Blockading the War

Police pepper-sprayed, beat, and arrested antiwar protesters on
Saturday, November 10, after the demonstrators blockaded the Port of
Olympia and halted military trucks carrying equipment from Iraq bound
for Fort Lewis. Spearheaded by a group called Olympia Port
Militarization Resistance (OPMR), the protesters formed human chains or
lay down across roads leading from the port to Interstate 5, stopping
the flow of military equipment for over 17 hours. The police made 15
arrests. (They would make three additional arrests the following day
when protesters lay down and blocked more military trucks.) Between 50
and 100 people participated in the weekend demonstrations, protesters
say.

“What we’ve chosen to do is look at this as a community and decide
we aren’t comfortable with the use of our port for an illegal war,”
said T. J. Johnson, an Olympia City Council member who was part of the
demonstrations. “We’re not going to end the war from here in Olympia,
but if as a community we can shut down a port, maybe other communities
in the country can follow our example.”

With the focus of much of the national antiwar effort stuck in the
“impeach Bush and Cheney” mode, the blockading of the Port of Olympia
provided a counterexample of deliberate, pragmatic activism.

OPMR activist Andrew Yankey, 20, says antiwar efforts need to be
reconsidered in order to change the status quo. A recent Gallup poll
finds 60 percent of the U.S. population thinks going to war in Iraq was
a mistake.

“Demonstrations and marches and vigils are fine, but this war has
gone on a long time and demonstrations, marches, and vigils have been
ineffective.”

Using arm-linking devices called “hardlocks”—chunks of PVC
pipe wrapped in chicken wire and duct tape with a bolt thorough the
middle that a restraint can be attached to—protesters linked
together and blocked a major I-5 on-ramp. Police pelted them with
pepper-spray bullets to get them to disperse, but after that failed,
they resorted to sawing the tubes in half and arresting everyone
blocking the on-ramp.

Protests continued November 11, with more arrests, pushing the total
to 18. OPMR organizers say they are unrepentant.

“We want our leaders to know that if they insist on using our
backyard as a conduit to operate this war, it will be an inconvenience
to them,” said Phan Nguyen of the OPMR.