debate over the Iraq war -- at least on Wednesday -- came down to two dozen people dressed in fluorescent pink and the oldest member of the U.S. Senate. Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee and turns 90 in November, denounced President Bush and vowed not to rubber-stamp the administration's request for nearly $200 billion more in war spending.

IT looked for a while as if MoveOn.org had become one of Hollywood's favorite liberal advocacy groups, especially for those looking for a place to express their antiwar sentiments without incurring a lot of unfavorable publicity. Directors and celebrities lined up to help the Internet-based organization formed in 1998 in the wake of President Clinton's impeachment. Oliver Stone directed an antiwar ad for the group, as did Rob Reiner.