COUNTYWIDE : Anti-War Activists Stick With Beliefs

The Persian Gulf War may be over, but the anti-war movement is not, according to nine unrepentant protesters arrested for attempting to blockade the Federal Building in Santa Ana on Jan. 17.

“Just because the war was won, it doesn’t make war right,” said Marion Pack, executive director of Alliance For Survival, as she awaited sentencing Monday.

Pack and eight other activists took their ideology to court Monday, telling a judge that their blockade was an act of conscience to protest the bombing of Baghdad.

Under a plea-bargain arrangement, each of the nine entered a plea of “no contest” to misdemeanor charges of maliciously and knowingly blockading a public thoroughfare.

Each was sentenced to perform 40 hours of community service.

Over prosecution objections, Orange County Municipal Judge B. Tam Nomoto said the protesters had a First Amendment right to address the court. She permitted each to make a brief statement.

“I am here because I protest the concept of violence to resolve disagreements,” Pack told the judge as a group of prisoners in orange-colored jail uniforms looked on.

Dennis Moynahan, 26, an actor from Buena Park, said it was his duty as “a Christian and a patriotic citizen” to break the law in order to call attention to a government policy he considered wrong.

“The Boston Tea Party was a criminal activity,” Moynahan told the judge.

For Paco Marmolejo, 39, of Fullerton, the issue was simple.

“I’m tired of all the killing and death,” he told Nomoto. “I notice that these wars they have are always against dark-skinned people, and I’m fed up with it.”

According to Pack, 14 people were arrested in or around the Federal Building on Santa Ana Boulevard within the first days of the U.S. aerial attack on Iraq.

Five of those were arrested by federal marshals and prosecuted in federal court. Two agreed to pay $25 fines, and a federal judge ordered that a third demonstrator, who refused to pay, would have the fine deducted from his salary, Pack said.

Two other women asked that their $25 fines be donated to the Red Crescent, the Islamic Red Cross organization, but the judge refused, Pack said.

The nine protesters sentenced Monday attempted to block the Federal Building but were prevented from doing so by a police barricade, Pack said. Instead, they blockaded Santa Ana Boulevard and were arrested there.

The nine said they are well aware that a large majority of Americans supported the war and are basking in victory. But they predicted that their nonviolent ideals will outlast the bellicose national mood.

“I would prefer to see Americans feel good because we have the best educations in the world, because we have the best national health-care system, because we have no homeless on our streets, because we have the lowest crime rate,” she said. “Then we would have something to be proud of.”

Linda Schatzman, a 34-year-old secretary from Anaheim, said the peace movement had failed to impress upon the public the true horror of war.

“I think if the American people are really able to witness some of the real devastation, some of the popularity will wear off,” she said. “When things in the Middle East inevitably settle into the way they were before, we will ask the question, ‘What did we win?’ ”

It was the first arrest for Schatzman. She looked wan but determined as she sat quietly in a courthouse corridor while crowds of criminal defendants and their lawyers milled about.

But several other protesters, including 67-year-old Jeanie Bernstein of Laguna Beach, said they have been arrested for civil disobedience before.

Bernstein, a peace activist for 50 years, said she was arrested several years ago at a nuclear test site in Nevada but was never charged.

“War in a time of weapons of mass indiscriminate destruction is even more evil than it has been in the past,” Bernstein said.

She said she took part in the illegal blockade because “I want to say to anybody who can hear me or see me: ‘Stop.’ ”

None of the protesters, however, had recent convictions in Orange County and so they were sentenced as first offenders.