COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Counter-Recruitment: General
Youth continue effort to close recruiting station
Ben Carroll, Workers.org
Dec 19, 2006
Some 50 youth and community members held a demonstration Dec. 15 at therecently opened Army recruiting station in Chapel Hill, N.C. The
demonstration, organized by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), was scheduled to coincide with an
official ribbon-cutting ceremony at the station by the Chapel Hill Chamber
of Commerce.
About 10 youth activists, including members of Raleigh FIST (Fight
Imperialism, Stand Together), were prepared to attend the ceremony posing
as onlookers. When the ribbon was cut, they would unzip their jackets to
reveal shirts that read "Iraqi Civilian" splattered with red paint and fall
to the ground in a die-in. The direct action was called off at the last
minute, however, as the activists received word from a Town Council member,
from recruiters present for the ceremony and from the media that the
ceremony had been canceled.
Youth activists then joined community members in a picket line in front of
the recruiting station. With chants of "Out of Iraq! Out of our schools!"
and "No justice, no peace! U.S. out of the Middle East!" the demonstrators
made their presence known.
After several minutes of the moving picket line, about 10 police officers
and the property manager descended on the group of demonstrators and
ordered them to leave the supposedly public ceremony. Using their physical
prowess, the cops herded the demonstrators from the shopping center and
onto the sidewalk.
It became apparent that the ceremony was indeed taking place, even without
the Chamber of Commerce present. Three older community members who had
remained at the ceremony then revealed signs that read, "Hands off my
grandchildren— no recruiting" and "We mourn the dead." These peaceful
demonstrators were promptly arrested and hauled off to jail. Additionally,
two youth activists received citations for holding a banner.
The Chapel Hill Chamber of Commerce later issued a public statement
claiming it had received credible information that the demonstration was
going to be "non-peaceful" and that it felt the "safety of Chamber staff
and volunteers" was threatened. The Chamber used this violence-baiting not
only as a tactic to avoid addressing the political content of the
demonstration, but also to justify the police repression under the guise of
"public safety."
Youth activists from FIST and SDS said the reaction by both the Chamber and
the police reveals the strength of the movement the youth are building.
These organizations have vowed to continue confronting this recruiting
station until it is forced to close its doors for good.
Anti-recruiting in New York
Anti-recruiting activists from North Carolina attended the Troops Out Now
Coalition Antiwar Summit meeting in Harlem last Nov. 18, where the breakout
group on counter-recruiting decided to do something concrete to impact the
ability of Washington to wage war. "The one way we could do that," Dustin
Langley said, "was to hinder military recruiting."
"So far," Langley continued, "we in New York have been picketing at the
Chambers Street recruiting station each Tuesday and Thursday. Our plans for
the New Year are to hold a counter-recruiting activists meeting in January
and see if we can organize picketing outside the station every day.
"After the New Year, we will also be calling on antiwar activists across
the U.S. to 'adopt a recruiting station' and maintain a regular presence at
that site with the goal of shutting it down. So far we've gotten a friendly
reception on the street, and even a small protest will bring all the
recruiters out and stop them from recruiting."
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