[Onthebarricades] Fw: [EF!] University fences in Berkeley protesters

[Andy]

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From: radtimes 
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Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2007 5:06 AM
Subject: [EF!] University fences in Berkeley protesters


University fences in Berkeley protesters

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/13/asia/trees.php

By Jesse McKinley
Published: September 13, 2007

BERKELEY, California: In many ways and for many months, the protest 
outside Memorial Stadium at the University of California has been 
business, and Berkeley, as usual.

On one side are the protesting tree lovers who have been living 
Tarzan-like since December in a stand of coastal oaks and other trees.

On the other is the university, which wants to cut down the trees to 
build a $125 million athletic center, part of a larger plan to 
upgrade its aging, seismically challenged football stadium.

The two sides disagreed. They bickered. Lawyers were called. Then 
came The Fence.

Before dawn on Aug. 29, building crews and the university police 
erected a 10-foot-high fence around the grove, effectively cutting 
off the tree dwellers from their supplies. The university called the 
fence a safety measure, meant to protect protesters from football 
fans descending on the stadium for the season opener.

Instead, the fence has united many of the city's fractious 
constituencies and unleashed years of frustration with the university 
that made the city famous (or was it the other way around?).

"I am appalled," said Michael Kelly, who leads a group opposing the 
stadium plan. "I cannot believe that the institution that gave birth 
to the Free Speech Movement has done this."

[The university ratcheted up pressure when it sought a temporary 
restraining order, arguing that the tree community contained several 
health and safety threats, including propane tanks and plywood 
structures. On Sept. 12, Judge Richard Keller of Alameda County 
Superior Court denied the order but scheduled another hearing for Oct. 1.]

The stadium showdown has energized many in Berkeley's graying 
anti-establishment set who cherish the city's activist past, 
including the famous 1969 battle over nearby People's Park. In that 
case, university and state authorities sent the police and the 
National Guard to clear the university-owned park and build a fence, 
a move that led to clashes in which one person was killed and dozens 
were injured. The land remains a park today.

"A lot of people who have been here a long time have seen this as a 
potential rerun of that problem," said Berkeley's mayor, Tom Bates. 
"The abruptness of it, in the middle of the night, and the 
mobilization of the police."

The city has sued the university, arguing that the athletic center 
should be built away from the stadium. The stadium sits on the 
Hayward fault, which scientists say is overdue for a large quake.

The university says that it has thoroughly considered safety issues 
and that the athletic center needs to be near the stadium to allow 
athletes easy access to classrooms and training facilities near the 
playing fields. Arguments in the lawsuit will be heard Sept. 19 and 20.

On Tuesday, the Berkeley City Council rejected a settlement offer 
from the university.

Shortly after the fence appeared, dozens of protesters formed a human 
chain around the chain-link fence and began tossing supplies over the 
top. Soon after, the editorial board at The Daily Californian, the 
independent student newspaper, called the fence a public relations 
disaster and suggested that it might "encourage martyrdom."

Zachary Running Wolf, an American Indian activist who has been living 
in the grove for nearly 300 days, agreed. "I think they blew it with 
the fence," Running Wolf said. "They showed their desperation. In the 
city of Berkeley, on a public campus, a starve-out program? A 
Guantánamo Berkeley? It's ridiculous."

University officials said the fence was meant only as protection from 
rowdy football fans. "If we'd wanted to drive them out, it would have 
made much more sense to do in February in the cold and the wet and 
when nobody was around," said Nathan Brostrom, vice chancellor for 
administration.

Brostrom said the protesters' freedom of speech had not been 
curtailed. "They've had a forum for nine months," he said.

American Thinker, a conservative blog run by a Berkeley management 
consultant, has suggested that the anti-stadium forces simply do not 
like football.

"To the consternation of local leftists, Berkeley, the campus and the 
community alike, is in the grip of pigskin fever," a recent post said.

Both sides say early tensions over the fence seem to have eased, and 
the protesters now have access to food and water. Perhaps a dozen 
people still live in the trees, complete with sturdy hammocks and 
wooden platforms.

The highest platform belongs to Running Wolf. A regular presence at 
the city's many marches and protests, he says he is impressed by the 
opposition.

"This is remarkably unified," he said. "You've got the affluent 
people living in the hills, who normally wouldn't mix with the 
food-not-bombs people or the anarchists or the Native Americans or 
the environmentalists. It's pretty wild."
---

Carolyn Marshall contributed reporting.

.



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