Concepcion Picciotto - Hijacker of White House Anti-Nuclear Peace Vigil from Founder W. Thomas

PLEASE VISIT AND SPREAD THE WARNING- Concepcion Picciotto - White House Anti-Nuclear Peace Vigil Hijacker from Founder W. Thomas

2011-03-19T16:21:00.002-04:00

PLEASE VISIT AND PROMOTE - Concepcion Picciotto - White House Anti-Nuclear Peace Vigil Hijacker from Founder with W. Thomas

Mr. President, meet your closest neighbor

2011-03-16T12:12:00.003-04:00

Introduction

Mr. President, meet your closest neighbor: Concepcion Picciotto.

The tourists come and go on Pennsylvania Avenue; the presidents, the inaugurations, the dignitaries and the political scene is always changing. But some things remain the same in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House in Washington, D.C.

She stands directly in front of the White House; she has been called "The Little Giant", a paradox, a mystery. Concepcion Picciotto is one who stays; through the rain and snow, the arrests, the abuses and threats through the years. Since 1981, Concepcion, or 'Connie' to her friends, has continued a vigil for world peace against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction ; and that she would still be here 26 years later

The Vigil: Past To Present

2011-03-15T22:07:00.003-04:00

The Vigil: Past To Present

The following excerpts are from the many articles that have been written by sympathetic and malicious reporters alike to give you a real PIECE OF HISTORY. I'd like to take this opportunity to Thank the many publications and supporters over the years who have contributed their ideas, energy, and compassion to keep the vigil going. Any representation of articles is for the purpose of exhibiting the TRUTH, and to tell the story only, not for any personal gain. This web site has been contributed by friends. Sincerely, Concepcion Picciotto.
March 1, 1997.

Reflections of the Past: The Early Years

In The Beginning: (Just click the article nameif you want to read the rest of the story.)

Connie and Thomas Call Sidewalk Home

2011-03-15T22:07:00.001-04:00

PATIENT PROTESTERS CALL SIDEWALK HOME

THE WASHINGTON TIMES
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1982 By Kathleen Tyman
WASHINGTON TIMES STAFF

The new, carefully painted signs on the White House fence read "Wanted: Wisdom and Honesty," among other noble but obscure demands. They are the property of William Thomas, one of three self appointed protesters- in- residence.

Thomas and Concepcion Picciotto have been in their chosen spot on the sidewalk everyday for more than a year...on June 17, they held their ground and were arrested.

Connie's Beloved Thomas' 'MANIFESTO OF INDEPENDENCE'

2011-03-15T22:06:00.000-04:00

MANIFESTO OF INDEPENDENCE:
A FAST FOR LIFE, LIBERTY
AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS
by William Thomas

The purpose of my life is to acquire wisdom and attain moral perfection.

I live as a penniless wanderer and a pilgrim

Wisdom compells me to recognize that moral perfection is impossible for a member of an amoral nation-state.

Then Concepcion and Thomas met their good friend and mentor, Norman Mayer, click picture below for story.
Norman gave them the courage to make more and bigger signs:

"After Norman died, we painted even more signs," said Concepcion. "I don't remember how many signs there were, but they reached about three-fourths of the way down the White House sidewalk," Thomas said.

Connie's Dear Friend Norman Mayer Slain - Vigil Continues

2011-03-15T22:04:00.002-04:00

THE PROTEST GOES ON

Houston Chronicle March 13, 1983
BY MONA MEGALLI
United Press International Sympathizers with demonstrator who was slain at White House continue their anti-nuclear vigil

WASHINGTON -- A guard at the gate calls them the regulars. the ones who sit, stand or pace Pennsylvania Avenue nearly every day picketing the White House.

People for or against nuclear war, abortion, the Vietnam War, budget cuts, and many other issues have made the northern front of the White House their forum.

"Whatever makes the headlines one day, there's someone who comes in the next day to file for a First Amendment permit. It goes in cycles," says National Park Police spokeswoman Sandra Alley.

Some protest there for a few hours, others persist in their cause for years. Most remain anonymous. Norman Mayer didn't.

On Dec. 8, Mayer, 66, who had demonstrated daily before the White House against nuclear weapons since June 1982, besieged the Washington Monument for 10 hours before he was killed by police.

Something else happened after norman's death, the Park Police were worse than ever. It became apparant that new rules were being promulgated by the U.S.Park Police. Concepcion and Thomas fought them in Federal Court:

Connie and Thomas Legal Battles Con't

2011-03-15T21:26:00.002-04:00

Judge Lifts White House Picket Rules
The Washington Times
THURSDAY, MAY 5, 1983

By David Sellers
Washington Times Staff

A federal judge yesterday struck down new National Park Service regulations that limit the activities allowed as part of demonstrations on the sidewalk in front of the White House.

U.S. District Judge William Bryant issued a temporary restraining order, explaining that he failed to find that an emergency existed and that federal officials should have allowed a 30-day comment period on the regulations instead of putting them into effect immediately.
"I don't think there's any justification for not having that 30-day period:' Bryant said. "There's no articulated exigency."

Although there are 20 days left in the comment period, Bryant's order is good for only 10 days. Lawyers for both sides acknowledged that they may be back before the court at a later date; but they said they would try to work out any differences among themselves.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John Bates said he was not certain whether his office would appeal Bryant's order.

The new regulations, implemented April 22, prohibit individuals from exhibiting placards or signs on the White House sidewalk unless the person holds them at all times.

In spite of their resistance, the Park Police and the Secret Service won the battle, and the protesters were forced off the White House Sidewalk:
Concepcion salutes the Park Police, Hitler-style, as they take the signs away.
"It was disgraceful," she remembers.
Protesting on the White House Sidewalk had come to an end. A new way of life began for Thomas and Concepcion:

Conchita's Signs Taking Root in Lafayette Park

2011-03-15T21:25:00.002-04:00

SIGNS TAKING ROOT IN LAFAYETTE PARK

By Charles E. Wheeler
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
August 8,1984

Dozens of large protest signs have gone up in Lafayette Park since last year's National Park Service regulations restricting demonstrations on the White House sidewalk, and they're getting mixed reviews from locals and tourists.

Connie and Thomas - Watchers at the Gate

2011-03-15T21:24:00.001-04:00

WATCHERS AT THE GATE

THE NORTH IRELAND TIMES
THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 1985
Beaten, abused, living rough, they stand like some moral Maginot Line on a permanent White House peace vigil..
The man and the woman -Concepcion Picciotto and William Thomas - live under the stars, exposed to the rain and snow, summer and winter, without tent or sleeping bag. They feed like the pigeons and squirrels in the park, on what comes along, sometimes from the nearby McDonald's or Hardees bins.

It is a starkly contrasting picture in the capital of the world's greatest nation. On the south side, in the great mansion at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue live Ronald and Nancy Reagan...across the street in Lafayette Park, without address or visible means of support, are Concepcion and William, with their messages of peace..

Connie Advertising a the White House?

2011-03-15T21:22:00.002-04:00

Advertising at The White House!?

Word of Mouth,Inc. A Newspaper
Dedicated to the Population Majority
VOLUME III An International Publication Based in Jacksonville,Florida,USA
........ a very powerful advertising campaign was launched in Washington, District of Columbia, more than three years ago. The marketing director was one of the growing number of women in the business of public relations. Except that she was hired to do a huge campaign, -- with no prior experience! She got the job due to connections. So, she was offered only the experience of the job itself--with no salary.

She took the position anyway, knowing that its ultimate worth could not be measured in dollars; that its true reward would be in proving herself, opening doors only dreamed of by most of us. She experienced running an effective national campaign, and saw her work spread rapidly to a campaign of international repute.

Concepcion is the name of this woman. . Her name means "the beginning of creation or something"-- and she lives to conceive the idea of the real possibility of peace on earth through disarmament.

Concepcion's Life of Protest

2011-03-15T21:21:00.003-04:00

A LIFE OF PROTEST

By George Joseph Tanber
TOLEDO MAGAZINE, Decmber 4-10, 1988

WASHINGTON: She's beginning her eighth winter in the neighborhood, yet she's never met the only other residents of the block.

Mr. and Mrs. Reagan, meet Concepcion Picciotto.

Mrs. Picciotto - Connie to her friends -- occupies a humble patch of sidewalk in Lafayette Park, directly across from the entrance to the White House. She's there in the morning, when the tourists line up fa their visit to the executive mansion; she's there in the afternoon, when office workers flock to the park for picnic lunches; she's there in the evening, when rush hour traffic clogs Pennsylvania Avenue, and she there at 3 a.m.. when silence rules, save for the occasional stirring of a restless drunk on a nearby park bench.

Each day, and nearly every night since August 1981, Concepcion Picciotto has been there It`s her home. But she's not alone. She has her signs - "Live by the Bomb . . Die by the Bomb." "Civilized People do not Nuke Fellow Humans" -- her friend William Thomas, and the squirrels.

Mrs. Picciotto and Mr. Thomas demonstrate for living Co-founders of the White House Anti-Nuclear Peace Vigil, they claim the modern record for presidential protest They pass out pamphlets, they talk with passersby, and they display their signs Their message, they say, is simple: peace, freedom, and justice for mankind.

Not so simple, it seems, has been the response. They've been harassed and arrested by police, beaten and taunted by strangers, and ignored by most of their audience.

