More than 20 activist groups sponsor Fourth Avenue march, protest

Margaret Horning spent more than half of her life following her Navy officer husband around the world.

Horning, who is now retired, knew Tom loved being in the Navy, but she could never understand why he fought in war.

"I have always been against war but I knew Tom was performing a great service to his country," Horning said. "After he retired, I thought I could maybe convince him to think about the violence he participated in, in a different way."

For the Hornings and the others who gathered Saturday morning on North Fourth Avenue to march and rally against violence, the message was simple, "War is Dumb - Choose Something Else."

About 200 people, including approximately 40 University of Arizona students, gathered at Catalina Park to speak and sing songs about democracy and freedom around the world.

Sponsored by more than 40 local activist groups, the rally was designed to mirror a similar protest yesterday in Washington, D.C. by the National Youth and Student Peace Coalition.

Claudia Ellquist, a longtime community activist, gave the first speech of the morning, focusing on the simple slogan, "War is Dumb - Choose Something Else."

"There are a thousand alternatives to war," Ellquist said. "We need to show some moral imagination and realize that violence does not work."

Ellquist suggested searching for political candidates with agendas against war as a means for solving world problems.

Adrian Manriquez, a senior at St. Gregory's Preparatory School, said he believes social and economic reforms are the key to success when it comes to ending violence.

"The one thing we can focus on is free speech to solve these problems," Manriquez said. "Otherwise when will (violence) stop? When we kill enough people in Third World countries to equal the amount of people killed in the United States?"

Many of the people gathered at the rally also passed out fliers to advertise their group's agendas and inform the community about upcoming talks and protests.

Among them were upcoming Green Party meetings, Taco Bell boycotts and an upcoming event highlighting the struggle for land and peace of Colombia's Paez Indians.

Sheila Peck, an art history sophomore, attended the rally in hopes of meeting other people who share her opinions.

"It makes me so happy to see that there are so many people in Tucson that care," Peck said. "Even though the war in Afghanistan is so far away it's not an excuse to not try to do something here."

Ellquist agrees with Peck and thinks people can probably do more than they realize.

"We can work to ratify laws that ban the use of land mines between North and South Korea," Ellquist said. "We can also stop allowing our government to sell arms to anyone with money. We're giving weapons to people who use them against us, which is wrong."