Updated on
Summary Thousands of demonstrators marched in Chicago as world leaders assembled for a NATO summit.
Thousands of demonstrators upset with the war in Afghanistan, climate change and the erosion of union rights marched through downtown Chicago on Sunday, taking their discontent on a wide range of issues to world leaders assembled for a NATO summit.The protest, one of the citys largest in years, was to end at the lakeside convention center hosting the two-day meeting.Some are calling for the dissolution of NATO, the 63-year-old military alliance that is holding its 25th formal meeting in Chicago. It was the first time the gathering had been held in a U.S. city other than Washington.Peace activists joined with war veterans and people more focused on the economy for the protest, which was expected to draw thousands of participants. Marchers arrived at Grant Park with signs denouncing NATO, including ones that read: War(equals)Debt and NATO, Go Home.They planned to walk 2½ miles (four kilometers) to the site where President Barack Obama and other leaders were discussing the war in Afghanistan, European missile defense and other issues.Organizers of Sundays rally had initially predicted tens of thousands of protesters this weekend. But that was when the G-8 summit of leading industrial nations was also scheduled to be in Chicago. Earlier this year, Obama moved the Group of 8 economic meeting to Camp David, the secluded presidential retreat in rural Maryland.Chicago kept the NATO summit, which focuses on international security matters but not the economy. That left activists with the challenge of persuading groups as diverse as teachers, nurses and union laborers to show up for the Chicago protests even though the summits main focus doesnt align with their most heart-felt issues.Im here to protest NATO, which I feel is the enforcement arm of the ruling 1 percent of the capitalist 1 percent, said protester John Schraufnagel, who took a bus from Minneapolis to Chicago.The march lacks the size and single message that shaped the last major protest moment in Chicago, when nearly half a million people filled the citys downtown in 2006 to protest making being an illegal immigrant a felony.Sundays protest followed several smaller demonstrations over the previous two days, including a march Saturday to the home of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Obamas former chief of staff.