"We are sacrificing a lot." says Mrs Picciotto. who is 43. "And we are enduring a lot. But it's worth it.

IT'S A CURIOUS life for a woman who was born half a world away, in western Spain. Orphaned at a early age, Mrs. Picciotto was raised By her grand mother. When she died. young Concepcion decided to fulfill her lifelong ambition of emigrating to the United States. She arrived in New York at age 18 and found work as a secretary with the Spanish Consulate.

At 21, she met and married an ltalian businessman. The birth of a daughter, in 1973, was followed 20 months later by a messy divorce, the details of which Mrs. Picciotto declines to discuss The result, she says, was the loss of her husband, her daughter. her job, and her home.

She spent seven years trying to gain custodv of her child. Her odyssey began in the courts of Manhattan and took her to Albany, Madrid, and finally Washington. where she sought help from her congressman. Rebuffed at every turn. Mrs. Picciotto decided to take her case to the streets.

In 1980, she secured a part-time job as a babv sitter and began spending her off-days in front of the White House with her hand-painted signs calling for justice. She also wrote letters. One, to Lillian Carter, drew this response: "I sympathize with your case, but I am 80 miles away and have no power."

Gradually, as she befriended other demonstrator: Mrs. Picciotto`s repertoir expanded to include the anti-nuclear effort. Her zeal also grew. Finally, on warm summer day, halfway through Ronald Reagans first year as president, she collected her belongings and took a bus to Lafayette Park, where she has remained.

Shortly after, she joined forces with Mr Thomas, 40, who had begun protesting at the White House the previous year. (He had been expelled From Britain for discarding his U.S passport and declaring himself stateless).

Initially. Mrs Picciotto and Mr Thomas spent their days in front of the White House and their nights in the park. But in 1985 the National Park Service enacted restrictions on White House sidewalk demonstrations forcing the protestors across the street The protestors responded by increasing the number and size of their signs. At one time. Mrs Picciotto and Mr Thomas had 18 free-standing plywood signs in a row. The tallest was over 10 feet high.

Public concern and pressure from the Interior Department resulted in further restrictions two years ago. Today, no one is allowed more than two signs. and thev can't exceed 6 feet in height. This peeves Mrs Picciotto, who sees a conspiracy directed at forcing all protestors away from the area.

Rather than pout about her misfortune, though, she is content to sit on her milk crate, which doubles as her bed, and spread the word: "Stop building nuclear weapons, and let`s use the money to eliminate poverty."

MRS PICCIOTTO is a tiny woman, about 5 feet tall. she's well-mannered and articulate, although she speaks with a thick accent. She always wears a brown wig the size of a football helmet, covered with a scarf -- she won't say why -- and on a recent chilly afternoon she wore corduroy slacks, a wool sweater, and a down vest covered with protest badges. Her shabby appearance contradicts her penchant for tidiness; she constantly sweeps leaves and litter from her part of the sidewalk and neatly stacks her belongings behind the signs.

Her face is weather-beaten, but her dark eyes sparkle, reflecting the enthusiasm she has for what she calls her "life's work."

She survives. she says, on coffee, sweet rolls, and bread. Occasionally, friends bring her cheese, fruit, and sandwiches. She uses the restroom at a nearby Hardy's restaurant and showers infrequently at a downtown shelter for the homeless. She averages three hours of sleep a day, leaning against one of her signs.

Winters are the worst, says Mrs. Picciotto. No amount of clothing keeps the cold out, and she spends most nights pacing the sidewalk to avoid perishing.

Her livelihood comes from donations, she says. On a good day she may make $15. The money is spent on food, printing literature and paint for the "peace rocks" she began making several years ago. The rocks have become popular souvenirs for tourists, although Mrs Picciotto declines to charge for them.

Harassment is her biggest concern. It ranges from verbal abuse to physical harm: Eight years ago a U.S Marine punched her in the face. There also are threats from the homeless people who sometimes inhabit the park.

Park police are another problem, since sleeping is considered camping: -- a park offense -- and leaving posters unattended also is unlawful. Mrs. Picciotto and Mr. Thomas frequently play 'cat-and-mouse' with their adversaries. Sometimes they lose. Last summer Mr. Thomas, who calls himself an intellectual and spends a lot of time in the library, served 90 days in the pokey for camping.

THERE ARE good moments. too. Every week a woman from the Humane Society delivers a bag of peanuts to Mrs. Picciotto so she can feed her beloved squirrels. She sometimes receives mail from people she has become friends with. (The Vigil has a post office box). And after her bike was stolen, a young man employed at a nearby bicycle shop pieced together another for her Despite the hardships. the sidewalk across from the White House will remain Mrs. Picciotto's home for the foreseeable future.

"Certainly. I could go back to society." she says "I could make a !iving. But God has chosen a greater task for me". One of the squirrels grabs a peanut from Mrs Picciotto`s hand and scampers into the park.

"Imagine." she says,"I have seen people freeze to death in that park, right across the street from the house of the most powerful man in the world."

AT LAFAYETTE SQUARE IN FRONT OF THE WHITE HOUSE

Conchita's Round the Clock Vigil

2011-03-15T21:20:00.002-04:00

A WOMAN'S ROUND THE CLOCK
PEACE VIGIL

Daily Express
Malaysia
Sunday, Sept. 19, 1993

From James Sarda

PENNSYLVANIA Avenue in Washington D.C. is home to two famous residents both located diagonally across from the other.

One is the most powerful men on earth-who exercises great influence from a secure and comfortable white-washed 1818 century mansion.

The other is a woman who braves the wind, rain, sun and snow in a lonely round-the-clock street vigil alerting people to the horrors of weapons and nuclear war.

What inspires this intelligent woman to stay there? Her answer is quick: "I am in pursuit of Peace and Justice", says Concepcion, "to make people aware, so that they wake up to the reality that weapons of mass destruction threaten the extinction of mankind. The people have to make the change. The governments do not represent the people, they represent the corporations. We have to start from scratch. If the people lead, the leaders will follow. That's when revolutions happen, when the people cannot tolerate anymore," she concluded., "The people are in despair, the economy is crumbling, the crime is worse than ever, and the bombers are everywhere."

"People just want to be heard'" Concepcion added;

Connie - Proof that if you keep trying, some will listen

2011-03-15T21:12:00.002-04:00

Concepcion has learned that if you keep trying, some people do listen:

Reflexion grafica por Sally Hanlon:

Revista Maryknoll, March 1992 Cargando la cruz ajena

Concepcion Piccioto, oriunda de Espana, lleva 10 anon dia y noche frente a la Cas Blanca en vigilia permanente por la paz?
Concepcion Picciotto, a native of Spain, has spent 10 years [97: now 16 years] of her life in front of the White House day and night in a permanent vigil for peace.
What will I contribute to peace?

Conchita - Inspiring Peace Activists World-wide

2011-03-15T21:11:00.002-04:00

Concepcion has been an inspiration to Peace Activists from around the world who come back year after year to have their picture taken with her and to hope they will be the next recipient of the beautiful and famous "peace rocks" she paints with the word "Peace" in several different languages, which she also speaks.

These people tell her, "Please don't give up,we need you here!", and "You do this for all of us, and for the children." That's why she does it, for the children.

Connie - "We must teach our children to value Life"

2011-03-15T21:10:00.000-04:00

"We must teach the children to respect and value LIFE, not material things. That's the only way we will have peace," she said at a recent interview in Washington. "The people must demand that the governments stop using the people's money to buy weapons, and use it for the people's needs, such as education, jobs, housing and health care; People need to live with dignity. If the people have what they need, there would be no reason to fight," added Concepcion.

Concepcion - No More Hiroshimas

2011-03-15T21:08:00.000-04:00

No More Hiroshimas
One of Concepcion's Fliers depicts the little girl, Sadako Sasaki, who died on October 25, 1955, from leukemia, "the bomb sickness", which killed many for years after the war. This statue was erected in Hiroshima Peace Park, in 1958, in memory of Sadako and the thousands of children who died at Hiroshima. Sadako is holding a golden crane in outstretched arms atop a granite mountain. The legend in Japan is that if you fold a thousand paper cranes, the angels will grant your wish. Every year, on August 6 --Peace Day, children come from all over the world to place paper cranes at the base of the statue.

Connie, an Unmatched Defender of Free Speech - 1st Amendment

2011-03-15T21:03:00.000-04:00

The White House Anti-Nuclear Vigil is one of those constant reminders that Free Speech is alive and well in the United States of America: even in Washington. Or, is it?
The "Regulations" being implemented by the National Park Service have slowly, subtly, consistently pushed the First Amendment frontliners to the back of the park, away from the White House and the tourists, but the Park Police don't let up.
After Clinton's second Inauguration, we moved the signs back to the front of the White House, as we have done since Reagan's second term. The Park Police were rude, and said, "No, you can't move those signs until the supervisor gives the order."

Well, the signs were moved, but we have suffered constant harassment since then. The police have locked the bathrooms, and they watch every minute to see if I leave the signs. Thanks to friends, I do get a break occasionally; and the vigil goes on...

More than 30 years the Soldier for Humanity

2011-03-15T20:58:00.000-04:00

Washington Post - Whatever Happened To... ... the protesters at Lafayette Square park?

