THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS KANSAN
FRIDAY, JANUARY 30, 2009
NEWS
ACTIVISM
3A
Lawrence protesters to march against police killings
BY DAVID UGARTE
dugarte@kansan.com
To protest all forms of oppression, from police brutality to military occupation, KU students and volunteers at Solidarity Revolutionary Center and Radical Library will lead a march at 7 p.m. Saturday starting at South Park in downtown Lawrence.
The march, called March Against State Murders, is meant to connect police killing innocent civilians in the U.S. to military occupations of other communities around the world. Flyers for the march read "From Athens to Augusta, from
Gaza to Oakland, we do mind dying," reflecting the various deaths that inspired the march, said the march's co-organizers, Dave Schneider and Colin Immenschuh.
Sarah Brown, Topeka sophomore, said she had a long list of reasons for joining the march. She said she hoped it would bring awareness to people who otherwise might not know about the most recent killings in Athens and Gaza. Brown said she hoped those who participated would feel empowered to work toward longer term goals and projects in Lawrence.
"I will not stand by silently as young black men continue to be
murdered at the hands of the police," Brown said. "I will not sit by idly as the Israeli state wars war on the people of Palestine. Our fists and voices will be raised in the streets this Saturday and the cry that is heard in Lawrence will echo out to those in Oakland, Augusta, Gaza, Greece, and everywhere that humans are oppressed and impoverished by the hand of the state."
Immenschuh, a volunteer at Solidarity, said the march was in protest of the recent deaths of Oscar Grant, Oakland, Calif., Justin Elmore, Augusta, Ga., and Alexis-Andreas Grigoropoulos, Athens Greece, who were all killed by po
lice in the last two months. The coorganizers said the march is also protesting the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians killed in Gaza.
"I hope the march shows there are a lot of people who are outraged at continual occupation and communities being destroyed by the Israeli state and the U.S." Immenschuh said, "I hope our community has the power to voice this rage and link these things together"
Brown said she felt the only Jewish voices represented in regards to the violence against the Palestinian people were those of Zionists, while many other Jews and Israelis.
like Brown, disagree with Israel's actions in Gaza.
"It was not so long ago that my own family faced walled ghettos, mass murder, and horrendous oppression in the name of a state," Brown said, "I will never sit silently by and allow that to happen to anyone again."
Schneider, a volunteer at Solidarity, said he helped organize the march because of his anger and frustration with the social, political and economic systems in place.
Schneider said the march was meant to show support and unity with movements across the globe responding to state violence such
as the protests in the cities where the civilians were murdered.
"We hope to create a feeling of collectivity and empowerment, where our power as a collection of people can be physically felt and manifested." Schneider said. "I want to show people that others are taking the mechanisms of state power head on, and we can too. And, more importantly, when we act together, we can be unstopable."
The route of the march will be decided Saturday night, and will be determined by how many people join.
—Edited by Liz Schubauer
INTERNATIONAL
Tension escalating between two Koreas
BY JEAN H. LEE Associated Press
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea declared all military and political agreements with South Korea "dead" Friday, toughening its stance while accusing Seoul of pushing the peninsula to the brink of war.
The North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said Pyongyang was forced to nullify past peacekeeping accords between the two wartime rivals because of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak's hard-line stance against the North.
"The group of traitors has already reduced all the agreements reached between the north and the south in the past to dead documents," the committee in charge of inter-Korean affairs said in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
The North warned that Seoul's continued hard-line stance would only draw "a heavier blow and shameful destruction" on the
South.
South Korea expressed regret, and urged the North to honor agreements with the South.
"Agreements between the South and the North cannot be scrapped unilaterally," Defense Ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae said.
The two Koreas technically remain at war because their brutal, three-year conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, in 1953. The peninsula remains divided by a heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone, with thousands of troops stationed on both sides of the border.
Ties have warmed significantly over the past decade, with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il meeting with then-South Korean President Kim Dae-jung in a historic summit in 2000. The detente helped pave the way for first inter-Korean exchanges in 50 years.
But tensions have been high since Lee took office in Seoul nearly a year ago pledging to get tough with Pyongyang. He questioned the wisdom of his predecessors "sunshine policy" of nurturing reconciliation.
Puppy love
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Duchess of Cornwall is subjected to the attentions of an enthusiastic Alsatian puppy in the puppy kennels of the Metropolitan Police Dog Training Establishment at Keston, near London, on Thursday, where she met dogs and police officers undertaking training.
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