Anti-war demonstrators march in downtown LV

Friday, March 21, 2003 | 11:01 a.m.

About 200 anti-war demonstrators marched down Fremont Street Thursday night protesting the U.S. war in Iraq and giving downtown tourists and those supporting the war an unexpected Las Vegas experience.

The protesters blew whistles, held signs high and chanted "No blood for oil" and "Hell, no, we won't go. We won't fight for Texaco." The crowd stayed on the sidewalk, escorted by Metro Police officers on motorcycles, bicycles and horseback.

"This is an immoral and illegal war," Kalynda Tilges, executive director of the Shundahai Network, said. Tilges organized "A funeral for peace" march with the Coalition to Prevent the Erosion of Human Rights.

Another demonstration is scheduled for 6 p.m. tonight outside New York-New York on the Las Vegas Strip.

As Thursday's crowd, including members of the Service Employees International Union, gathered about 5:30 p.m., a man leaned out of a van and shouted at police officers, "Tell them to have Saddam stay at their house tonight."

Metro officers and federal marshals ignored verbal taunts and stood shoulder to shoulder at the top of the stairs leading into the George Federal Building on Las Vegas Boulevard.

There were no arrests and no acts of civil disobedience.

A family of three stood on the courthouse steps waving flags in support of U.S. troops heading to Baghdad and played a recording of the theme song from the movie "The Green Berets."

Dan Dew, dressed in a Hawaiian shirt covered by a light windbreaker, said he and his two daughters, Taylor and Summer, who danced the hula to the "Green Beret" music, supported the war effort.

"There are more human rights under the American system than anywhere else in the world," Dew said. "No one can ever sway me."

Las Vegas resident Aziz Eddebbarh and his sons Mehdi and Amin, ages 16 and 17, stood quietly in the midst of signs that urged people to "Pray for Peace" and "Stop the Bushit."

"Of course, I don't support the war," said Eddebbarh, who was born in Morocco and has been in the United States for 24 years. He said he brought his two sons to the protest as a sign of solidarity.

World War II veteran Norb Drouhard of Washington state held a hand-lettered sign that listed most of the wars of the 20th century.

"I am down here to oppose nuclear weapons and nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain," Drouhard said, referring to federal plans to build a high-level nuclear waste repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. "In all of these conflicts the U.S. killed people on their own soil, and we're doing it again."

As the marchers filed out from under the Fremont Street Experience canopy, the light and sound show blazed into life, drawing some tourists to stare upward. One visitor in Bermuda shorts yelled "Communists!" at the demonstrators.

Several of those standing under the canopy swigging Budweiser beers lifted a middle finger at the marchers, but nothing dampened the marchers' spirits.

When the crowd returned to the federal courthouse, most dropped to the sidewalk in a "die-in" for war victims as police directed traffic on Las Vegas Boulevard.

"Metro Police did a great job handling the crowd," Gary Peck of the American Civil Liberties Union said. "Five years ago you'd never see this on Fremont Street because they (Las Vegas officials) wouldn't have allowed it."