2011-01-20T13:32:00.005-05:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/21/AR2011012105339.html

By Kris Coronado

Sunday, January 30, 2011

After gazing at the White House, a group of well-dressed tourists turns around and takes in an entirely
Protester Concepcion Picciotto holds a poster depicting William Thomas. (Benjamin C Tankersley - )different scene across the street. There, centered on the sidewalk along Lafayette Square park, is a jumbled menagerie of wooden and cardboard signs. One shows photos of Hiroshima bombing victims. The caption reads: "Stay the course and this will happen to YOU."

When the onlookers approach for a better view, they catch the attention of Concepcion Picciotto -- the woman to whom this anti-nuclear vigil belongs.
She is rearranging her signs. The previous day, U.S. Park Police briefly relocated her to the northwest corner of the park when they closed it to the public for undisclosed reasons.
"It's so hard," Picciotto explains. "For two hours, they made us move everything and wait."
A 40-something tourist smiles condescendingly. "That's a good idea, though, because you wouldn't want one thing to be in a spot for too long," she says.
Picciotto is not amused. "Well, I have this here for you because you do nothing," she retorts. "You people go around like robots with cameras. If you people were more concerned, we wouldn't have to be here."
The group scoffs and mockingly makes robot movements before walking away laughing.
This is no joke for Picciotto. She has been staging her protest against nuclear weaponry every day since 1981. On this windy winter morning, her petite frame is bundled in a thick corduroy jacket. She wears a scarf over a wig, and many of her front teeth are missing.
When featured in The Washington Post in June 2006, Picciotto left the talking to William Thomas, the man who began the vigil on June 3, 1981. Picciotto had met Thomas a few months earlier and decided to join him.
The pair had regulations to follow -- they couldn't stray three feet from their property or sit in anything resembling bedding. Thomas was arrested multiple times.
Yet all of these challenges seemed negligible in comparison to the one Picciotto faced on Jan. 23, 2009 -- the day Thomas succumbed to pulmonary disease at age 61. With her compatriot gone, how could she maintain the vigil on her own?
That's when Start Loving (yes, he goes by that name only) stepped in.
"I was just unwilling to see it jeopardized," says Loving, a fellow activist.
Loving's presence in the mornings and evenings means Picciotto can grab a shower or relieve herself.
For now, Picciotto will maintain her vigil for a nuclear-free world. There's no apparent end, she insists. To this day, no president has crossed the street to meet her. It's a fact she finds frustrating. "I'm very discouraged," she says.

Washington protester who outlasts presidents

2010-06-18T13:37:00.004-04:00

Washington protester who outlasts presidents

http://www.indianasnewscenter.com/news/entertainment/41277832.html

By AFP

June 18, 2010 Updated Mar 15, 2009 at 4:11 AM EDT

She is President Barack Obama's closest neighbor, but don't expect her to be invited over for tea any time soon -- not while carrying on the longest continuous act of political protest in the United States.
Each morning like she has for the past 28 years, Concepcion Picciotto pulls back the plastic flap of her makeshift shelter in Lafayette Park and stares across the street at the White House, but the protester-in-residence voices little hope that the new president will make a difference on issues that dominate her life: ending US interventionist wars and banning nuclear weapons.
"No, they're all the same," Picciotto laments about the commanders-in-chief she has literally watched come and go since 1981, when she and fellow activist William "Doubting" Thomas began their 24-hour White House peace vigil.
"From the beginning I said Obama isn't going to work, because he's inside there," she hisses, pointing to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
"It's a revolving door," she tells AFP in an interview on a recent frigid night.
Obama and the other presidents she has outlasted -- Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush -- "don't support peace."
"It's against what they do: invasions, occupations, wars."
Some Americans dismiss the Spanish-born Picciotto, who declines to give her age but is said to be 64, as a little old lady with a bone to pick.
For many tourists, she is a colorful character who recites greetings in several languages and paints peace messages on rocks -- a harmless flake who has spent most of her adult years living under the sun and stars, enjoying the best view in Washington.
But others see her as someone far more vital: a rabid defender of free speech, a global peace activist who serves as the unheralded conscience of a nation grappling with its warrior/peacemaker past and present.
To activist Jamilla El-Shafei, Picciotto is nothing less than "a living symbol of resistance," defiantly anchored across the street and a world away from the most powerful leader on the planet.
"She is an amazing example of grassroots democracy and she understands that power is with the people," said El-Shafei, who has protested against the US-led war in Iraq alongside Picciotto.
Colman McCarthy, a former columnist in Washington who now heads the Center for Teaching Peace, says she "steadfastly defines the madness of American militarism."
"She is certifiably sane," McCarthy adds. "The rest of us, who think we can live with nuclear weapons, we are insane."
More than just about anyone in the US capital except longstanding members of Congress, the diminutive woman with several missing teeth and a helmet of brown hair is a Washington fixture.
Her large signs -- "Live By The Bomb, Die By The Bomb," "Ban All Nuclear Weapons Or Have A Nice Doomsday" -- are throwbacks to the early 1980s, and the tail end of an era of large-scale government protest.
In the decades since, she has been cursed at, spat on and beaten up -- and that's just by the police, she claims.
"We have had a very hard time with the government," she whispers, batting her mittens together to keep warm.
She recalls the dozens of arrests, the constant 50-dollar citations for illegal "camping" in the park, and dozens of forays by Thomas to Capitol Hill and courtrooms to protect their constitutional right to protest by challenging the various new regulations imposed on them.
But just days after Obama's January 20 inauguration, Picciotto's world collapsed. Thomas, 61, died at their nearby office.
"It was horrible. Horrible," Picciotto recalls of the death of her longtime protest partner.
"They killed Thomas in a way," she says, referring to the harassment by US Park Police, the law enforcement arm responsible for Lafayette Park.
The Park Police acknowledges the longstanding face-off, but insists it has followed the rules to the letter, even as the changing regulations on protests made for some uncomfortable clashes.
"It's like a marriage... but over the years, it's been a good relationship," Park Police information officer David Schlosser says.
Picciotto scoffs at the suggestion that she and police have resolved their differences.
"Just last night a policeman stopped me when I went to the trash can because it was more than three feet (one meter) away from my signs!"
Yet Picciotto carries on, thanks to what McCarthy calls her "great grace of persistence."
The area in front of the White House bustles with protesters during the day, but when darkness falls, Picciotto is alone. She savors the silence, but the absence of other activists is glaring.
"No one else has the courage to challenge (the government) and go through what we've gone through," she says.
Days later, she appears in jovial mood. Ten South Koreans are gathered around her vigil, and she offers greetings in Korean while the tourists snap pictures with her.
A young woman in the group, perhaps mindful of the thousands of Koreans who died in the 1945 atomic blasts in Japan, bows slowly at the waist and wordlessly presses folded dollar bills into Picciotto's palm.
When asked what she would tell Obama if she had the chance, Picciotto says she would urge him to ban nuclear weapons, stop funding Israel's military, pull troops out of Iraq "and put the money here, for people here."
Claiming good health, Picciotto aims to be around for years to come, and wants to write a book about her experiences. But for now she appears content with bringing her issues to light for the million or more tourists and Washingtonians who see her vigil each year.
"She is standing up for her conviction, for peace ... and she is a manifestation of the nation's feelings about war," El-Shafei said.
"She is standing there for all of us."

Minn Tribune: Will it ever end?

2010-02-11T13:44:00.003-05:00

Published February 11, 2010, 12:00 AM

Will it ever end?

Protester Concepcion Picciotto sits in the snow Wednesday as she continues a 24-hour-a-day peace vigil in Lafayette Park across from the White House. Picciotto, an immigrant from Spain who has been active with her peace vigil since 1981, said she has been sleeping under a plastic tarp during the city’s recent record snowfall. A blizzard howled up the East Coast on Wednesday, making roads from Baltimore to New York City so treacherous that even plow drivers pulled over. More than three feet of snow has fallen since the end of last week. AP Photo/Charles Dharapak

Protester outlasts 4 US presidents

2009-03-16T13:50:00.005-04:00

Protester outlasts 4 US presidents

Published: Monday, Mar 16, 2009, 0:33 IST
Place: Washington, DC | Agency: AFP

http://www.dnaindia.com/world/report_protester-outlasts-4-us-presidents_1239403

Concepcion Picciotto is president Barack Obama�s closest neighbour, but don�t expect her to be invited over for tea any time soon, not while carrying on the longest continuous act of political protest in the US.
Each morning like she has for the past 28 years, Picciotto pulls back the plastic flap of her makeshift shelter in Lafayette Park and stares across the street at the White House, but the protester-in-residence voices little hope that Obama will make a difference on issues that dominate her life: ending US interventionist wars and banning nuclear weapons.
�No, they�re all the same,� Picciotto laments about the commanders-in-chief she has literally watched come and go since 1981, when she and fellow activist William �Doubting� Thomas began their 24-hour White House peace vigil.
�It�s a revolving door,� she said. Obama and the other presidents she has outlasted, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush � �don�t support peace.� �It�s against what they do: invasions, occupations, wars.�
Some Americans dismiss the Spanish-born Picciotto, who declines to give her age but is said to be 64. She has been cursed at, spat on and beaten up and that�s just by the police, she claims.
Picciotto wants to write a book about her experiences. But for now she appears content with bringing her issues to light for the million or more tourists and Washingtonians who see her vigil each year.

