CODEPINK Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contacts: CODEPINK, Women for Peace
Toby Blomé, [email protected] 510-541-6874; Martha Hubert, 415-722-3321
Bay Area Peace Activists Announce Plans to Shut Down Key U.S. Drone Warfare Base; Caravan Leaves for Nevada Saturday Morning from San Francisco
WHAT: Press Conference/”SHUT DOWN CREECH” CodePink Caravan Send Off
WHEN/WHERE: February 28, Saturday, 9:00 a.m., S.F. Ferry Bldg, Embarcadero
For more info: http://shutdowncreech.blogspot.com/
SAN FRANCISCO – Bay Area CODEPINK peace activists will hold a Press Conference and “Send Off Rally” Saturday, Feb. 28, at 9 a.m. just prior to a Peace Caravan’s departure to Nevada to protest illegal U.S. drone warfare and shut down Creech Air Force Base, a key U.S. drone warfare base.
CODEPINK and supporters will initiate the “SHUT DOWN CREECH” event with early week commute hour vigils starting Mar. 2-3, as a prelude to “CAMP JUSTICE,” a three-day encampment across from the base, that begins on Mar. 3 to open up the Mar. 4-6 larger national convergence called “SHUT DOWN CREECH.”
Five national peace organizations have been working overtime for months to prepare for this protest, which will culminate in a nonviolent direct action to actually SHUT DOWN CREECH on Friday, Mar. 6.
“Creech is where the killer drone program started and it is where we shall end it,” say organizers.
Coming from over 17 states, including Maine, Alaska and Hawaii, dozens of veterans and many other activists plan to peacefully shut down Creech Air Force Base, the home military base for drone warfare, since 2005, where the CIA and Pentagon wage airstrikes that terrorize and kill civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Protestors will demand banning:
- the use of drones for extrajudicial killings,
- surveillance on civilian populations, and
- the sale and distribution of drone warfare technology to foreign governments.
I-95 highway leading into the base, an hour north of Las Vegas, will be embellished with a long trail of giant banners with diverse anti-drone/anti-war messaging, and organizers will re-name the throughway “Drone Victims Memorial Highway” as they lay out tombstones, with victims names and ages, and other memorial paraphernalia to underline the dark side of drone warfare and to highlight the base as the criminal site where these unlawful killings are executed, and from where drone pilots, following illegal orders, have caused the deaths of over 200 Pakistan children alone.
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SHUT DOWN CREECH is collectively organized by CODEPINK, Veterans For Peace, Nevada Desert Experience, Voices for Creative Nonviolence and Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom. Over 40 national organizations are endorsers or sponsors, including Iraq Veterans Against the War. CODEPINK is a women-led grassroots organization working to end U.S. wars and militarism, support peace and human rights initiatives, and redirect tax dollars into healthcare, education, green jobs and other life-affirming programs.