Friends,
We will discuss this action on Monday, May 14 at 7:30 PM at my house. Come and listen and add your thoughts.
Kagiso,
Max
CALLING FOR END TO DRONE RESEARCH AT
Joy First
On Tuesday May 8, nine activists, as part of an action organized by the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance (NCNR), occupied the office of the president of Johns Hopkins University (JHU) for eight hours, calling on the university to end the drone research that is being conducted at the Applied Physics Lab (APL).
Drones are being used with more frequency than ever before. Obama has greatly increased the number of drone strikes. It is difficult to know how many innocent people are being killed by drone strikes because our government tries to keep this information undercover There are credible reports of 175 children being killed in
Drone warfare is illegal. The use of drones goes against the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions,
We must fight against drone warfare with education and actions at military bases, but we also must target corporations that make the drones and universities that provide research on drones.
In April and early May there have been actions against drone warfare in
Johns Hopkins has a reputation for being a leader in research that benefits humanity. What is not as well-known is that they get billions of research dollars from the Defense Department each year, and some of that money is going towards drone research at the Applied Physics Lab.
We got no response from anyone at JHU, so in the morning of May 8 members of NCNR met at the Homewood Friends Meeting House and worked out the final details of our plans to visit the office of the president that afternoon. I was wearing a t-shirt that I have been wearing to so many actions lately and that speaks so well as to what our purpose is. It says “We will not be silent”. It was a short 15 minute walk from the meeting house to the office of the president, and we arrived at the office at approximately 12:15 pm. We walked into the outer office carrying our signs and banners and were met by a young woman who said she would check and see whether President Daniels had received our letter.
A young man, identifying himself as a vice-president, came to greet us in the outer office. He was very polite and listened to what each person said, nodding his head as we spoke. After each person had a chance to speak, he thanked us for coming, assured us he would share this information with President Daniels and said we could leave now. He really believed that if he listened politely to what each person had to say, we would leave. But being heard (and I would argue we weren’t really heard) is not what we wanted. We wanted a dialogue and we wanted to stop the research on drone warfare. We were told that the president was on a plane to
All nine of us were carrying pictures of drone victims. I carried a picture of three small children, probably five years old and younger, who were lying dead because of a drone attack. I also carried a picture of a mother who looked like she was weeping uncontrollably, wracked by grief, because her children had been murdered by our government. We explained that this matter is urgent and that we could not leave, rather we would wait until we talked to someone in authority.
The nine of us settled into the space, some people standing, some sitting on the floor, and some sitting in the three available chairs. We spent the next several hours discussing many different social justice issues, including the drones, knowing that the JHU officials, security, and the
As we sat there, I realized that I have never been so confident that I needed to be sitting in this place, at this time. I knew that I was not breaking the law, even if we were arrested. We were engaging in nonviolent civil resistance, acting in resistance to the law-breaking of those in power. We were not there because we wanted to get arrested, and we were not trying to get arrested. But we were willing to risk arrest because we MUST do what we can to stop the murders of innocent people.
At one point I heard the head of security say to another officer “at 5:01”. I thought they would likely arrest us when the office officially closed at 5:00. But 5:00 came and went and we were not arrested, though they threatened arrest several times.
By 6:00, we had been occupying the office for almost six hours, and some of us were feeling desperate to use the restroom, but we didn’t want that to be the reason we left. Max asked if they could be respectful and afford us the human dignity of using the restroom, but they refused, posting two
As the situation became more difficult, Max increased his requests. Finally, he walked out onto a balcony area and loudly asked the 40 security officers and Baltimore PD, “Is there not one person who has the courage to disobey an illegal order….. not one person?” With that remark, the head of JHU security asked the officers blocking the door to move and to allow us to use the bathroom.
Malachy reminded us and the security personnel that though we were in a difficult situation, he was holding a picture of a dead child who will never go to the bathroom again. Holding the pictures of the drone victims helped us to keep our focus on why we were there. Malachy wrote a poem on the back of his picture about the connection we have with these victims and with each other. It is so important for us to remember that the people being killed by the bombs are children and parents and grandparents who love each other and live in families just like we do, and we are indeed all connected in this tragedy.
At about 6:30 a big, burly
With this latest pronouncement from the officer, and seeing all the Baltimore PD officers gathering, we were certain an arrest was imminent. But by 7:30 or so we noticed that all of the
We decided that to end our action, we would read the letter we had sent to President Daniels and Dr. Semmel out loud, Tim would announce that our work was done for now, and we would leave singing:
And every one 'neath their vine and fig tree
Shall live in peace and unafraid
And every one 'neath their vine and fig tree
Shall live in peace and unafraid
And into plowshares turn their swords,
Nations shall learn war no more
And into plowshares turn their swords,
Nations shall learn war no more
As we left the office, the head security officer told us we would be arrested if we ever stepped foot on the campus again. It was surprising that they didn’t arrest us as we “illegally” occupying the office, but would arrest us if we came back, not doing anything illegal. We cannot know for sure, but we suspect that there were orders given from above that we should not be arrested. JHU officials may not have wanted the publicity this would have garnered.
We walked several blocks to Max’s van and as we waited for Max to pick up his keys, we noticed that one of the Baltimore police officers had followed us to make sure we weren’t going to get into any more trouble.
We must continue these actions. We all have a
Those involved in the action included Ellen Barfield, David Barrows, Tim Chadwick, Cindy Farquhar, Malachy Kilbride, Max Obuszewski, Manijeh Saba, Alice Sutter, and myself, Joy First.
For information, please contact me at joyfirst5@gmail.com
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