Plays, pills, tribunals dramatize growing antiwar sentiment

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SOCIALIST ACTION NOVEMBER 1984 The U.S. government is indicted for crimes against humanity! Students petition university to stock post-atomic attack "suicide pills"! One hundred productions of new anti-nuclear-weapons plays are mounted across the country! The month of October has seen an upsurge in dramatic responses to the increasingly widespread fear of nuclear war and revulsion at the U.S. warmongering that continually multiplies the risks of war.

In San Francisco, on Oct. 14, a Citizen's Tribunal on Central America was held in which the people of the United States appeared as plaintiffs. Named as defendants in the indictment were Ronald Reagan, CIA Director William Casey, Secretary of State George P. Shultz, and other officials of the Reagan administration.

The tribunal, one of a dozen held in New York, Atlanta, and other cities throughout the United States during October, cited as precedents the Nurenberg Tribunal of 1946, at which Nazi leaders were tried, and the 1966-67 Bertrand Russell Tribunal on War Crimes in Vietnam.

The current tribunals are modeled on the grand jury. The nine San Francisco jurors included judges; a Stanford University professor of international law; labor and church officials; and Daniel Ellsberg, the former State Department official who disclosed U.S. government activities in the "Pentagon Papers."

The indictment, read by the prosecutor, immigration attorney Marc Van Der Hout, included seven specific violations of international and domestic law. The U.S. government officials were charged with "the threat and use of force against the territorial integrity and political independence of Nicaragua" and "aiding and abetting the commission of crimes against humanity..." in both Nicaragua and El Salvador. Other counts included the introduction of U.S. armed forces into Central America without the permission of Congress and inhuman treatment of refugees.

Testimony, often moving and at times horrifying, was offered by numerous witnesses. A 23-year-old Salvadoran refugee graphically described how eight of his friends were dragged from the classroom and brutally murdered. A Salvadoran doctor who worked in a clinic for refugees reported the incursion by the Death Squads even into the operating and recovery rooms to accomplish their deadly missions. Ricardo Calderon, for four years chancellor of the University of El Salvador, recounted his own imprisonment and torture.

Among the witnesses were representatives of the Sanctuary movement, today's "underground railroad" for Salvadoran refugees, and of Witness for Peace, an organization which sends observers to live on the NicaraguanHonduras border. A former CIA agent, medical observers, a political secretary at the Nicaraguan embassy, and many others also testified to first-hand experiences with U.S. intervention in the area.

In reporting out the indictment, California Supreme Court Justice Frank Newman, the foreman of the jury, stressed that the evidence against the defendants was conclusive. He urged further investigation stating that "although we were an investigating body rather than judicial, there is sufficient evidence to support further inquiry by congressional and judicial hearings and the Government Accounting Office."

"Handy Dandy"

A more imaginary-but hardly more theatrical-courtroom drama was also being performed all across the United States. "Handy Dandy, a comedy but..." by William Gibson, author of "The Miracle Worker" and "Two for the Seesaw, received 10 performances in New York, 14 in Los Angeles, and dozens of amateur productions from Kansas to Oregon over the weekend of Oct. 13-14.

The readings, sponsored by the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign, boasted a roster of star performers that included Burt Lancaster, Richard Dreyfuss, Julie Harris, Gena Rowlands, Jane Alexander, Geraldine Fitzgerald, E.G. Marshall, and many others.

The play explores the theme of civil disobedience through the relationship of a 72-year-old nun and the district court judge who must sentence her to prison for her part in a nuclear weapons protest. Gibson has rejected a Broadway production for "Handy Dandy,' telling the New York Times: want this particular play to have a life out in the country. It only takes two chairs and a broom to stage, so groups can mount it in churches."

A drama of another kind was played out at Brown University on Oct. 11-12. By a 2-to-1 vote, undergraduates passed a referendum urging the university health service to stockpile "suicide pills" for use in case of nuclear war. The student organizers of the measure were undisturbed by the university administration's refusal to obey the referendum, which they regard as largely symbolic.

Jason Salzman and Christopher Ferguson, the organizers, maintain that they do not condone suicide, though they believe that it is a realistic alternative in the event of nuclear war. Their real aim is to dramatize the suicidal nature of the arms race. "There are words we hear talk about when people mention nuclear war: survival, recovery,' says Salzman. "I like more appropriate words: suicide, death" (New York Times, Oct. 11).

Salzman and Ferguson are organizing a movement called "Students Against Nuclear Suicide, which is planning a rally at Brown on Nov. 2. They express the hope that the initiative will be picked up on other campuses, and that rallies will be widely held on that day.

The Brown referendum, the Tribunals, and the Gibson drama, clearly represent an effort to use new and creative tactics to organize an effective opposition to the U.S. government's bellicosity. The impact of tactics such as these can be multiplied over and over by such means as the televising of the Tribunals (as was done in San Francisco) and the performing of the play in thousands of towns and villages. Taken together these three October events clearly reflect the desire of large numbers of people to challenge the U.S. pro-war policies.

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El Salvador -