One-man demos to silent protests

2008-11-29T13:53:00.004-05:00

One-man demos to silent protests

Saturday, 29 November 2008 10:08 By Agnes Asiimwe

http://www.independent.co.ug/index.php/component/content/article/42-features/325-one-man-demos-to-silent-protests

How do you express objection?

Mr Joseph Mbogo, 45, spent his morning last Tuesday standing, in protest, outside Parliament in a one-man demonstration, but positioned well enough to be seen by those going in or leaving the Parliamentary Building. The former NRA bush war veteran hasnâ€™t had a share in the national cake, the way many of his colleagues have. Itâ€™s now 22 years since â€˜theyâ€™ took power but all he has is the memory of the harsh bush days. â€œI wrote to the president in August 2007,â€ he told The Independent in an interview.

He personally took the letter to Lt. Gen.Â David Tinyefuza, the presidential advisor on military affairs. Tinyefuza passed on the letter to the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence with instructions that Mbogo gets help. CMI never helped him. Now he wants CMI to give the letter to the president.Â â€œI need money, I am homeless, my children donâ€™t go to school yet we worked hard together and he had promised not to forget us.â€

He joined the army when he was only 15 years, in September 1981. â€œHe [M7] badly needed manpower, they called us thieves, it rained on us but when they arrived in Kampala they forgot about us.â€

For his efforts, just as President Museveni was leaving Parliament, a PGB soldier walked up to him and gave him Col. Proscovia Nalweyisoâ€™s (first NRA womanÂ officer) number. He called her immediately and arranged a meeting. Maybe something could come out of his demo.Â

Just the day before Mbogoâ€™s demonstration, Mr Jeff Sewava, 30, an electrician with UMEME took his cause to Parliament, his concern being child neglect and abuse. â€œThere is a lot of violence against children, they are beheaded, defiled, and starved yet the minister for children is not heard and in fact unknown,â€ Sewava told The Independent. To make his point, Sewava carried his four-year-old child to Parliament and says the childâ€™s mother abandoned him at two weeks and that if it were him who had done so, FIDA and other flurry of NGOs would have been chasing after him.Â

But not everybody is taking their issue to the sidewalk at Parliament.Â According to some observers, more people are going solo in protest against society injustice.Â These people arenâ€™t going to street corners holding placards laden with statements; rather they are enforcing their boycotts and protests quietly as they go about their daily tasks.Â According to some silent protesters, the power of a silent protest can be far reaching and effective.

The silent protesters are up against numerous issues. One resident of Bweyogerere says he has been driving without a driving license for some time now. He says he cannot waste time and money on Face Technologies, the company that procures the permits, just to get a laminated piece of paper that is too shoddy to be called a driving permit â€“ but at the cost of an arm and a leg!Â Â

Some people have boycotted bars, restaurants, beauty salons, supermarkets, banks, and other service points because of bad customer care, rude attendants, disrespectful security, dirtiness, or because the firms are owned by people who have been reported to have swindled public funds.Â The protesters say they relentlessly complained out loud at first but never saw change until they silently walked away and launched their boycott.

â€œThere is no place to get redress [after a poor service] and that is the reason they are going for silent protests,â€ said Mr Sam Watasa, the executive director of Uganda Consumers Protection Association. But first, what are Watasaâ€™s boycotts? â€œI donâ€™t go to shops with imported textiles because most are factory rejects,â€ said Watasa, â€œyet if I go to Phenix Logistics and the cloth had a problem, I would return it.â€ Watasa doesnâ€™t buy imported car batteries because they have no guarantee.

When the protest to save Mabira Forest went digital, with a call to boycott Lugazi sugar on the Internet and via SMS, the power of a boycott of a nation was unleashed on SCOUL and it proved that a business, perhaps even a government, could be brought to its knees.Â Hussein Kyanjo, MP Makindye West, a big player in the Save Mabira Crusade says Ugandans are not consistent with their protests.

â€œThe great majority of Ugandans live a subsistence life, they cannot prepare for a month ahead, they live by the day and tomorrow may be different,â€ he said. Ugandans will react in a demonstration massively today and tomorrow they will have got a job or a deal upcountry and they will abandon the cause to go and make money. â€œDemonstrations are successful in structured economies where people know how they will live at least for a month. That is how dictators are surviving,â€ said Kyanjo.

Kyanjo said that with the Lugazi sugar boycott, eventually people couldnâ€™t tell the difference. â€œIt was effective for a short time, about three weeks.â€ Kyanjo agrees that silent protests are on. â€œI heard people want to boycott Pepsi Cola products because of his [Amos Nzeyi] involvement in Temangalo, but the consistent ones are few.â€Â

Consistence is what the demonstration by Mr William Thomas and Ms Concepcion Picciotto is made of.Â The two have been demonstrating in front of the White House in Washington, D.C. since 1981. They are protesting against the use of genocidal weapons like nuclear weapons.Â The two have survived arrests, harassments, beatings, court battles, rain, snow, summer and winter. Presidents have come and gone but they remain and say they will push for their cause till they die.Â

On silent boycotts, not only are some people boycotting but also encouraging everyone around them to do the same.Â When Metro Cash & Carry Supermarket, Ugandaâ€™s premier store opened, shoppers had to carry membership/loyalty cards to be allowed to shop.Â Ugandans long accustomed to dukas thought Metro was being snobbish. This forced many shoppers, most of whom only heard about the cards through word of mouth, to stay away even after the requirement was scrapped. Competition from other stores like Shoprite and Uchumi and a misunderstood marketing gimmick finished off Metro.Â

A silent protest comes with many benefits, not to mention the satisfaction. To hold a demonstration, even a one â€“ man demo, one needs police clearance.Â â€œYou have to inform the Inspector General of Police, involve us at the time of planning, we need to know the type of placard and the message on the placard,â€ said Ms Judith Nabakoba, the police spokesperson.Â A silent protest on the other hand is free of any hassles.

Pennsylvania Avenue's other famous couple

2008-08-15T14:14:00.002-04:00

Pennsylvania Avenue's other famous couple

Last Updated: Friday, August 15, 2008 | 3:51 PM ET

By Andrea Lee, CBC News

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Concepcion Picciotto in front of her alternative White House on the edge of Lafayette Park, across Pennsylvania Avenue from the real one. (Andrea Lee/CBC) It is 12:30 on a Thursday afternoon and it is hot, one of those searing, humid days that remind Washingtonians they live in the U.S. South.
In front of the White House, tourists are undeterred. They come in groups large and small, stopping to take pictures of the president's home or to peer through the wrought iron bars that keep them from it.
Across the street, on the edge of Lafayette Park, Concepcion Picciotto is protesting loudly.
"That man is crazy!" she cries, in a high-pitched, heavily-accented voice, pointing to the White House. "Destroy the people! Destroy the nation! No future for the children!"
Picciotto is by no means a threatening protester. She is about five feet tall. Her skin is darkly tanned and heavily creased. She is missing teeth. She wears a dark brown wig over a cap, covered by a purple and beige scarf.
On this day, she is wearing a peach-coloured blouse, white cotton pajama-style pants with pale yellow flowers, and brown sandals. She also wears a large, forest green fanny pack and has a set of keys around her neck.
Don't underestimate her, though. Picciotto is one of Washington's best-known protesters. She and a partner, William Thomas, have lived in a makeshift tent across the street from the White House since 1981.
They set up their "White House 24 Hours a Day Antinuclear Peace Vigil" 27 years ago and haven't left. In a perverse kind of way, they have become Pennsylvania Avenue's other famous couple

YES: People We Love

2006-09-12T14:17:00.001-04:00

Conchita Picciotto has been a neighbor to presidents since 1981

FOR 25 YEARS Concepcion “Conchita” Picciotto has lived on the street in front of the White House, protesting nuclear arms. Hers may be the longest continuous vigil in history.

In 1981, when Picciotto took up residence in Lafayette Square, Jimmy Carter was president. She counts off the others on her fingers: “Ronald Reagan, two terms, then President Bush's father, then President Clinton, two terms too, and now the son of the father.”

But in all that time, she's never talked to any of her presidential neighbors.

Asked what one message she would give President Bush if she could, Picciotto says, “My goodness! The first thing, to come to his senses and stop killing.”

Conchita is regarded as a permanent fixture in D.C. She's been listed twice in the Berlitz guide to the city, and she appeared in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911.

Washington Post - Vigil for peace marks 25th year

2006-06-04T14:19:00.001-04:00

Vigil for peace marks 25th year

By David Montgomery

The Washington Post

KEVIN CLARK / THE WASHINGTON POST

William Thomas has maintained a peace vigil in Lafayette Square across from the White House since June 3, 1981. "I never imagined I'd be sitting here for 25 years," he said.

