Candles burn for peace at downtown Las Vegas vigil

Monday, March 17, 2003 | 9:35 a.m.

More than 75 Las Vegas area residents lit candles, sang and spoke out for peace Sunday night at the George Federal Building.

"People of conscience are asking our government not to go forward," said Vincenta Montoya, an immigration lawyer and coordinator of the local demonstration.

The Las Vegas demonstration against a war with Iraq began at 7 p.m., coordinated with similar rallies Sunday in 3,000 cities in 90 countries involving hundreds of thousands of people, organizers said.

All were showing their support for a peaceful resolution to the confrontation.

"From one small candle much can be done," Montoya said as a chain of demonstrators raising lighted candles formed along Las Vegas Boulevard, two blocks from Fremont Street. No arrests were made during the peaceful protest.

Polls done over the weekend showed American evenly split on invading Iraq. A Zogby International poll showed 54 percent of the 1,129 likely voters it surveyed supported war, down from 57 percent a week earlier.

A bipartisan team of political pollsters found that 47 percent of the adults it surveyed supported military action to remove Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power and disarm Iraq, even without the support of the United Nations. The survey was conducted for the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation.

The split was evident with some protesters Sunday. Cynthia Kaehler of Las Vegas said she opposed going to war with Iraq, though her two sons supported it.

"I just think this is wrong," Kaehler said. "It doesn't fix anything. It only makes it worse. We need to use our brains and not our brawn."

Gloria Nannette Ramzi, who with her Iraqi husband raised her children in Iraq in the 1970s, said Iraqis are generally a peaceful people.

"I heard about this and came down to join it," Ramzi said. Iraqis, she said, are not fanatics.

For some the anti-war demonstration brought back memories of the 2001 terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.

The Rev. David Buer, a Franciscan priest, remembered Mychael Judge, another Franciscan who was ministering to New York firefighters when the Sept. 11 attacks occurred.

"He was one of the first victims," Buer said of Judge.

As the number of lighted candles grew along the sidewalk, motorists honked and shouted, many expressing support for the demonstrators.

"Dogs for Peace" read hand-lettered signs around the necks of pooches on leashes at the vigil.

Paraphrasing the biblical Sermon on the Mount, Peter Ediger, 77, said that guns, bombs and threats lead to greater insecurity.

"Secure are the humble," Ediger said. "Secure are those who mourn. Secure are those who hunger and thirst after justice."

The Rev. Paul Colbert said that according to Episcopal Church doctrine war is incompatible with the gospels of Jesus.

"Christians are being challenged in our faith," Colbert said.

Estelle Morales, a Las Vegas resident who came to the United States from Latin America, said she believed diplomacy could work.

"I don't understand this; I don't believe in hurting people or property," Morales said.

Montoya urged the downtown demonstrators to gather outside New York-New York on the Strip at 7 p.m. on the day war does break out.

"Remember," she said. "Choose peace."