Monday, April 2 - Get on the Bus morning always has filled me with much anticipation and a few quiet fears. The anticipation stems from six months of working on the project and the excitement of spending a day protesting in New York City. The fears are purely logistical -- will the day run smoothly, will everybody enjoy themselves, will the buses show up? Normal anxiety of a coordinator. Unfortunately, one of the buses was late to Newton but Dara and Amy figured out how to deal with that. For one reason or another, too many people crammed onto the Newton-Hartford bus and Paul Begala ended up sitting in the aisle (thanks Paul). At one point, when the bus had to stop at a weigh station, he had to hide in the bathroom to avoid being caught!
I haven't heard of any other crazy bus adventures, but once we arrived at the Colombian Consulate, 10 E. 46th Street was rocking. My bus was late but we were eager to join the crowd and raise our voices to end impunity, especially in Eduardo Umana's case. Kathleen and Russell were inside the consulate meeting with a representative while over 500 activists were chanting "No Justice, No Peace!" outside. The meeting went well; the Consular representative even said that he believed in human rights. We received a peace offering of genuine Cafe de Colombia (coffee). The energy of the protesters was great! One student even commented in a followup email that he was so delighted every time a car or truck beeped their horn in support of us.
After an hour there, we marched down to the Nigerian Consulate. At the time, a smaller group went to Italian consulate to thank them for being against the death penalty. I did not hear any feedback yet from what happened there (I went to the Nigerian consulate) so check with Scott for specifics.
For the Nigerian action, Stefanie put together a "Call to Action" to the Nigerian government, asking them to stay true to their promises concerning human rights and the environment. While we were there we signed a huge letter to be delivered to the consulate. Students from bus #6 read the letter to crowd over our kickin' speaker system (thanks Pat!) so the whole crowd and people passing by could hear it. Before leaving a few people tried to give the letter to the consular officials holed up in their glassy building across the street but it was refused. Apparently, the Nigerian government is too afraid to confront the issue and this only proves that something needs to be done.
Sowore Omouele, one of the speakers and a Nigerian activist, stood outside of the consulate until he was told to leave. Although he finally did leave, he told the crowd at the speaker's panel that if he didn't have to come and speak, he would have gone to jail for refusing to move. Sowore was only one of the speakers at the panel. Carlos Palacios and Regulo Madero, two Colombian human rights defenders, spoke to us about Plan Colombia and the present situation in the country. Also, Freya Putt from Students for a Free Tibet spoke about her experience doing an action in Beijing, China. The panel was pleasantly diverse and interesting.
We ended the day at the Chinese consulate. Even though the area was really windy, this did not dampen anyone's spirits or energy. Dan took the collected letters signed on the buses and also tried to deliver them to the officials in the consulate. Dan wasn't even allowed to ring the doorbell -- there were State Department officials outside "guarding" the door. We demonstrated until the buses showed up to bring us home. And then we demonstrated a little longer. Free Gyaltsen Drolkar!
Get on the Bus 2001 was a huge success. The last time we counted, we had over 450 individuals getting on the buses. There were 37 high schools and nine colleges represented. At the last minute, we had to order a ninth bus!! This year was by far the largest turnout in the history of Get on the Bus. At the same time as our demonstrations, there was also an International Day of Action for Colombia, with protests at all of the Colombian consulates in the US and at a few of the Colombian consulates around the world.
There are a few people who absolutely need to be mentioned before I finish writing. Thanks to the action teams, specifically Kathleen, Russell, Dan, Carl, Stefanie, Esther, Scott and Rick. They put together the actions and created a focus for the day. Also, thanks to Jen, Melissa and Pat for helping out with media. AND, thanks to people who helped out with car pools and bringing things out to the bus skippers: Henry, Paul, Chris and Eric. Finally, a HUGE thanks to DARA for being a wonderful co-coordinator. She dealt with so many schools (about 2X as many as I did) and still managed to work 40 hours a week. She is an amazing person and an inspiration to me.
A few schools have emailed back already (just one day after the event), to thank our group for giving them an opportunity to do something different, to raise their voices for human rights. I think it is great that we are reaching out to students and showing them the power of nonviolent protest. I attended Get on the Bus IV. as a high school student and it had an effect on me. So even though some of the students were obviously there only to skip school for the day, the majority of them were there because they were devastated about what happened to Eduardo Umana, because they hadn't forgotten Ken Saro Wiwa and the environmental situation in Nigeria and because they want to see Gyaltsen Drolkar freed from prison. That is what makes Get on the Bus the inspiring event that it is.
- Valerie Costa