BY NORM DIXON
The US National Youth and Student Peace Coalition (NYSPC) has issued a call for a national one-day student strike to demand "Books not bombs! Stop the war against Iraq" on March 5.
US President George Bush's "administration is intent on plunging America into an illegitimate and pre-emptive war that will only increase danger for Americans and the world", the call stated. "At the same time, education, healthcare and the economy are being neglected. It's time for youth and students to take a stand for America's future!"
"We say 'No!' to this war of terror to increase American power and take control of strategic oil supplies... The Bush administration's war on Iraq is a venture for control of the region ... not national security, democracy or human rights", the coalition states.
According to the NYSPC, a US attack on Iraq will: endanger the lives of US servicemen and women; increase the suffering and misery of the Iraqi people and slaughter thousands; encourage terror attacks against the US; be used as an excuse to erode civil liberties; divert resources from education and social services; and "subvert historical precedent and international law".
The demands of the strike directed towards the US government include: "end the drive for military action and sanctions that target the people of Iraq; fund education to ensure that everyone in the US has access to higher education; and reallocate military funds to eliminate poverty, and build peace at home and abroad".
Strikers will also demand that campus administrators "declare opposition to the war, disclose and eliminate military research contracts, freeze or lower tuition fees" and transfer funds devoted to on-campus military training to academic programs and student services.
The NYSPC includes the Black Radical Congress, the Campus Greens, the Muslim Students Association of the US and Canada, the Student Environmental Action Coalition, the Student Peace Action Network, Students United for a Responsible Global Environment, Students Transforming and Resisting Corporations, United Students Against Sweatshops, United States Student Association, the Young Communist League, the Young Democratic Socialists and Young People's Socialists League.
From Green Left Weekly, January 29, 2003.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.