Jailed Activists Just Say No to Helicopter Baloney
BY BILL LASCHER


(photo courtesy dc.indymedia.org)

Why were six vegans served doughnuts and baloney sandwiches? It wasn’t an April Fool’s joke, but because the Washington, D.C. jail they were spending Monday night at would not offer anything else. They weren’t arrested because of their dietary habits, but because of their protest at a conference for suppliers of Sikorsky Corporation, which manufactures Blackhawk helicopters for the U.S. military.
In order to inform Sikorsky and the suppliers of their concerns, seniors Sarah Bania-Dobyns, Rebecca Johnson, and Laurel Paget-Seekins junior Jaqueline Downing, and sophomores Sarah Saunders and Kate Berrigan locked their arms together inside pipes in the conference room at Washington’s National Guard M
emorial Building where the meeting was being held.
The action was a statement of the students’ opposition to the $221 million order of 30 helicopters as part of the recently-approved Plan Colombia. A taxpayer-funded package of nearly $1.3 billion in mostly military aid to the South American nation, Plan Colombia was passed by the U.S. Congress last summer as an effort to help fight the drug war and these helicopters will be given to the Colombian military. According to a statement released by the students, three of whom have recently been in Colombia, the aid is not welcome by the people of Colombia and the helicopters will probably be used by the Colombian government to help fight the country’s 40-year civil war.
“This wasn’t just Sikorsky,” Downing said. “This was a conference of suppliers [of parts for the helicopters]. There were about 100 corporations making money off the drug war, and war in general.”
As the executives from the suppliers were watching from outside the room and a 100-person rally was held in front of the building as rush hour traffic passed, Sikorsky’s vice president spent five minutes talking to the protesters and listening to their pre-written statement. Meanwhile, 30 police squad cars complete with dogs and tape took part in the arrest.
The protesters were originally charged with unlawful entry and possession of an instrument of crime (the lockboxes they used to attach themselves to the pipes). By the time the protesters got out of jail and went to court they were only charged with the first offense, on two conditions: the first being that they take drug tests and the second that they would not return to within a five-block radius of the protest-site. Interestingly, the courthouse where they were arraigned and will go to trial on June 20 falls within this radius.
Although the attention garnered from the furor surrounding the arrest was welcome — leaflets were passed out to the passing traffic outside and members of some independent media organizations were on hand — Paget-Seekins said that because the main goal was to confront the executives, they were not going to change their actions just to get media attention. However, they have received e-mails showing support of their actions from those who heard about the protest. Moreover, a magazine entitled Today is considering doing a feature on the six activists, who all live together in one house.
Not only have strangers shown their support, but other members of the Oberlin community have as well. “In my experience, my professors have been supportive and my boss has been great,” Johnson said. She works at the Student Union, where her boss covered her on Tuesday while she was being arraigned in a D.C. court. Although the College as an institution does not want to be portrayed as encouraging illegal activities, she said, individual members of the administration have shown their support.
Kept in one cell, the six were concerned with what they felt was better treatment than the other inmates at the jail were given. “We were treated with a measure of respect that I feel wasn’t afforded everyone else,” Johnson said. The protesters said that some of the other inmates in the jail were threatened with a baseball bat.
The next step in educating about their concerns with Plan Colombia will be made April 17 when a member of the Colombian Support Network will speak about Plan Columbia as well as the Free Trade Area of the Americas and its connections with the drug war.

 

Five Arrested After Barnard Resident Assaulted

Locals to Receive Free Tuition

OCOPE Seeks Student Support

HI Sovereignty Speaker Lauded

Bonnor Scholar Director Leaves

Elyria is Your Source for Exotic Fake Nails

Jailed Activists Just Say No to Helicopter Baloney

Funds Go Softly Into the Night

Affirmative-Action Opponents Win Court Battle

The Revenge of the Capitalists