WASHINGTON — William Thomas first introduced fanny to brick on the White House sidewalk on June 3, 1981. His sign said, "Wanted: Wisdom and Honesty." He's been there ever since, still squatting, still wanting.
A few months after he began, he was joined by Concepcion Picciotto, who has remained similarly steadfast.
War is not over, but the peace protesters have won. Sort of. Lafayette Square, the oasis of green across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, is theirs.
Get rid of the shelter made of a battered patio umbrella, a weathered plastic tarp and those faded anti-nuke signs erected by Thomas and Picciotto?
It wouldn't be the same park.
Tourists from such places as Beijing and Chicago no longer would flash peace signs for digital cameras. School groups would make one less stop. Tour-guide shticks would shrink by a sentence or two.
Anniversary celebrations are for institutions. The 25th Anniversary Speakout for the 24-7 peace vigil began at noon Saturday, hosted by peace and anti-nuke groups, with speakers and invitations to "sing, chant, recite, drum, dance your heartsong."
A quarter-century. Through rain and sleet and snow and summer. And police raids and lawyers and courtrooms. And jail. Thomas once was sentenced to 90 days for violating the elaborate (and ever-evolving) rules of expression.
But that's all been sorted out. As long as they don't "camp" (dozing off on your stool is OK, but no sleeping in anything that resembles "bedding"), stray more than 3 feet from their signs or construct overly large posters, the law leaves them alone.
The National Park Police and the Secret Service have learned to live with the protesters.

"We make it look like a free country," Thomas said. "We're an asset to the government. So they don't pay much attention and pretend we're not here." They have inspired legislation on Capitol Hill. Every session, Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., introduces the Nuclear Disarmament and Economic Conversion Act, calling for nations to mutually agree to disarm. It's based on a ballot proposition that passed in the District of Columbia in 1993 that was inspired by the vigil keepers.
The bill never goes anywhere, but, Norton said, "The reason they have become a fixture is because they are there for the long haul for disarmament."
Colman McCarthy, a former Washington Post columnist who now teaches peace studies, said, "I take my high-school and college students regularly to the vigil. I'd rather they see a sermon on peace than hear one."
The fact that the nation is at war again, that nuclear fear again is in the air, does not take away from the vigil keepers, McCarthy said: "The basic philosophy of the peace movement is not to worry about being successful, but to worry about being faithful. For 25 years these people have carried on a commitment that goes back to Isaiah."
In the beginning, Thomas and Picciotto stationed themselves on the sidewalk next to the White House fence. New rules forced them to the sidewalk on the other side of Pennsylvania. Once every four years, during inaugural parades, they have to move. They also were displaced for the recent reconstruction of the avenue and then allowed back to the new brick sidewalk.
Since the early days, they have split up vigil duties, alternating six-hour shifts so someone is on duty 24 hours a day. Their schedule is at least as rigid as any of the bourgeois clock-punchers who sometimes sneer at their lifestyle. It takes discipline to last 25 years.
When not in the park, the two spend time in Peace House, a group house about 10 blocks away, a space purchased with a little money left by elderly friends several years ago. They do not solicit money. Thomas said he eats donated food and wears donated clothes.
Naturally, there is a Web site, Prop1.org, Thomas' wife, Ellen, who supports the vigil, posts online diary entries about the effort.
"I never imagined I'd be sitting here for 25 years," said Thomas, 60. "I've always been something of a nomad, and to think I would sit here for so long was something incomprehensible."
His fundamental hypothesis is that the government lies. These lies were used to justify the nuclear-arms race, and they are at the root of all the war-making since, he said.
"I'm not convinced absolutely that I'm not incorrect," he said. "So I sit here and I tell people what I believe, in the hope that if I am incorrect, somebody will come by and explain to me the error of my thinking. Unfortunately, it hasn't happened yet."
Picciotto won't talk to a reporter because she is sure the reporter will print lies. She has said she was born in Spain. Today, she will only say: "We got to stop this insanity. No more invasions."
The peacemakers sometimes get on each other's nerves.
"No pictures," Picciotto tells a news photographer even though tourists have been snapping her all day.
"What is wrong with you?" Thomas asks.
"You think I'm a fool?" Picciotto says.
"Yes, sometimes," Thomas says.

Protesting for peace

2005-04-04T14:26:00.002-04:00

Protesting for peace

Spanish immigrant calls sidewalk home in decades-long showdown with White House

by Jason Kane and Nicole Wetherell
Hatchet Reporters

Issue: 4/4/05 | Style

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Media Credit: David Ediger

Concepcion Picciotto has become a local and national celebrity in her 24 years of protest on Pennsylvania Avenue.

In the early-morning light flooding the sidewalks of Lafayette Park, Concepcion Picciotto rises stiffly from her rustic encampment of protest. Peering intensely back at tourists who gawk at her from all angles of Pennsylvania Avenue, Picciotto, flyers in hand, braces for another day of heated controversy.

For nearly 25 years, Picciotto has enacted the same routine within the shadow of the White House, willingly subjecting herself to both scathing public criticism and the harsh Washington weather in support of peace and nuclear disarmament.

Having been labeled everything from a prophet to a public pest, she has resigned herself to the name-calling, basking instead in the notoriety attained from her short appearance in Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" and the belief that many Americans find comfort in her unfaltering presence in the park.

Picciotto's six-foot-tall signs, which evolve in accordance with world affairs, tower over her small frame, ensuring that the message preached in her soft, heavily accented voice is clear to all who pass.

"Stay the course and this will happen to you," warns one sign bearing pictures of bloodied corpses. "Give peace a chance." The small, wrinkled woman stands defiantly under them, ready to preach about the need for better education in America ("Americans are ignorant people. They're lazy. They've never suffered."), or the dangers of nuclear war.

Shortly after the vigil's conception in 1981, massive versions of the current signs dominated the north gate of the White House, covering approximately three-fourths of the sidewalk along Pennsylvania Avenue. Laws enacted to prevent such behavior have since limited Picciotto to her current allotment, a process that has forced her across the street from her original location and subjected her to what she describes as a never-ending barrage of harassment, citations and legal trials.

"The government makes many rules which are in violation of the Constitution by limiting the size and number of my signs. I have been arrested a number of times, I have been beaten by marines, accosted by police. It's very difficult," she says in a low whisper.

Continued...

Una Mujer Contra El Sistema Americano, Los Domingos De La Voz (Spanish)

2004-08-08T13:14:00.001-04:00

4 | LOS DOMINGOS DE LA VOZ | 8 DE AGOSTO DEL 2004

REPORTAJE
UNA MUJER CONTRA EL SISTEMA AMERICANO

Moore da fama a la gallega de la Casa Blanca

El documental "Fahrenheit 9/11" muestra el rostro de la activista, que denuncia desde 1981 el "injusto y corrupto" sistema social de EE. UU.

PABLO CARBALLO | TEXTO

A trav�s de los ojos curiosos y la c�mara al hombro de Michael Moore, millones de personas en todo el mundo est�n conociendo estos d�as interioridades sorprendentes de la Administraci�n Bush: los entramados empresariales que presionan al establishment, las amistades peligrosas de los hombres m�s poderosos del planeta... Aparte de esto y mucho m�s, Fahrenheit 9/11 tambi�n est� mostrando al mundo el rostro y la voz de la gallega que ostenta un r�cord extraofi cial de persistencia y fi delidad a un pu�ado de causas. Se llama Concepci�n Martin Picciotto (Conchita para los amigos, Connie en versi�n anglosajona), naci� en Santiago y se cri� en Vigo, tiene 59 a�os y lleva 23 apostada en una acera frente a la Casa Blanca. Su manifestaci�nvigilia no ha deca�do desde 1981 hasta la actualidad. Durante este periodo, en la poltrona del Despacho Oval se han sentado cuatro presidentes, a saber: Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton y George W. Bush.

�Y cu�l es el motivo que llev� a Concepci�n a esta protesta sin fin? En realidad, son muchos. Conchita emprendi� su vigilia por un asunto personal, pero con el tiempo fue abrazando el credo de los activistas movilizados contra la carrera armament�stica. Hoy, la gente de Pennsylvania Avenue la reconoce como una vecina m�s. Y los espectadores de Fahrenheit 9/11 atisban por un instante su cara curtida y su gesto guerrero durante un encuentro con una se�ora que pide explicaciones ante la Casa Blanca despu�s de haber perdido un hijo en Irak.

La g�nesis, una odisea

La historia de Concepci�n tiene su origen en la odisea que le supuso la separaci�n de su marido italoamericano cuando todav�a no hab�a cumplido los 30 a�os. Tras un tormentoso divorcio, un tribunal dictamin� que la custodia de la �nica hija del matrimonio deb�a ser para el padre, lo que frustr� los planes de Conchita, que pretend�a regresar con la ni�a a su tierra. No abdic�, sin embargo: recurri� a organizaciones defensoras de los derechos humanos, visit� despachos y administraciones de todo pelaje en Nueva York y Washington; apel� incluso al ministerio espa�ol de Asuntos Exteriores... Todo fue en vano.

Por eso decidi�, en 1981, plantarse delante de la Casa Blanca para expresar su rechazo por "la corrupci�n y la injusticia del sistema social norteamericano". Fue entonces cuando se sum� a Thomas Doubting, un activista que hab�a iniciado dos meses antes una protesta contra la proliferaci�n de armas nucleares.

Al igual que Concepci�n, Thomas no se ha dado por vencido en su protesta permanente. En un correo electr�nico remitido a La Voz, respondi� a las preguntas sobre la pel�cula de Michael Moore: "En realidad, ni Concepci�n ni yo hemos visto la pel�cula. Pero mucha gente nos ha contado que Concepci�n, y tambi�n nuestras pancartas, aparecen en un momento dado hacia el fi nal", explic� Thomas, el pionero de una de las vigilias m�s largas que se recuerdan.

