UA professor, students protest NATO bombings

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Daily Wildcat UA law professor Andrew Silverman (left) protests NATO's bombings in Yugoslavia yesterday with Lane Van Ham (right), a UA comparative cultural and literary studies master's candidate. About 25 protesters stood outside the Tucson federal building asking the U.S. and foreign military leaders to end the attacks on Yugoslavian targets.

About 25 protesters gathered outside Tucson's federal building with signs urging the U.S. and foreign military forces to end their airstrikes on select Serbian and Yugoslav sites.

"I'm against the use of violence to supposedly deter violence," said Andrew Silverman, a University of Arizona law professor. "I feel there's a more humane way of dealing with such situations."

The strikes began Wednesday in response to Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic's refusal to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Skirmishes between all sides of the conflict have killed more than 2,000 people and left about 400,000 homeless.

Silverman, holding a small sign with the words "stop the bombing," said he questions whether the U.S. should take part in this particular military action.

"I'm not sure we should be in any situation that requires bombing and violence - especially this situation," said Silverman, who also serves as a UA faculty senator.

Lane Van Ham, a UA master's candidate in comparative cultural and literary studies, displayed a larger sign that began "who's next?" to the downtown rush-hour traffic.

Other than a few horn honks and heads out passenger-side windows, drivers showed little response to the protest.

But Van Ham said the protest shows Tucsonans that people who oppose the bombings have strong, reasonable arguments.

"These people are intelligent and very conscientious," he said. "There's a possibility of building a genuine movement."

The rally, which began at 4:30 yesterday afternoon, is a scheduled weekly event. Silverman said the organizers are two Tucson men who hold vigils in objection to some national issues.

"These kinds of protests would make a difference," Silverman said. "I encouraged law students to come down here. All people who care about issues like these should be down here to express themselves."

Sonia Cota-Robles, a UA family studies graduate student, joined the rally to make sure passersby knew that some people object to the bombings, despite what she called a media bias.

"The history in that area is a little more ambiguous than what's been reported," she said. "It's not one bad guy and one good guy. It's not that black and white."

Anthropology senior Rachel Shively said she joined the protest to raise awareness and make people think.

"If I could change one person's attitude, that would be important," she said.