Berkeley student conference: A forum to discuss antiwar strategy and tactics
1991Adam Wood 1991-02Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 2 →
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held by enemy troops.
"U.S. analysts later reviewed photographs and accounts from eyewitnesses and determined that the Kurds had died of cyanide gas, which produced telltale blue lips on the corpses. Only the Iranians possessed cyanide gas."
"It seemed likely that it was the Iranian bombardment that had actu ally killed the Kurds,' concluded an Army War College team that reviewed the intelligence for an analysis completed in February, of the Iraq-Iran war."
Closing date:
Feb. 6, 1991 Over five hundred students from the western United States met at the University of California, Berkeley, campus on Sunday, Jan. 27, to help build the movement against war in the Persian Gulf. The conference followed a massive mobilization against the war in San Francisco on January 26.
The students came from over 20 campuses in Southern and Northern California, Oregon, Washington, Montana, and Utah. A similar student conference was held in Washington, D.C. on the same day.
Most of the people attending the conference represented campus groups formed within the last few months or weeks to oppose the war. These student activists came to hear reports from other campuses, to discuss issues raised by the war, and to plan future actions.
The day began with an opening plenary session and quickly broke down into workshops. Some of the workshop topics included tactics and strategies for the antiwar movement, the war's impact on racism, and the war and Israel. A few workshops were formed spontaneously by students at the conference.
The conference ended with plenary session designed to plan common actions against the war and to establish a structure for the Western student movement.
The students voted to endorse a call for campus actions on Feb. 1, issued by a Chicago students conference held on Jan. 19. They also voted to join the call issued by the Washington, D.C. conference for campus actions against the war on Feb. 21. The conference voted to build these actions around the demands: Stop the War! Bring the Troops Home Now! No Legal or Economic Draft! Fight Racism!
The conference, however, failed to establish any long-term structure. Instead, a voluntary continuations committee was set up to coordinate actions planned by the conference and build communication between the campuses.
While the session on structure could have been better organized, the loose organization established by the conference reflects a new movement in its formative stages. Stronger organization will flow from common actions organized by the campuses. Through the experience of working together, the students and future conference organizers will learn what they want their regional and national organizations to look like.
The many regional student conferences taking place around the country reflect an antiwar movement growing faster than any other in American history. Obviously, today's students are picking up the fight against war where their parents left off in the 60s and 70sand raising it to new heights.