THOUSANDS PROTEST U.S. POLICY IN CENTRAL AMERICA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403480001-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 12, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: April 26, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
E Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000403480001-5
26 April 1987
Thousands Protest U.S.. Policy in
Central America
ARTICLE AP E NEW YORK TIMES
ON PAGE
By WAYNE KING
Sp.clol to TTw Now York TYmn
WASHINGTON, April .25 - Tens of
thousands of demonstrators, heavily
represented by churches and organ-I
ized labor, marched through the
streets of Washington today to protest
American policy in Central America.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, an unan-
nounced Candidate for President, spoke
to the crowd from the steps of the Capt-
tol, saying that President Reagan and,
his Administration were responsible
for "scandal in the Middle East, sabo-
tage in Central America and an unholy
alliance with South Africa."
Some prominent labor leaders, in-
cluding Lane Kirkland, president of the
A.F.L.-C.I.O., had tried to persuade
unions to boycott the protest rally and
march. But the event drew substantial
support from labor unions, with possi-
bly a third of the marchers bearing
union placards or insignia.
Labor Leaders In Conflict
Twenty-four labor leaders were,
listed among the steering committee,
for the rally, called The National
Mobs izatlat for Justice and Peace in
Central America and Southern Af-
rica."
Among them were presidents of
some to the nation's biggest unions, in-
cluding the United Automobile Work-
ers, the American Federation of State,
County and Municipal Employees, t*_
Communications Workers of Amerlcaj
and the National Education Associa-
tion.
Despite the participation of some of,
its most substantial member unlace,'
the A.F.L-C.I.O. had maintained that
some groups backing the demonstra-
tion supported Communist elements in.
Cent America.
The peaceful march today was a,
'prelude to planned civil disobedience
on Monday. morning at Central Intelli-'
genes Agency headquarters in Lang
ley,Va
Reagan Called 'Desperate'
Protestors, including Daniel Ella-,
berg, Amy Carter and Abbie Hoffman,-
have said they planned to block traffic
and invite arrest to protest covert
C.I.A. activities in Central America
and elsewhere.
Mr. Ellsberg, who attended today's
rally and spoke to protesters, said that
about "five to six hundred people, In-
cluding myself, plan to get arrested."
Mr. Ellsberg, who has been promi
nent in liberal political circles since, he
said, he made public the secret Pen
gm Papers in the Vietnam War,
acterized Mr. Reagan as ."desperate'.
and predicted that the President would
be tempted to divert attention from the
Iran arms deals and subsequent diver
Sion of funds to the Nicaraguan rebels
by waging war in Central America. Mr.
Reagan was at Camp David, Md., to-
day, where he delivered his weekly
radio address.
"We are determined to tell him that
he will have to arrest a lot of Amer-
icans to carry out those actions," Mr.
Ellsberg said. '
Estimates of number of protesters
were difficult because demonstrators
gathered in the morning at the Ellipse
behind the White House, then marche4
to the Capitol, leaving many still at the
Ellipse and others still in the streets as
the Capitol rally began in early after-
noon. Organizers said the march drew
100,000 participants, while the United
States Capitol Police estimated the
turnout at at 75,000 and the National
Park Police put the figure at 35,000.
The steering committee formed to
sponsor the march, an umbrella group
of 35 church, labor and peace groups,
listed as its objectives the "support of
peace and freedom" in Central Amer-
ica and South Africa, an end to Amer-
ican aid to anti-government Contra
armed forces in Nicaragua and prohi-
bitions against "U.S. government and
corporate support" for the South Af-
rican Government's policy of racial
separation.
The boycott recommended by Mr.
Kirkland and some other labor leaders
stemmed from the membership in the
coalition of groups that Mr. Kirkland
said go beyond opposition to the Rea-
gan Administration's policy of inter-
vention in Central America by "em-
bracing the Sandinista regime" in
Nicaragua and by giving "open sup-
port to to the Marxist-Leninist guerril-
las in El Salvador."
Among the groups named in a 16-
page call to boycott the march distrib,
uted by the international Union of
Bricklayers were the Committee in
Solidarity With the People of El Salva-
dor, the Network in Solidarity with the
People of Guatemala, the Inter-Relt-
gious Task Force on Central America,
the Committee for a Sane Nuclear
Policy and the National Council of
Churches.
However, criticism of the demon-
stration from the more conservative
quarters of the labor movement was
generally discounted by other protest
leaders today.
Kenneth T. Blaylock, president of
American Federation of Government
Employees, estimated that as mLany as
45,000 union members had marched to-,
day and said: "There a difference of
opinion, obviously, within organized
labor about the problems of Central
America. But that doesn't bother me:
We are right Labor was split In 1963 on
civil rights. It was split later over the
Vietnam war. We were right then and
we are right now."
In a speech that brought loud ap-
pluase, Ed Asner, the motion picture.
and television actor and former presi-
dent of the Screen Actors Guild; said,
"It is hard to believe the A.F.L-C1.O.'s
rhetoric about free speech abroad in
the face their abysmal disregard for
free speech at home."
The marchers pushed off from the
soggy, rain-soaked turf of the Ellipse in
wind gusting to 20 miles an hour. The
temperature was 47 degrees.
Vietnam war peace symbol.
Many of the younger demonstrators
said they were the sons and daughters
of civil rights and anti-war demootra-
tors of earner decades. John Ekman, a
teenager who came. from Saratoga
Srpings, N.Y., with his father, a former
Vietnam-era demonstrator now a Pres-
byetrian minister, said "I wanted.to
see what it Is like.'
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000403480001-5