Syracuse New Times
September 1, 2010
by Ed Griffin-Nolan

Three of people mentioned below, Ed Kinane, Ann Tiffany, and Howie's campaign treasurer, Rae Kramer are members of the Syracuse Greens

Two years after being hauled off the State Fairgrounds for trespass during a political protest, Syracuse activist Ed Kinane is back, this time as part of a tableau depicting his opposition to the military's predator drone aircraft. The seven-person scene, organized and staffed by members of the Syracuse Peace Council, sets up each evening outside the main gate of the fair at about 5:30 p.m., in an area designated by fair officials for protest activities.

Don't fear the Reaper: Peter Forbes, local sculptor and peace activist, holds his model of the MQ-9 Reaper that's been the focus of recent Syracuse Peace Council protests. 

In 2009 the 174th Fighter Wing of the Air National Guard, based at Hancock Field, became the first unit in the United States to operate the MQ-9 Reaper, an unmanned surveillance and attack aircraft, over the skies of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Flying at altitudes as high as 40,000 feet, reapers can send video and data to operators back at Hancock, who can communicate with ground troops and, if called upon, launch one of their four missiles or drop either or both of the 500-pound bombs on targets below. Organizers say the pilot-less drones distance warriors from the battlefield, desensitizing them and making civilian casualties inevitable. Proponents argue that the drones save both civilian lives and protect U.S. and coalition troops on the ground.

The Peace Council has held protests against the drones outside the gates of Hancock, and activists have spent weeks preparing the current tableau, which includes an elaborate seven-foot-wide mockup of the MQ-9 created by local sculptor Peter Forbes.

The protest at the Fair this week includes Forbes' recreation of the drone, two activists portraying civilians killed in Afghanistan, family mourners and a person dressed as an al-Qaida recruiter at work. The participants hold their frozen pose for 15 minutes, then take a break to move around, then resume the position for another 15 minutes, repeating the exercise four or five times each evening. Its intended message is that when drones kill civilians, they make recruiting terrorists that much easier.

"It was terrific," said Rae Kramer, a longtime peace activist who also serves as the treasurer of Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins' campaign for governor. Kramer, 63, was with Kinane when he was arrested in 2008. Now she proclaims herself as "tickled" that the Fair has a designated free speech area for her to stage her protest.

"I wouldn't call it a free speech area," said State Fair spokesman Fred Pierce. "At the Fair you're free to say whatever you want, but when there's an organized demonstration of any kind, that's where it's held. There could be a safety issue or a nuisance that might interfere with people's enjoyment of the Fair, so this is our attempt to strike a balance between free speech and public safety."

Said Kramer: "This is the fourth year we've been here. At least six or seven times each day people have looked at the tableau, particularly the dead bodies, and asked me if they were real people. Then we always have kids who want to poke the dead bodies, and we have to tell them that they can't. A few people complain that we are doing it in a place where children can see it."

Kinane was arrested for criminal trespass inside the State Fair in 2008 while walking through the grounds shackled and wearing an orange hood to symbolize the waterboarding of prisoners at U.S. prisons such as Guantanamo Bay. Held for seven days in the county lockup, he was released when town of Geddes Justice John Kinsella dropped the charges against him.

In an unusual move, District Attorney William Fitzpatrick appealed the dismissal of the trespass charge, and that appeal is still pending. "It's still sitting on Judge {Anthony} Aloi's desk," said Barry Weiss, speaking for the district attorney's office and adding that he had no idea what was causing the delay or when the judge would rule on it. "You'd have to ask Judge Aloi."

Judge Aloi's office told The New Times that they were awaiting a response from Kinane to papers sent in July 2009. Kinane said he never received them. The case has not moved since then, but the judge's office expects progress in the coming weeks.

Kinane's arrest took place during the presidential campaign in which candidate Barack Obama promised to close Guantanamo, the U.S. prison on Cuba that had become a worldwide symbol of human rights abuses conducted in the name of the "war on terror." On his first day in office Obama signed an executive order calling for the closing of the base within a year, but implementation of that order has proven tricky. The Senate last year blocked funding for the transfer of the prisoners, and as of July, 176 "enemy combatants" were still being held at the facility.

Kinane has been taking his anti-militarist message abroad of late, traveling to Colombia in early August with his partner Ann Tiffany, where they participated in a protest outside the U.S. Embassy in Bogota. According to Tiffany, who is one of the organizers of the State Fair tableau, an agreement signed between the Colombian government and the Obama administration last October has increased the U.S. military presence in that South American country.

Tiffany has been part of different Peace Council tableaux for each of the past four years. "It's difficult to hold the pose for that long," she noted. "We try to stay perfectly still for the full 15 minutes. One day I blinked and I heard a young girl call to her friend, ‘She blinked—see, she's real!' But we try not to blink. It takes practice."

Tiffany said she brought back the idea after her visit with Kinane to Colombia. Seeing a street protest there involving a tableau and noting the public attention it was drawing, Tiffany decided this was one legal Colombian export that the peace movement in the United States could embrace.

The predator drone tableau will be open for public viewing for "about an hour" at the State Fair Main Gate every afternoon beginning at 5:30 p.m. Admission is free.