BERKELEY, CALIF.
Albright's speech prompts protest
By Nancy Mitchell
Berkeley,
Calif.
In a development that outraged progressives, the
administration of the University of California at Berkeley
invited Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to give the
keynote address at this year's senior convocation at the
commencement ceremonies May 13. Albright, along with
President Bill Clinton and Secretary of Defense William
Cohen, is notorious worldwide as a vicious spokesperson for
U.S. imperialism.
The university has long since lost its reputation as a
radical institution. So perhaps the UC-Berkeley
administration thought it could get away with asking someone
who represents U.S. aggression worldwide to speak at its
impressive Greek Theater.
The administrators were wrong. Hundreds of protesters
greeted Albright with a strong message to the ruling class
that its murderous representatives and their bloody lies are
not welcome in this community.
Eight thousand students, family members and friends
attending the convocation first had to pass a rally outside
the Greek Theater's entrance. There, 200 protesters denounced
Albright and distributed information about the genocidal U.S.
foreign policy she represents and what it has meant for
countries from Iraq to Colombia, Yugoslavia to Puerto Rico
and Cuba.
Police searched attendees thoroughly before allowing them
to enter the theater. Police also forced them to throw away
any leaflets they had received.
But the police couldn't keep the protest's message from
getting to the crowd. Chanting from outside could be heard
throughout the program in the open-air theater. Police also
couldn't keep out the protesters, many of whom were
students.
When Albright rose to address the crowd, she had to look
straight ahead at a banner that read "Madeleine Albright is a
War Criminal."
Dozens of clusters of protesters rose, one after the
other, shouting, "How many kids have you killed today?" and
"You are guilty of war crimes!"
The disruptions remained constant throughout her speech.
In all, police ejected 59 protesters from the theater.
As police scurried around to remove the protesters,
Albright served up the standard boasts that Washington had
promoted human rights around the world, fought the
trafficking in women, and contributed to peace in the Middle
East. She made no mention of the 1.5 million Iraqi people who
have died at the hands of U.S. policy, nor of the criminal
destruction of Yugoslavia. She gloated about the U.S. role in
"saving the Kosovars."
When International Action Center activists chanted as they
unfurled a banner reading "Clinton, Albright, you can't hide!
We charge you with genocide!" Albright took a lengthy pause
from her talk to read the banner. Then she tried to cover for
herself by saying, "It's Berkeley, what do you expect?"
The most courageous of the protesters was graduating
senior Fadia Rafeedie, a University Medalist. Rafeedie's
address was scheduled for just before Albright's. This
Palestinian-American woman had planned to denounce Albright
and U.S. policies from the podium.
But before she had the chance, the UC ad ministration
changed the order of the talks, so that Albright could speak
first and be whisked away instead of being humiliated.
Rafeedie rose from this insult, altered her speech, and
gave a powerful polemic to her classmates about the genocidal
sanctions against Iraq. She made reference to the notorious
"60 Minutes" interview in 1996, when Albright publicly
declared that Washington's sanctions against Iraq were "worth
the price" of the lives of a half-million Iraqi children.
Although Albright pretended to be unaffected by the
disruption, those outside saw her sprawled stomach-down
across the back seat as her car sped away from the
protest.
This article is copyright under a Creative
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