Vivir a la intemperie

Hoy, como cada d�a de los �ltimos 8.400, la acera de Lafayette Park, a la altura del c�lebre n�mero 1.600 de la avenida Pennsylvania, es el hogar de la viguesa Connie. Durante m�s de dos d�cadas, su historia ha protagonizado decenas de reportajes en peri�dicos de todo el mundo. En ellos, adem�s de confesar repetidamente que le gustar�a regresar un d�a a Galicia, ha ido desgranando las complicadas condiciones de vida que ha asumido a cambio de perpetuar su rechazo manifi esto al sistema. Concepci�n vive a la intemperie. Subsiste a base de limosnas y donativos efectuados por simpatizantes de sus causas. Tambi�n vende peque�as piedras pintadas en las que expresa las causas que la mueven a continuar con su vigilia.

Su actitud cr�tica tambi�n le ha granjeado la correspondiente dosis de acritud de las autoridades. Uno de los momentos m�s complicados de la vigilia sin fi n de Concepci�n tuvo lugar el 8 de diciembre de 1982. Ese d�a, la polic�a dispar� y mat� al activista anti-nuclear Norman Mayer, que hab�a amenazado con hacer volar por los aires el monumento al primer presidente de los Estados Unidos, George Washington.

Para Conchita, los enfrentamientos con los agentes no han llegado tan lejos, aunque s� ha padecido su acoso. Le han prohibido dormir en un saco de dormir o colocar sillas en la acera; incluso han llegado a estipular unas medidas m�ximas para sus pancartas de denuncia y una determinada distancia de separaci�n de Thomas, su compa�ero de fatigas. Tambi�n ha denunciado amenazas policiales. Todos los presidentes que han pasado por la Casa Blanca desde 1981 han tratado de deshacerse de su inc�moda presencia. Pero Conchita lo ha resistido todo, conservando lucidez sobre el contenido de sus denuncias y sobre la identidad del enemigo, como revela su respuesta al periodista del Washington Times que le pregunt� en una ocasi�n si no tem�a los eventuales peligros nocturnos en Lafayette Park, con la presencia de alg�n individuo indeseable. Ella se�al� con el dedo la residencia ofi cial del presidente: "Lo m�s peligroso est� ah� dentro. �sa es la verdadera amenaza".

Letter From Newaygo High School, Newaygo, Mi.

2002-03-26T13:13:00.001-05:00

Les presidents americains passent... Conchita reste (REPORTAGE)

2000-09-15T13:11:00.002-04:00

Les presidents am�ricains passent...
Conchita reste (REPORTAGE)

Par Micha�la CANCELA-KIEFFER
EAF.TMF.ELU I EMI 150900-04h33 w0593
Agence France Presse
USA-elections,PREV

WASHINGTON, 15 sept (AFP) - Il n'est pas un jour ou sa silhouette menue, encadr�e de deux panneaux contre "les armes de destruction de masse", ne soit visible a 50 metres des fen�tres de la Maison Blanche. Tant�t assise, discutant avec des �cureuils, tantot debout expliquant sa cause aux passants.

Depuis bient�t 20 ans, Concepcion Martin Piccioto, "Conchita", sans-abri d'une soixantaine d'ann�es, vit sur deux metres carr�s de trottoir devant la Maison Blanche, d'ou elle expose inlassablement ses id�es.

Elle a �t� la voisine impertinente de Ronald et Nancy Reagan, George et Barbara Bush, Hillary, Chelsea et Bill Clinton.

Vagabonde militante, Conchita esp�re ainsi r�veiller le pr�sident et les citoyens sur les dangers qui les guettent.

"Le monde entier dolt savoir. Je ne quitterai jamais cet endroit", explique l�trange femrne a la peau burin�e et l�norme perruque fabriqu�e par un ami pour la "prot�ger".

"Les armes nucl�aires. Hiroshima. La plan�te bleue au bord du gouffre. La corruption des dirigeants". Elle r�p�te inlassablement les m�mes themes aux Japonais, Isra�liens, moines tib�tains et autres touristes de passage, venus sextasier devant la maison de l'homme le plus puissant du monde.

"D'ou �tes-vous? Br�silien?', demande-t-elle, tendant un prospectus dans la langue appropride. 'Nous navons pas besoin de davantage de catastrophes (. . .) ni de guerres", explique-t-elle a des Japonais tr�s int�ress�s par les photos de victimes d'Hiroshima �pingl�es sur lun des panneaux.

'Vous en avez assez, avec les inondations que vous venez d'avoir au Japon", ajoute Conchita, qui lit assidüment les journaux.

Mme Martin ne s'int�resse pas beaucoup en revanche a l'�lection pr�sidentielle, m�me si du scrutin depend l'identit� de son prochain voisin: "ils sont tous pareils, m�me Ralph Nader", le candidat des Verts:

"Corrompus", affirme-t-elle.

Dans une autre vie, l'Espagnole naturalis�e Arn�ricaine avait "travaill� comme interpr�te pour les Nations unies et pour le bureau commercial de lambassade espagnole".

En 1981, un divorce douloureux a conduit Conchita a changer radicalement de vie et a s'installer sur son trottoir au 1600 Pennsylvania avenue, a Washington.

A New York, Salvador Betancourt, un college de lambassade espagnole, se souvient d'elle : "elle est arriv�e en 1966 (. . .) comme r�ceptionniste, c'�tait une fille tr�s s�rieuse, tr�s bien mise et efficace. A l'�poque, elle ne s'int�ressait pas trop aux questions rnondiales", se souvient-il.

Conchita refuse aujourd'hui de quitter sa "maison' faite de b�ches et de panneaux militants. 'Elle reste environ 16 heures par jour", confirme un policier. "En vertu du code des r�glementations f�d�rales, article 36, qui r�git la manifestation solitaire, elle a le droit de rester l�, si elle respecte certaines r�gles', ajoute-t-il.

Les coll�gues du policier post�s aux alentours ne regardent m�me plus la militante, comme on ignore une statue trop longtemps apercue.

"Je suis l� cornine Jeanne d'Arc: c'est tr�s dur, mais il faut aller de lavant', dit-elle.

La nuit, Conchita voit les lumi�res de la fontaine et du jardin pr�sidentiel s'�teindre une a une vers onze heures, puis dort entre ses affiches, sur une planche bringuebalante, mi-assise, ml couch�e "parce que lon a pas le droit de faire du camping" devant la Maison Blanche.

Selon elle, aucun pr�sident nest jamais venu la saluer.

mck/bd/mf eaf.tmf

Lone Woman on a Relentless Anti-Nuclear Crusade

2000-08-17T12:50:00.001-04:00

| POLITICS-US: Lone Woman on a Relentless Anti-Nuclear Crusade

By Anna Blackden, Inter Press Service (IPS), August 17, 2000
http://www.link.no/IPS/art/eng/serv/NA/2000/08/17/00.30_002.html
WASHINGTON, Aug 16 (IPS) - Day and night for 20 years Concepcion Picciotto has occupied a small slab of pavement across from the White House, braving the wind, rain, police harassment and abuse from passers-by.
Connie, as her friends call her, has been keeping an unshaken, round-the-clock vigil for world peace and nuclear disarmament since 1981 when Ronald Reagan first entered the White House as president. In November another president will be voted in and Connie will still be on her personal crusade to free the world from nuclear threat.
"I will stay until whatever it takes to stop the bombing and the proliferation of nuclear weapons ... I am sacrificing a lot and enduring a lot," says Picciotto. "But it's worth it."
Her daily battle for survival and acceptance is in sharp contrast to the lives of her neighbours on Pennsylvania Avenue, the President and First Lady of the United States, Bill and Hilary Clinton. The first couple wield enormous power and influence from a secure and comfortable 200 year-old, 132-roomed, white-washed mansion.
For nearly two decades and through three different presidents, 55- year-old Picciotto has seen policies such as Ronald Reagan's Star Wars, the signing in 1996 of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and now Clinton's recently proposed 60-billion-dollar nuclear defence shield.
Three months after Picciotto set up her protest camp in January I 981, President Ronald Reagan announced the Strategic Defence Initiative, dubbed the Star Wars program. Reagan's proposal was to build a missile defence system that would protect the United States from nuclear attack.
Clinton's National Missile Defence system, which also seeks to protect the United States from nuclear threat could be ready for deployment in 2005. It may be ready for construction when a new president, the 43rd in US history, takes office.
By 1995 the Clinton administration had amassed more than 3,000 Trident nuclear warheads the world's largest arsenal, pointed towards a long list of global targets.
According to Vancouver-based anti-nuclear activist FH Knelman in an article for the Peacemagazine, the United States does not want nuclear disarmament, "it wants nuclear supremacy".
Knelman notes that while in 1994 the US defence budget was 285 billion dollars, the Soviet Union was spending 77 billion dollars on its war machinery while the combined budgets of Iraq, Iran, Libya and Syria totalled 9 billion dollars.
"Action must be taken in order to reduce and eliminate the danger posed to humanity by this nuclear madness," says Picciotto.
Picciotto founded the White House Peace Vigil when she arrived in 1981. She refers to herself as "a witness" for the people and strongly believes her vigil has had a global impact - approximately 6,000 visitors a day descend on the White House, many see her holding up her placards.
"People from all over the world say to me we saw you on TV, they have heard my message ... it makes me feel very satisfied that the people are reached and that they then think about the issue for themselves."
But her existence here is not easy. Her presence opposite the White House is a source of irritation and annoyance to the federal authorities. Since she arrived on the block in 1981, the National Parks Service has enacted an impressive array of rules and regulations that restrict her ability to protest.
Picciotto 's colourful protest signs cannot exceed 6 feet in height, the pavement directly in front of the White House is barred from demonstrations (which is why she was forced "across the street" in 1983).
She is also not allowed to lay down at night to sleep in her makeshift camp as that is considered illegal camping - an offence for which she has been arrested "about seven or eight times, though it is hard to keep track over the years"' she says.
It is these restrictions on her freedom that she describes as "torture" and which she wishes to see lifted. While the First Amendment of the US constitution guarantees her freedom of speech these regulations limit how far she can be heard.
Concepcion Picciotto is a tiny woman, no more than 5 feet tall, well presented, highly articulate in English, despite a noticeable Spanish accent which gives away a background far removed from her life as the "protestor-in-residence" at the home of the US President.
She was born in Vigo, Spain. She emigrated to the United States at the age of 18 and says she worked in New York at the Spanish consulate. Picciotto fell in love with an Italian businessman she married at 21.

