03/21/2003

By JIM KLOCKOW and LIZA JAVIER / NWCN.com

SEATTLE – A day into the war with Iraq, thousands of Northwesterners took to the streets Thursday to protest the acts of their government in demonstrations and marches that continued late into the evening.

Demonstrators in Seattle, many of them students, blocked traffic and held "die-ins" in the city's Westlake Center, first marching to the city's Federal Building and then back to Westlake Center.

KING Two groups - one from Seattle Central Community College and one from the U.W. - merged to form one anti-war march.

In Portland a small group at the head of about 100 protesters headed for the Steele Bridge scuffled with police around 6 p.m., knocking over a police motorcycle and apparently injuring one officer.

Police quickly called in reinforcements in the form of bicycle and mounted police. Some protesters were hit with pepper spray in the skirmish as the situation quickly evolved into a standoff.

By 7:30 p.m., Portland protests had shut down three major bridges, blocked Interstate 84 in both directions, and helped clog side streets in and out of the inner city.

Demonstrators lie down at Westlake Mall in Seattle Thursday as part of an anti-war protest.

Anti-war demonstrators appeared to have heeded fliers that were passed around at Terry Schrunk Plaza urging them to participate in “sit downs, blockades and other actions at strategic locations,” according to the leaflets.

The Portland mix included many students and a large number of bicyclists from the advocacy group Critical Mass rode through areas of Portland and across the Burnside Bridge, slowing traffic there.

"People all over the world see Bush as a bad guy, doing bad things," said Jesus Martinez, a Portland State student. "It's totally divided Europe, and they think the United States government has totally stepped all over the United Nations."

In Seattle, as many as 1,200 war protesters, many of them students from Seattle Central Community College and the University of Washington, began their march on Seattle's Eastlake Ave. E. Thursday afternoon, paralyzing traffic along the way before arriving at Westlake Center.

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Seattle transit disruptions

Along with "No Iraq War," messages included: "Support US Troops. Bring Them Home," "Impeach Bush" and "We Are All Iraqis." One sign depicted President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with the tops of their heads sliced off and the message: "Empty Warheads Found in Washington."

Around 5 p.m., the protesters marched to the Federal Building, where they blocked off Second Ave., creating a traffic mess in the downtown area and then back to Westlake Center later in the evening.

KING

The State Patrol ordered the Bellingham protesters off the freeway under threat of arrest, and they left.

Earlier Portland, anti-war demonstrators carrying placards and waving peace signs marched peacefully towards the Terry Schrunk Plaza downtown as the community joined hundreds of cities around the world in protesting an invasion of Iraq.

Many wore black, others had bandannas over their faces and still others wore gas masks.

A splinter group of anti-war activists faced off against dozens of pro-troops supporters in front of the World Trade Center at the Portland's Waterfront Park.

The two groups yelled back and forth at one another and police watched form a distance.

Many of the demonstrators were college students who walked out of classes. The one-block long column of demonstrators blocked traffic as they moved from one block to the next. They were escorted or followed by police in squad cars and on bikes.

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In Kirkland, Wash., outside Seattle, a noon protest by area high school students ended peacefully. The group consisted of approximately 100 people, mostly students from various high schools.

The Seattle demonstrations involved students from as many as 20 high schools and eight colleges.

"I walked out because I'm totally against this war, and I think we should try to do this in a different way," said Lisbeth

Unterschute, 14, and a freshman at Roosevelt High School.

Chanting "Money for schools, not for war" a group from Seattle Central marched up Broadway before noon before joining up with a larger group from the University of Washington.

Once at Westlake Park, the Seattle demonstrators held "die-ins" by lying down on the pavement, some covered with fake blood.

Officials from Metro transit in Seattle warned bus riders that it was impossible to know which bus stops would be affected by the demonstrations, but that several routes had been affected.

Protests against the war started early almost as soon as bombs started falling in Iraq Wednesday night. At that time, about 200 people protested outside the Federal Building in downtown Seattle and marched toward Westlake Park. Police arrested 11 protesters at Westlake Center after they refused to leave.

Anti-war protesters also briefly shut down a bridge into downtown Olympia Thursday morning. Eight protesters were arrested after chaining themselves together on the Fourth Avenue bridge at about 9:15 a.m.

KING After a rally at Seattle's Westlake Center, protesters marched to the Federal Building and blocked off traffic on Second Ave.

Witnesses said the conflict started when a motorcycle officer tried to move a woman from the middle of a main street near the Capitol. A man attempted to intervene and was grabbed by a second officer.

A crowd of protesters then circled them and began chanting, "Let him go," when one of the officers apparently used pepper spray.

"We were trying to keep things mellow," said Chris VanDaalen of Olympia, who was temporarily blinded by the spray and spoke while pouring water over his face and head. "But when there's a case of police brutality, it's very hard to have a peaceful protest."

Olympia police spokesman Dick Machlan said the officers used the spray to get out of the situation.

Earlier Thursday, about two dozen people braved the wind and rain for a support-the-troops rally outside Camp Murray, headquarters of the Washington National Guard and the nerve center of the State Emergency Operations Center.

War was on many people's minds as they lined up at the Spokane Arena for the first round of the NCAA basketball tournament Thursday. A few protesters were outside the arena, holding a black sheet with a peace sign.

Elsewhere

Galvanized by the American attack on Iraq, thousands of anti-war activists around the country and the world set off their own barrage of street protests, chaining themselves together, blocking workers and traffic, walking out of classes, and parading in mock chemical suits.

AP More than 10,000 anti-war protesters gathered in Sydney's central business district and thousands of Australians protested throughout the country's major cities.

Anti-war protesters also blocked traffic in New York, Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia. Demonstrator outside the White House changed "no blood for oil" in reaction to U.S. military strikes against Iraq.

The first shots of war set off global protests on the streets and U.S. flags burned from Berlin to Bangladesh.

Protesters banged pots in Manila and daubed "Bush, your empire will eventually crumble" on walls in Caracas.

Police stepped in when a few dozen marchers smashed the windows of a McDonald's restaurant and threw firecrackers and smoke bombs inside.

They stoned the U.S. Embassy in Brussels, and threw bricks and eggs at a local party office of Spanish Prime Minister and Bush ally, Jose Maria Aznar.

In Srinagar, capital of heavily Muslim Kashmir, schoolboys watched TV footage of explosions in Baghdad and cheered when Iraqi President Saddam Hussein appeared.

AP In New York's Times Square, thousands gathered to protest the war in Iraq.

In Sydney, Australia, protesters snarled traffic holding up signs saying "Disarm USA too."

An estimated 45,000 students and labor union members marched in Milan, and police parked cars across Rome streets to keep protesters away from the U.S. Embassy.

The war's ripples reached remote Kathmandu, capital of Nepal, where people fearing fuel shortages lined up at gas stations.

In Tunis, a trinket seller named Mohammed said to a customer: "Are you French? I will give you special Chirac price." He was referring to French President Jacques Chirac, who is admired in Muslim Tunisia for his high-profile opposition to the war.

KGW.com Reporter Abe Estimada, KGW.com staff and the Associated Press contributed to this report