UNC – Chapel Hill Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) stands in solidarity with the people of Gaza who are currently under attack.  We strongly support the right of self determination for the Palestinian people and their right to resist against Israel's illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories.  The state of Israel is currently responsible for murdering over 1,000 and wounding over 4,000 Palestinians in under three weeks.  These numbers are grossly disproportionate to the 13 Israelis that have died since Israel began its ground assault on Gaza. We are appalled to know that the United States unflinchingly supports this genocide and continues to spend billions of our tax dollars to fund and arm the attack on Gaza. We also condemn the actions of Representative David Price, who voted for a resolution which blames the victim and does nothing to stop the massacre of Palestinians.

• We demand that the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert halt the bloody assault on Gaza immediately.
• We demand that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak open the borders between Egypt and Gaza and allow medical professionals to help the Palestinian people.
• We demand that Israel allow reporters and media into Gaza so that the world can view firsthand the terror it is inflicting on the people of Gaza.
• We demand that Israel immediately withdraw its illegal settlements in the Palestinian territories which have been built on top of bulldozed Palestinian homes.
• We demand that our tax dollars go toward furthering our communities in the US rather than be sent to aid in the genocide of an indigenous people.

Free Palestine- End the Apartheid Now!

US out of the Middle East!

SDS is a co-sponsor of this event

This program will try to make sense of events in Gaza by providing historical, legal and human contexts. Speakers will provide the background behind the news, and bring into focus the faces behind the headlines. Why is this war continuing? And what can we do to bring it to an end?

Students for a Democratic Society member Tamara Tal and her attorney Al McSurely are declaring victory in a court battle for first amendment rights. On April 30, Jeffrey Nieman, the Assistant District Attorney Jeffrey L. Nieman sent a letter to McSurely stating that he had filed a voluntary dismissal in the case of State v. Tamara Tal. Nieman wrote in his letter that "the facts [are] insufficient for conviction beyond a reasonable doubt." Ms. Tal had been charged with "failure to disperse" (blocking free passage of a walkway-- C.H. town ordinance 11-6).

There will be a rally and speak-out in support of Students for a Democratic Society member and Chapel Hill activist Tamara Tal on Monday April 14, 2008 in front of the Chapel Hill Post Office/Courthouse at 11 am. Tamara Tal was arrested on a public sidewalk November 30, 2007 at the Burger King protest in Chapel Hill and on Monday, April 14, she will plead "not guilty" to the charge of "failure to disperse" (blocking free passage of a walkway-- C.H. town ordinance 11-6).

UNC Students for a Democratic Society and the Carolina Hispanic Association (CHispA) invite you to a series of events:

Chicano Liberation and the Struggle for Immigrant's Rights

Screening of the film "Walkout"
Tuesday April 8 at 7pm in Greenlaw 413, UNC Campus

The film tells the story of the successful East LA walkouts in March 1968 when thousands of Chicano students protested the racist school conditions in LA. Their demands for better facilities, new schools, Chicano studies, an end to the high dropout rate and more college prep classes were met, resulting in reforms to the LA school system. The walkouts were organized by the Brown Berets, a revolutionary Chicano youth organization in the 1960s and 70s.

Talk by Carlos Montes (who is portrayed in Walkout)
Wednesday April 9 at 7pm in Greenlaw 413, UNC Campus

Carlos Montes worked with other Chicano revolutionaries to create the Brown Berets, an organization that fought racism in education and housing, police brutality and protested the Vietnam War. He will be speaking about his history organizing for Chicano rights and its ties to the current struggle for immigrant rights. Carlos Montes is a veteran of the Chicano liberation movement, a long time trade union organizer, and a leader of the immigrants rights movement in LA. He is a member of Latinos Against War and the March 25th Coalition.

At the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, 450 students attended an antiwar rally at noon and 300 marched through campus and into the community, occupying the main intersection in town before ending with a closing rally on the steps of the administration building. SDS, thirteen other student organizations, members of the newly-founded UNC Coalition Against the War, six community organizations and members of Iraq Veterans Against the War led the demonstration. "I'm inspired by the hundreds of students who were willing to leave class and march against this unjust war," said Abby Crownshaw, a first-year student and an organizer of the protest. "We brought our message of peace and justice to thousands of students, faculty and staff."

