Protesters Hold Die-In, Say ‘Have a Nice Day’ : El Salvador: Morning routine at Federal Building stresses the <i> civil </i> in disobedience.

In the most polite way possible, more than 230 extremely polite people were arrested at the doors of the downtown Federal Building on Wednesday, by perhaps a dozen quite polite federal police officers.

This must be what they mean by civil disobedience.

On eight Wednesday mornings, varying numbers of the Wednesday Morning Coalition have essayed a peaceable blockade of the Federal Building doors, deliberately inviting arrest in a demonstration that has grown almost balletic in its regularity.

They do this in protest of U.S. policies toward El Salvador. In memory of those killed in the war, protesters staged a symbolic “die-in”; scores of masked demonstrators dropped to the sidewalk along Los Angeles Street below a full-sized skeleton crucified on an M-16. “Made in USA,” said the sign on the cross.

During the nearly two hours that the misdemeanor arrests were made, reinforcements moved in as demonstrators were taken away, impeding the official comings and goings at the building. But impeding them nicely. Protesters let in paramedics so they could take an ailing pregnant woman to a hospital; a pediatrician left her place in the blockade to help. Demonstrators escorted a blind government worker when her guide dog had to do what a dog has to do.

On the march over from the historic La Placita church, they walked with the green light. They stayed in the crosswalks. Their civic earnestness not confined to El Salvador, protesters wore sweat shirts that said Save the Bay and Justice for Janitors. Some women were arrested in pearl earrings and high heels, some men in suits and ties.

In the absence of handcuffs, they obligingly put their hands behind their backs and marched off, some even before they were told to. To those who would watch them on the TV news, the protesters’ unthreatening demeanor said, “We are just like you.”

More people, 234, were arrested Wednesday than at any of the previous seven protests. More than half of those, said the federal police, had been through the drill before: singer Jackson Browne, who sang his album title cut “Lives in the Balance” and then went off to link arms; actor Ed Asner, who wore a sign around his neck that said “Sen. Wilson”--California Republican Pete Wilson--”Voted for the Bullets that Killed Me.”

Actor-activist Martin Sheen, now with more than 20 arrests, for a time Wednesday was being so nice and letting everyone into the barricaded building that organizers saw the point of the blockade evaporating. So they moved another rank of demonstrators in front of him. An amused Cynthia Anderson, of the Pledge of Resistance group, said, “Martin has to learn to work collectively.”

Collectively, more than 400 people appeared, spurred by an upcoming congressional consideration of military aid to El Salvador, by the November slayings of six Salvadoran Jesuits, and by the Salvadoran government’s announcement last week that, just as protesters had believed all along, several military men were suspects in the murders.

“Los Angeles,” said Linda Lillow, a political organizer on Central American issues, “is a very difficult place to mobilize public protest.” That a sizable number of people are “willing to be arrested week after week is even more amazing a phenomenon in Los Angeles,” she said.

Those arrested are cited and a $25 fine is levied. Those with repeat arrests will have to appear before a magistrate.

Gathered at the church that morning, Father Luis Olivares had amused the crowd by reading from a Salvadoran newspaper that the protest was “organized by certain priests said to be Catholic, with the help of certain failed Hollywood movie stars.”

Two blocks away, some federal employees were arriving for work ahead of the protest, as a memo from the federal police had urged them to do. “It’s a mess, a whole big mess,” said a secretary. “They tie up everything. I don’t mind protesting, but let people get in to work.”

Beside a marble-clad column, three Salvadoran men in their 20s who had appointments with the Immigration and Naturalization Service waited.

The names of their countrymen killed in the civil war were being read over a portable loudspeaker. As each name was read, an American dropped as if dead. The Salvadorans did not understand what was going on; when they were told, they could not believe it. “If it weren’t for the (leftist) guerrillas, we wouldn’t come here--we’d have work there,” said Herman Alvarado.

“The Army has never burned a bus or a factory,” said Julio Medina. If the U.S. stops sending money to El Salvador, “Who’s gonna fight the guerrillas?”

Floretta Pruitt, too, had to take her county business to another entrance. “I agree, they should spend the money here in the U.S. The homeless, the hungry, the poor, you have to get your own country together first.”