Seattle: Boeing Target of Anti-War Action Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit -------------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the June 24, 1999 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------------- BOEING TARGET OF ANTI-WAR ACTION Special to Workers World Seattle On June 12, as U.S./NATO troops invaded Kosovo, people marched on the Boeing Corp. in Seattle to protest. The demonstration took the streets of downtown Seattle-- and then protesters marched over six miles to Boeing International Headquarters. The protest condemned the NATO invasion of Yugoslavia and Boeing's huge role in the air war that battered the whole country. People marched behind a banner reading "Indict Boeing for war crimes--U.S. out of Yugoslavia." The Emergency Mobilization to Stop the War organized the demonstration. "Fifty thousand troops are now invading Kosovo--we say no," marchers explained to bystanders along the way. "We're marching to protest Boeing-made cruise missiles, Stealth bombers and F-15 bombers that destroyed Yugoslavia for 78 days." The diverse march of young, old and disabled, including Yugoslavians, got a lot of support along the route. The chants rang out the strongest when the marchers arrived at Boeing headquarters, which was fortified by Boeing security in the middle of a vast Boeing complex. "We're here at the scene of a monstrous crime," Emergency Mobilization organizer Jim McMahan told the crowd. "This is where the decisions are made about what the new generation of weapons will be to bomb and incinerate oppressed peoples- -like Iraqis and Yugoslavs. This is where the profits are made." The Emergency Mobilization distributed a leaflet to passersby exposing the weapons of mass destruction produced at Boeing and used on Yugoslavia. A short list includes the cruise missile, the B-2 Stealth bomber, F-15 and F-18 bombers, the Apache helicopter, the Chinook helicopter, the C-17 transport plane, and the AWACS and Joint Stars planes that electronically guided the air war. Speakers at the rally demanded that all the money thrown away on these weapons of mass destruction be used to provide jobs, education, housing and health care. Boeing is profiting enormously from this war. Yet right now the company is laying off 48,000 workers--mostly in the Seattle area. "All these workers should get their jobs back," said McMahan. "They could build tech nology for peaceful purposes and to improve, rather than destroy, human life. Boeing has the obligation and the money to do this." The speakers demanded that Boeing's board of directors and major stockholders be put on trial for war crimes and be made to pay reparations for destroying Yugoslavia. - END - (Copyleft Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@workers.org. For subscription info info send message to: info@workers.org. Web: http://www.workers.org) ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nyteeu-06.21.99-00:21:39-22668