Many classes were unable to continue because of the noise of the protest. As the march wound through campus, students came up to the windows to watch, with many waving or displaying peace signs to the demonstrators. At the closing rally, the protesters renewed their commitment to struggle against the war and continue to build the mass movement across North Carolina in the coming year.

See also: UNC Chapel Hill SDS flyer distributed at the rally, The Movement Against War: 5 years of struggle (pdf)

Press round-up:

03/24/08 - Public outcry can influence policy on the war in Iraq [DTH]
03/24/08 - War protest was useful in promoting conversation [DTH]

Five years ago, George Bush, the Democratic and Republican Parties and the United States government committed what the Nuremberg Court called the “supreme international crime.” They waged a war of aggression against a sovereign nation, and they justified it with lies. They claimed Iraq possessed and was actively developing weapons of mass destruction. But it did not take long for the truth to surface: Bush and big oil interests had been planning this war for years. The real motives of this war are not defensive, nor are they altruistic; they are imperial. The U.S. aimed to ensure its domination of the region by striking down an anti-imperialist government in the heart of the oil-rich Middle East.

Five years later, more than one million Iraqis lie dead. Over four and a half million have become refugees. Entire cities have been reduced to rubble. Basic infrastructure destroyed in the massive “shock and awe” bombing campaign has left 70% of Iraqis without access to safe drinking water and millions without access to effective sanitation. Vast areas of Iraq lack sufficient electricity, with many neighborhoods in Baghdad receiving only 5-6 hours of power a day. Ten million Iraqis maintain a precarious existence through a sanctions-era food rationing system – which the Iraqi puppet government soon plans to eliminate. Unemployment stands at 60-70%. 800,000 children did not go to school last year. Hospitals lack basic medicines and staff. U.S.–sponsored death squads roam the streets. Religious sectarianism, an important tool the U.S. employs in its divide-and-conquer strategy, has led to tens of thousands of murders and kidnappings.

But five years of occupation has also meant five years of struggle. The Iraqi people are not passively standing by while their sovereignty is dismantled in the name of a colonial-style puppet government in the Green Zone, and while the United States and the giant multi-national corporations loot Iraqi oil.

Dear friends and allies at UNC,

This March will mark a grim milestone: the U.S. occupation of Iraq will enter its fifth year. After five years of war and occupation, over 1.2 million Iraqis and 4,000 U.S. troops have lost their lives, and more that $500 billion has been poured into the failing occupation, money that should have been spent making education more accessible to millions of young people in this country who cannot afford it, to provide healthcare, housing and jobs to all Americans, and to rebuild the Gulf Coast, which is still suffering from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina more than two and a half years later.

WHAT: Demand Peace, Stop Violence and End the Iraq War!
WHEN: March 19, 2008 at 12:30pm
WHERE: Gather in the Pit for a Rally and March
WHO: Students, Faculty, Staff and Community Members

Join the UNC Coalition Against the War.

We are: Students for a Democratic Society, Black Student Movement (Political Action Committee), Feminist Students United, Young Democrats, Arab Student Organization, Student Action with Workers, Solidarity with Palestine through Education and Action at Carolina, the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender/Straight Alliance, Criminal Justice Action and Awareness, Muslim Organizations Actively Integrating Carolina, Advocates for Human Rights, Prochoice USA, Native Health Initiative, and Animal Rights Collective.

This Wednesday will mark a grim milestone: the U.S. occupation of Iraq will enter its fifth year. That means five years that the people of Iraq have been forced to live under the daily violence of the U.S. occupation of their country resulting in the deaths of over 1.2 million Iraqis and nearly 4,000 U.S. troops.

UNC-Chapel Hill Students for a Democratic Society, in solidarity with over 75 other Universities and High Schools across the country (http://www.newsds.org/), is working shoulder-to-shoulder with the UNC Coalition Against the War to call on all students and community members stand up, walkout and speak out against the brutal war on Iraq. We will gather in the Pit at 12:30pm on Wednesday, March 19, 2008 for a rally and march.

The rally will include speakers from member organizations of the UNC Coalition Against the War and Iraq Veteran Against the War, Joe Gill. We hope that you will break from your daily routine on this day to join us in struggle against violence in all of its tragic forms.

The march will feature giant puppets, beats by Cakalak Thunder, radical cheer leading and more!