Pablo Paredes, center left, and Fernando Suarez del Solar, center right, arrived in Santa Monica on Sunday afternoon, March 19, on the eighth day of their March For Peace from Tijuana, Mexico to San Francisco, in the Spirit of Gandhi’s Salt March. Suarez is the father of one of the first soldiers killed in Iraq and Pablo Paredes is a Navy war resister who refused to board an Iraq bound ship in December, 2004.
Organizers estimated that 20,000 people attended a march and rally in Hollywood on Saturday, March 18, to protest the three-year anniversary of the Iraq war. The event, sponsored by ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition LA, a coalition of progressive organizations formed after September 11, was part of a national day of protest that included demonstrations in New York, Washington, San Francisco and dozens of small and mid-sized US cities.
