Little Voices Denounce War

By Jorge Casuso

March 20 -- By any measure, it was a small demonstration -- about two dozen protesters averaging about 4 feet in height shouted "no war" as passing motorists honked in support Thursday afternoon. But the students from SMASH elementary school hope to have a big impact on the war with Iraq.

The students plan to stand outside the school house on the corner of 5th Street and Ocean Park Boulevard every day after the final bell and as long as there is war in the hopes kids from other schools will join them until President Bush is forced to listen. "I feel that this whole war thing is totally wrong, and if I can make a little difference, I'd take that chance anytime," said Chris Simmens, a 10-year-old 5th grader who organized the protest.

"If Bush hears about this," said Zac Geoffray, 11, "he might rethink it because he'll understand that little kids have a big voice."

"A little voice can go a long way," said a hoarse Nicole Andrews, 9.

The students, who organized and took part in the demonstration without the help or urging of adults, said they had been watching the war on television and talking about it in school and at home and had concluded that invading Iraq is wrong.

"For us to come in and say (to Saddam), 'You have to leave the city,' that's wrong," said Dash Wilson, 11, who helped Simmens organize the demonstration.

"How would you feel if you were an Iraqi person eating dinner and you got bombed?" asked Nicole Andrews.

"Where are they gonna live? In crushed up rocks?" wondered Gia Ellis, a 9-year-old fourth grader. "They might kill people with those bombs, not just homes." Bush, she added, "is not having second thoughts. They (the Iraqi regime) could bomb us if some of them survive."

"If we bomb Saddam Hussein, we're burning the oil also," Geoffray said. "Also, that makes the smoke go to other people and gives lung cancer and kills millions of people."

For some of the protesters the war was not just a humanitarian or strategic issue, but a budgetary one.

Hanna Masubuchi waved a sign in red letters that read "No Blood for Oil" with the words "pencils not bombs" added underneath in black ink. "We're for education not bombs," the 10-year-old 5th grader said.

"I think that the war is wrong," said Isabelle Radoyce. "We don't have paper to draw with in art and yet we're going to war with Iraq. We need the money. What's more important schools or the war?"

The U.S., the protesters said, didn't have to go to war. Bush had other options.

"There's so many better ways, like trying to talk it out and not just doing it by hurting people," said Angelica Andrews-Drum, 10.

"You gotta get the people that live there to fight them," said Tyler Flynn, 9.

"They should just kill him (Saddam) or capture him," said Laurel Ozersky, 10. "If they tried hard, they definitely could. You can catch a mouse with a mousetrap. He (Bush) seems to want war. He's trying to bring it on."

"There should be something other than war," said fourth grader Karim Damji, 9. "War won't do anything. If it does something, it just kills innocents."

"We don't want anyone to get hurt," said Tanner Spees, 9.

In addition to the after school protests, some of the students are writing the president letters, but they don't expect he'll read them.

"He sends you a picture of him," one student said. "We're gonna draw on it and send it back"

"We're going to draw a cowboy hat and moustache," another student added. "If he doesn't see it, at least someone else will."

The SMASH students hope kids from nearby schools such as John Muir, Will Rogers and Crossroads will join the demonstrations. Then maybe if their ranks grow to a few hundred protesters, the television cameras will come and their voices will be heard, maybe as far as Washington, D.C.

"If I can make a change, some other schools might do it too," said Zumbi Lewis, 9.

"Some people hold back their thoughts and think if they say anything, they won't be heard," said Madeleine Gray, 10. "If our voices get loud, everybody can hear us."