Shutting Down the War
Picketing APL and SSA
on the Oakland Docks, 12 May 2003,
and reasserting our rights to protest
without police brutality | Previous | Next

Monday afternoon just after 5 PM, community members returned Middle Harbor Drive. The road runs along the Oakland dock yards. APL and SSA transfer cargo there between ships and trucks. The commercial transfer represents hundreds of millions of dollars. Billions go through similar ports along the West Coast of the United States.

Chants interrupted the quiet afternoon breeze coming across the Bay from the Golden Gate. With their backs to the buildings of Oakland's downtown area, protesters walked in with picket signs. Enough would arrive to block all five gates where trucks enter and leave the dock areas of APL and SSA.

APL corporation makes money from shipping ammunition, like that used in Iraq by the US Government to kill and injure thousands. SSA will profit from the second corporate invasion of Iraq. The US Government has awarded SSA a three-year monopoly contract with guaranteed profit to run Umm Qasr, Iraq's major port.

These companies profit from the blood and control of others. That's wrong. Protesters came to the docks to do something about that, shut down APL and SSA. They also came to reclaim their right to protest without police brutality.

People walked in long distances to set up pickets lines by each APL and SSA entrance. A protest march would enter Middle Harbor Drive as soon as the pickets were in place. Police along the road near each gate, waited at their cars.

STOP THE WAR, STOP EMPIRE | Previous | Next