However, a bitter separation and custody battle cost her a home, her daughter and her job. There began a legal fight that was to lead her to Washington DC where she sought help from her Congressman. Unsuccessful, she took the fight to the gates of the White House.
There she became acquainted with other demonstrators, notably her friend William Thomas (who had begun protesting the previous year) and who influenced her to protest against nuclear arms.
The guards at the White House gate refer to her as a "regular", tolerant of her passive unthreatening protest. When contacted, White House officials did not have a comment.
If she could have five minutes with her new neighbour, the new US president to be elected in November she would tell him that the United States must "lead the way in nuclear disarmament, get
the whole world to stop testing nuclear weapons, stop the bombing in Iraq and lift the embargo."
She says she will be here until the world is safe enough for her to stop her protest. With the US nuclear defence shield already undergoing tests and other nuclear powers threatening to escalate nuclear build-ups, she may be here for a very long time.
(END/IPS/IP/ab/gm/da/00)

Washington Times - White House protester undaunted for nearly 20 years

2000-06-15T12:47:00.001-04:00

White House protester undaunted
for nearly 20 years
Washington Times, Thursday, June 15, 2000, Tom Knott

Concepcion Picciotto lives in protest across from the White House, inhabiting a slab of sidewalk by Lafayette Park.

She has not been there forever it only seems that way.

Mrs. Picciotto, a native of Vigo,Spain, is nearing her 20th year along this closed-off portion of Pennsylvania Avenue. Her message, directed to the principal occupant of the White House, is simple: Stop the nuclear madness.

Bill Clinton does not respond, not unlike those before him, and so, Mrs. Picciotto, one voice one remarkably persistent voice is bound to this part of the city, ever committed to the cause. She is unbowed.

"What makes me tired is the same people who can't come to heir senses ' she says on this sunny, pleasant afternoon.

Mrs. Picciotto, 55, came to the United States in 1964 to work as a secretary with the Spanish Consulate in New York City. She lived her version of the American Dream in those years. She had a job and eventually a husband, a daughter and a home. But the marriage went sour, and a protracted divorce and custody fight ensued.

By 1980, Mrs. Picciotto was working and living in Washington, pleading her legal case on Capitol Hill and then finally on the most well-known artery in the city.

It wasn't long, as she came to know other protesters at the White House, that she adopted the anti-nuclear effort. She says she became an unofficial part of the landscape in front of the White House on Jan. 1,1981.

Her only move, from the White House side of Pennsylvania Avenue to the Lafayette Park side, was prompted by the National Park Service in 1983.

So now, 17 years later, she sits in the same spot, reading, painting and handing out fliers to passers-by while championing a cause. Squirrels and pigeons keep Mrs. Picciotto company. They stay at her side in exchange for the occasional peanut.

"What is the future of our children?" Mrs. Picciotto says. "People have to come to their senses, to think twice before engaging in confrontations."

Mrs. Picciotto is amiable, well spoken, easy on those who attempt to make conversation with her. A tourist suggests it would be nice to have a snapshot taken with her. Would she mind? Why, no. Of course not. She smiles for the camera.

Mrs. Picciotto says the winter months can be particularly hard. On some nights, the cold, no matter how many layers of clothing, cuts to her bones. And still she stays, looking to be heard, refusing to go away.

"Bill Clinton is too busy with Monica to pay attention to what I'm doing," she says.

No one seems put off by Mrs. Picciotto's makeshift camp, notably the U.S. Park Police officers milling around their cruisers parked on Pennsylvania Avenue. Her two plywood signs pass the legal requirements.

Even free speech has its limits across from the White House, the limits being no more than two signs per person and no sign taller than 6 feet.

Shouting is permitted, as one middle-aged man makes clear along Pennsylvania Avenue before he turns right onto East Executive Park. He is wearing a white T-shirt with the words "Salvation for Satan" emblazoned on it. He is shouting his thanks to the uniformed representatives of the U.S. government for granting him free speech.

At least one, a park police officer, smiles and says, "You're welcome."

For Mrs. Picciotto, free speech is a lifestyle.

"We have to do this," she says, referring to herself and cohort William Thomas. "The situation is getting worse by the day. We need education, jobs and housing for the poor."

They maintain a post office box and an Internet site (http://www.prop1.org/conchita).

As perhaps the city's truest believer, Mrs. Picciotto braves the elements, the gawkers, the loss of privacy and God only knows what else on this stretch of pavement.

At night, when the avenue is empty and dark and the park fills with characters of questionable repute, does she ever question her devotion to the cause?

"No, she says simply .

Is she ever scared?

"There is the threat right there," she says, pointing to the White House. "There is the danger."

BILL CLINTON NACHBARIN

1999-07-29T12:46:00.000-04:00

Nachrichten Donnerstag,
29, Juli l999

BILL CLINTON NACHBARIN

Friedens- Aktivistin aus Spanien Kampiert seit l8 Jahren vor dem Wem WeiBen Haus
Zwischen Anti-Kregs-Parolen und Kisten Mit berrralten Steinen aitz Concepcion Picciotto vor dem WelBen Haus
Foto-dpa
Tz Washington
Sie ist die nachste Nachbarin von Amerikas Prasidenten, und das schon seit 18 Jahren. Doch wahrend Bill Clinton wie seine Vorganger Bush, Reagan und Carter im Wei Ben Housresi ,ist das Heim von Concepcion Picciotto nur ein oaar Quadrtmeterr groB, hat weder Dach och Bett oder Stuhl.
Im August l98l zog Concepcion Picciotto, kurz Connie, vor das WeiBe Hous. Seittdem lebt sie heir auf der StraBe und demonstriert fur Frieden und Gerechtigkeit auf Spanierin kampiert zwischen zwei
Holzchildern, auf denen aie ihre Friedenbotschaften geschrieben hat. Meisten sitzt sie auf einer Kiste, umgeben von Kartons, in denen sie bemalte Steine aufbewahrt. Die verkauft sie, weil sie sons kein Geld Fur Essen hatte..

Zunachst hatte sie direkt vor dem Zaun des sie direckt vor dem Zaun des WeiBen Houses gewohnt. Dann wurde sie auf die andere StraBenseite verbannt-auf Veranlassung der demaligen First Lady Nancy Reagan, wie Connie glaubt.
Von ihren Nachbarn halt sie nicht viel,., Carter, Reagan, Bush oder Clinton, sie sind alle gleich, sie unterstutzen den Krieg.

DEAD LITTLE GIRL OF HIROSHIMA

1997-12-01T12:44:00.000-05:00

DEAD LITTLE GIRL OF HIROSHIMA

I came and stand at every door but none can hear my silent tread I knock, but remain unseen for I am dead, for I am dead.
I'm only seven, though I died In Hiroshima long ago I'm seven now as I was then When children die They do not grow old.
I need no fruit, I need no rice I need no food, not even bread I ask for nothing for myself for I am dead, for I am dead.
All that I ask is for peace. You fight today. You fight today So that the children of the world May live and grow and laugh and play.

Standing at Ground Zero - Fumiko Amano

From:
White House Anti-nuclear Peace Vigil
24 Hours a day Since 1981
Maintained By Two Individuals
C. Picciotto and W. Thomas
P.O. Box 4931
Washington, D.C. 20008

Concepcion Information List | Conchita Personal Story
Photographs | The President's Neighbor

Article in Korean News: June, 1997

1997-06-01T21:59:00.000-04:00

Article in Korean News: June, 1997

Received from Shinichi Miyake, Hokkaido, Japan, 2/11/97

1997-02-01T12:42:00.003-05:00

NEWSLETTER "YA- USU-BETSU"
NO. 1 February 1, 1997

Received from Shinichi Miyake, Hokkaido, Japan, 2/11/97: Thank You, Ms. Picciotto!
510 Signatures arrived here in Kushiro

This passage is an excerpt from my letter for Ms. Picciotto. She is an activist of the anti-nuclear Peace Vigil which has continued since 1981 in Lafayette Park outside the White House.

"I am happy to learn that you are getting along quite well. A few days ago, I received a letter from Ms. Michie Mori who is Japanese student studying at American University in Washington, D.C. Michie said, when she recently visited the fort of Peace Vigil you asked her to send the petitions to me. In the big envelope, a lot of signature sheets were enclosed. The number was 477 people on 28 sheets. Total reached 510 in all, including 33 that you gave me three months ago at your fort. I am grateful to you for your cooperation."

