- Anti-war student group at Yale University
- Blamed the 9/11 attacks on America’s allegedly unjust foreign policies
- Inactive since about 2006
The
Yale Coalition for Peace (YCP) was a 500-member student organization on the campus of Yale
University, established
after 9/11 to protest against the prospect of a U.S. military response to the al
Qaeda attacks. "What happened September 11th was wrong,"
said YCP. "But revenge is not just. Revenge is not civil. And
oppression is completely undemocratic." Attempting to explain
what may have motivated the 9/11 hijackers to carry out their deeds,
YCP stated:
"We urge a consideration of underlying political and economic
causes [of the attacks], including an examination of past U.S.
actions and foreign policy."
YCP was a member of the Yale
Social Justice Network, a far-left coalition of peace and socialist groups that sought to end United
Nations sanctions against Iraq during Saddam
Hussein's regime.
In January 2003, YCP members staged
a "die-in" demonstration (feigning death) to protest the imminent
U.S. invasion of Iraq. Two months later the group participated in a
New Haven, Connecticut anti-war
march that featured such slogans as: "Drop Bush, not Bombs,"
and "Money for Jobs and Education! Not for War and Occupation!" The following day a few YCP members attended a pro-war counter-demonstration, where they turned their backs to the U.S. flag while
the song "God Bless America" was played. "As Martin Luther King
said, I feel this country is the greatest purveyor of violence in the
world right now,” explained
one YCP member. “I do not support our government's actions and
therefore will not participate in a song that is obviously meant to
support this government's actions."
In April
2003, YCP collaborated with the Muslim
Students Association and the Students
for Justice in Palestine to sponsor a teach-in condemning the recently launched
Iraq War. According to journalist Cinnamon
Stillwell, the event was "overwhelmingly anti-American and
anti-Israel, and occasionally anti-Semitic."
In December
2003, YCP urged students to wear
white armbands as a sign of protest against the injustices of the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
In November 2004,
twelve members of YCP staged a 30-minute "die-in" to draw attention to the large number of Iraqi
civilians who were being killed in the war-torn city of Fallujah. To
promote the event, YCP members distributed flyers
that read: "Without adequate food, running water, electricity
and medical supplies, the 50,000 remaining residents of this now
utterly smashed city [Fallujah] face a future of terrible hardship
and suffering."
In September 2005, YCP co-sponsored
a speech by former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, titled
"Parallel Deceptions: The Bush Agenda for War in Iraq and
Iran.”
Yale associate professor of genetics Mazin
Qumsiyeh,
co-founder of New Haven's Al-Awda chapter,
was affiliated with YCP.
A notable
leading member of YCP was Chesa Boudin, who was raised by Bill
Ayers and Bernardine
Dohrn after his biological parents, Weather
Underground terrorists Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, had gone
to prison.
YCP
has been inactive since about 2006.
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