The dispute between activists and the city over what happened at the antiwar demonstration on March 20 is about to move to a new and unlikely front–the City Council. Joe Moore, alderman of the 49th Ward, and Ricardo Munoz, of the 22nd, are threatening to hold hearings on why more than 700 antiwar protesters were arrested that night–even if the testimony proves embarrassing to the Daley administration.
The massive protest on the day after the U.S. launched its war against Iraq began shortly after 6 PM, when several thousand people who’d been rallying at Federal Plaza began marching east toward Lake Shore Drive. By the time they reached the lake their ranks had grown to an estimated 10,000 people, and police had no choice but to allow them to cross and move onto the drive, blocking traffic in both directions. For an hour or so, the marchers walked along the drive without confronting the police. But as the drive bent west they found a thick line of policemen in riot gear waiting for them at Michigan Avenue.
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In the days after the arrests Moore says he called officials at City Hall. “I started making some inquiries, talking to people over the last few weeks, basically asking if they’re going to drop the charges,” he says. “And they said no.”
Both Moore and Munoz say they’re motivated in part by their antiwar beliefs. “I feel like a lot of people in my ward,” says Munoz, who represents a largely Hispanic southwest-side district in and around Little Village. “I think it’s an unfair, unjust war based on a capricious decision by one man. There are many soldiers from my ward in this war. I went to church on Sunday, and Father Matt, our priest, said he had put up pictures of all the men and women from the parish who are serving. I figured I’d see 10 or 15 pictures. Well, there were 60 kids–all these kids from my neighborhood are out there. I’ve got moms who are calling me saying, ‘Rick, I don’t know what to do. My son is fighting and I’m so scared.’ What can I tell them? It makes me heartsick–just sending them over to fight this war and then they come home to what? High unemployment and high interest rates and an economy that this president has shot. You can see I’m very opinionated about this.”
Another possibility is the human relations committee, chaired by 26th Ward alderman Billy Ocasio. This was the committee that held hearings on Moore’s antiwar resolution, but Ocasio is known for doing pretty much what his mentor, Congressman Luis Gutierrez, tells him. Gutierrez opposes the war, but he too is a close Daley ally.
