Peace activist El Salvador RPCV John Kefalas serves as protest buffer
Peace activist serves as protest buffer
Fort Collins man negotiates at rally
By Coleman Cornelius
Denver Post Northern Colorado Bureau
Wednesday, March 26, 2003 - FORT COLLINS - John Kefalas was six days into a water-only fast Tuesday morning. He was hungry, weak - and preoccupied with thoughts of his son, an Army sergeant on a cargo ship bound for Iraq.
Yet Kefalas, a well-known peace activist in Fort Collins for 20 years, managed to play a central role in a street blockade to protest the war in Iraq.
He served as negotiator between Fort Collins riot police and 150 rowdy war protesters who chanted, paraded banners, pounded bongo drums and blew whistles in the name of peace.
The two-hour act of civil disobedience, which disrupted traffic at the busy intersection of College Avenue and Prospect Road, ended as Kefalas had urged: peacefully. No violence, no arrests, no tear gas.
Some angry passers-by said they viewed the protest as an insult to U.S. soldiers endangering their lives to end atrocities inflicted by a military dictator.
"It just breaks my heart that we can't support our guys over there," said Becky Brown of Fort Collins, whose son and daughter-in-law are Army enlistees called to war. She tearfully confronted protesters while holding her 13-month-old granddaughter.
But Kefalas said it is his personal stake in the war that drives his activism. A sign on his lawn proclaims "Support Our Troops - Bring Them Home Now." And a photograph of his son, 23-year-old Harlan Kefalas, accompanies the peace slogan.
"There's no question armed forces have contributed to the freedoms we have and cherish in this country. I honor and respect the sacrifices people make," said Kefalas, 48, who is fasting in a show of support for U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians.
"But people forget it's not just soldiers who contribute to freedoms. It's people like us," Kefalas said, referring to peace activists. "Dissent, in my opinion, is as American as apple pie. Dissent is patriotic. Dissent is part of this country."
While Kefalas and his son disagree about the role of the U.S. military, the father said the two are bonded by love.
Fellow activists credited Kefalas for helping bring a calm conclusion to the street obstruction, which sparked a handful of emotional disputes between war protesters and supporters.
"I was glad he was working as a liaison. We're really lucky to have him here," said fellow activist Cheryl Distaso.
"John has been a huge force in the peace movement for many years - unwavering," Distaso said. Kefalas is a public-policy advocate for Catholic Charities of Northern Colorado. He said he has been committed to social justice and nonviolence since he volunteered for the Peace Corps in El Salvador in the late 1970s.
His up-close look at poverty and violence was a "conversion experience," Kefalas said.
It formed his guiding belief that war cannot solve conflicts and spurred him to resist policies that contribute to more bloodshed.
Some supporters of war in Iraq see that philosophy as unrealistic, the naive notion of peaceniks pampered by democracy.
"You're enjoying all the freedoms our people have paid their lives for," Grace Brownlee of Fort Collins angrily told protesters on Tuesday.
But Kefalas views peace activism as crucial to freedom. "We're strengthening democracy because we're ensuring the right people have to address their grievances in a peaceful way," he said. "We're exercising our right to disagree with our government."
