Peace Activists Refuse to Declare Cease-Fire : Rallies: Despite halt in fighting, pacifists say protest is the only thing that will change leaders’ attitudes.

Valerie Sklarevsky has been arrested so many times at protest rallies over the years--35 at last count--that she proudly introduces herself to police officers who have taken her into custody.

“Didn’t you arrest me the other week?” she excitedly asked a federal officer at a demonstration Saturday held to protest U.S. military action in the Persian Gulf. “Yeah, you did! I got arrested last week too, at RAND (Corp.) in Santa Monica! I spilled blood and oil everywhere!”

On Saturday, the first weekend after an allied ground attack crushed the Iraqi army, the thin Malibu woman joined about 300 peace activists at their usual spot at the Federal Building in Westwood. Whether it is the Persian Gulf or Central America, she is ready to keep up the fight.

“There’s a war in El Salvador, and I believe the United States has its fingers in wars all over the world,” she said. “So for me, it’s not over. I work on this all the time.”

For U.S. troops in the Gulf, the war has all but ended. But there are activists like Sklarevsky who will continue to protest no matter how unpopular their cause may be.

“Your movement has died!” counterdemonstrator Doug Swardstrom bellowed at the woman and her friends Saturday. Swardstrom, 26, a Palos Verdes Estates financial consultant, repeatedly told the “peaceniks” to go home.

Swardstrom and a handful of his compatriots waved American flags, encouraged motorists to beep their horns in support of allied troops, and berated the activists for protesting a war that no longer really exists. A red, white and blue Chevy Blazer cruised back and forth, with 18 American flags attached to it and several handfuls more being waved furiously by its passengers.

Even passersby stopped to heap scorn on the peace activists.

“I think what they are doing is really stupid because the war is over,” said Genovieve Garibay, 16, who was on her way to Westwood Village. “They have no business being here. What’s the point?”

But young and old, the peace activists stood their ground. They read poetry and strummed guitars under a cloudless sky, and carried signs asking: “For What?!” From a makeshift stage, they gave speeches about the need for continued protest to question the war and bring it to a quick end, and to make sure another one doesn’t start.

In recent months, peace activists have camped out at Westwood and other sites around the city by the thousands. Incessantly, they have called for an end to the war, for the right of self-determination for Middle Eastern nations and for alternative energy sources that would allow the United States to wean itself from its reliance on oil from such an unstable area as the Persian Gulf.

“All of these points are still relevant,” said Ahmed Nassef, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Coalition Against U.S. Intervention in the Middle East, which has been co-sponsoring the rallies. “That is why we will continue to be active.”

Americans must be made to realize the tragic cost of such a military operation--as many as 87 U.S. troops killed and over 100,000 Iraqis killed, many of them children, according to Nassef and other speakers at the rally, which lasted less than two hours.

Nassef said the turnout Saturday showed that there is still a core of support for his coalition.

Added Mary Tradii: “The peace movement was here before this war and it will be here for a long time.”

And Anastasia Stewart, 57, of Mar Vista, said she would continue to protest because the Gulf conflict is a symptom of much greater problems. Only protest will change the attitudes of governmental leaders and citizens who, she believes, are willing to foot the bill for exorbitantly expensive wars but balk at spending money on their nation’s own homeless and poor.

“This war may be over,” said Stewart, a conspicuously large metal peace sign dangling from her neck, “but we’re already getting ready for the next one.”