To say in detail, the signer's nationality cover over 32 countries as follows:
America/137, Canada/6, Mexico/1, Panama/1, Columbia/3, Brazil/8, Uruguay/1, Argentina/4, UK/17, Ireland/7, Sweden/2, Netherlands/6, Belgium/1, Germany/27, France/4, Switzerland/2, Austria/1, Italy/6, Spain/34,Czeck/1, Slovakia/8, Hungary/1, Russia/4, Turkey/3, Israel/2, Singapore/1, Australia/8, New Zealand/5, South Africa/2, South Korea/95, China/6, Japan/93, and not clear/19.

La gallega apostada ante la Casa Blanca lleva 16 anos viviendo a la intemperie

1996-11-01T12:40:00.003-05:00

Concepcion Martin inicio la campana de protesta al ser dela custodia de su hija

La gallega apostada ante la Casa Blanca lleva 16 anos viviendo a la intemperie

El proximo martes, cuando las elecciones norteamericanas confirmen la anunciada victoria de Bill Clinton para un segundo mandato presidencial, ep flamante presidente democrata ocupara de nuevo su despach o
WASHINGTON. R. GARCIA-RICO

Concepcion Martin sigue en su sitio, exactamente igual que el primer dia del mandato de Clinton, como lo ha hecho durante los dos de Reagan y el de Bush, denunciando con su persistente presencia .

La atormentada historia de esta mujer espa�ola, nacionaii- zada americana, comenzo al intentar Ilevarse a su Galicia natal a su hija de pocos meses tras el divorcio de su marido estadounidense.

Perdio la batalla legal en los tribunales y con ella la potestad de la niRa (a la que no ha vuelto a ver), su trabajo (era int�rprete de la ONU y de la Oficina Comercial Espanola en Nueva York), y su hogar que sustituyo como una homeless mas por el estrecho espacio de tres metros cuadrados de acera frente a la Casa Blanca, en los que no puede tener una silla, tumbarse o dormir sbiertamente por imposicion de ordenanzas municipales estabIecidas precisamente para frenar su causa.

Connie como es conocida ella aqui, a pesar de ir ataviada con sus viejas ropas y Ilevar permanentemente un casco para protegerse de posibles agresiones, tambien navega en Internet, hasta donde ha hecho Ilegar su historia y su protesta. Se lo debe a Thomas, un hippie cincuenton que en los 60 se entretenia reflexioando solo por el desierto y del que recibe la racion diaria mas importante de solidaridad.

Y luego sigue explicando los males que aquejan a nuestro mundo:
"Vote por Perot en las ultimas elecciones, pero esta vez me absendre porque nadie puede arreglar esto. Quiza los negros, que son los que tienen mas fuerza".

Connie vive de donativos y del dinero que gana vendiendo unas piedras pintadas que hoy dia se encuentran repartidas por todo el mundo. Se alimenta practicamente solo de conservas, pan y galletas

Sueno con volver a Galacia; me iria ahora mismo, afirma con la clasica morrina de los gallegos repartidos por todo el mundo, sentencia, para asegurar que seguira� con la misma tenacidad eI tiempo que haga falta. Y luego, en voz baja, susurra, ademas, aqui estoy mas cerca de mi hija,
A veces me pregunto si todo esto es una pesadilla o una realidad, dice ajustandose el flequillo que asoma por el casco,"pero todos las problemas provienen de los negocios, del los grupos judios. yhasta que no acebemos con ello,dodevoy a estar mejor" , comenta Connie.

La gente simpatiza conmigo, anade, mientras saluda familiarmente a un guia que acompa a un grupo de turistas coreanos. "Dios me da fuerza para continuar, asegura la mendiga, que soporta temperauras e xtremas enverano y en invierno, como las del pasado ano, que se situaron por debajo de los 10 grados bajo cero. Pronto recibira al nuevo presidente - son todos iguales, no hacen mas que insultarse - y con seturidad proseguira� su vigilia permanente guardando, ademas, su unica propiedad real: una sortija y unos pendientes de su hija, a la que no ve desde hace 16 anos.

The Little Giant

1995-12-01T12:39:00.002-05:00

WHITE HOUSE PEACE VIGIL
SINCE 1981

CONCEPCION
PICCIOTTO

The Little Giant

A model of focus and dedication, Concepcion has maintained what may be the longest continuous vigil in history. Her consistancy is legendary and tourists come to Lafayette Park from around the world anxious to meet her. :

Concepcion, standing up for her rights.

"Welcome to the M.A.D. House"
a photo of a sign on her sign
makes tourists laugh.

Tourists from Korea, Japan, Guatemala, France, Peru, Germany, South Africa, Mexico, Spain, & more... flock to see a monument to life, alive: twice in the Berlitz Guide...rumors now she's in the Guiness Book of World Records...

Concepcion Information List | Conchita Personal Story
Photographs | The President's Neighbor

Concepcion-der Stachel in der Seite des Weiben Hauses

1995-09-01T12:36:00.002-04:00

Concepcion-der Stachel in der Seite des Weiben Hauses

Uber eine merk-wurdige Frau and Nachbarin des USA-Prasiden / Aus Washington berichtet
REINER OSCHMANN
Neues Deutschland
Freitag, 1, September 1995

Das Weise Haus ist eine ers Adresse nicht nur fur Politikaus aller Welt. Es ist Magnt fiir t~glich Tausende Touristen. Zuvorderst aber ist f Amtssitz und Wohnung des elsten Mannes der Vereinigte Staaten. Jeder Prisident auSf George Washington, der 179 den Grundstein legte-und, wj es heiBt, den Bau iibeiwachtc hat hier gearbeitet und mit se: ner Familie gewohnt.

Seit dem 1. AuRust 1983 Irunmehr im 15. Jahr, hat da WeiDe Haus eine ungewiihnl che Nachbarin. Sie lebt gena gegeniiber dem Nordfliigel de Preisidentensitzes unter freier Himmel und ist nur durch di Breite der Gehsteige und de Pennsylvania Avenue von de Prlsidentenfamilie getrenn Bei ihrer Ankunft waren es di Reagans, spiter die Bushr heute sind es Bill und Hillar Clinton.

Busfahrt ohne Riickfakarte

Auf dem BiiFgersteig bean sprucht die Frau nicht meh als drei bis vier Quadratmeter Dort hat sie ihre selbstgeba stelten Transparente und Poster errichtet. Hier ist ihr Fahr rad abgestellt, ihr Zeichenzeu: und das biBchen persiinlichl Habe. ijber drei Plastik-Milch kisten hat sie eine sauberl Wolldecke gespannt - ihr Sofa Stuhl und Bett in einem, unc auch vgn hier aus hat sie Garten, Springbrunnen und;dil Fensterfront auf der Nordseit des White House im Blick Nachts um elf schalten sie dic Beleuchtung des Brunnen ab", sagt ConcepciBn Picciottc und gibt damit Intimkenntnil der Nachbarschaftsverh;iltnisse zu erkennen.

Die 50jahrige stammt aus Galizien im Nordwesten Spaniens und ist seit gut 30 Jahren den USA. Neun Jahre verbringt sie zunachst in New York in der Handelsvertretung der spanischen Botschaft, dann fur ihr Land bei der UNO. Die kleine Frau spricht funf Sprachen, deutsch nur wenig Worte. Die ersten Jahre in New York lebt sie an der Seite ihres italienischen Ehemannes standesgemaB: Eine Grande Damder Gesellschaft - der Ehepartner Geschaftsmann und Vater der gemeinsamen Tochter Olga ("nach der russischen Turnerin Olga Korbut, die ich bewunderte"), die 1973 geboren wird.

Als Concepcion 20 Monate spater eine traumatisch Scheidung erfahrt, nach der der autoritare Vater auch die Vormundschaft fur die Tochter erhalt, verandert sich fur die Mutter alles: Concepcion verliert Ehemann und Tochter, Arbeit und Zuhause. Jahrelang versucht sie die Vormundschaft fur das Kind zuruckzu gewinnen. Sie geht im Bundesstaat New York und in Madrid vor Gericht. SchlieBlich sucht sie, den fur New York zustandigen Abgeordneten im Unterhaus des Bundesparlaments in Washington fur ihren Fall zu interessieren. Alles vergebens.

Concepcion tragt daraufhin den Kampf um ihr Recht in die Offentlichkeit, zumal sie merkt wie oft die Prinzipien des Rechtsstaats nicht mit seiner Praxis ubereinstimmen. Eines Tages, im Sommer 1981. packt sie ihre Sachen, nimmt einen Bus zum Lafayette Park und laBt sich vor dem WeiBen Haus nieder. Seitdem ist sie dort geblieben. Tag und Nacht, Fruhling, Sommer, Herbst und Winter, und seit langem ist der Kampf um ihr personliches Recht aufgrund ihrer Politisie-rung zu einem Kampf um Frieden und internationale Gerechtigkeit geworden.

Heuchelei und Doppelzun-gigkeit der Herrschenden, die sie zunachst personlich, dann als offen politisch Handelnde erlebt, nennt Concepcion als Motiv ihres aufsehenerregen- den und in jeder Hinsicht stra-paziosen Protests.."They're lying" - sie lugen, steht auf dem Anstecker an ihrer Brust, und auch die Flugblatter,,.die die schwarzhaarige Frau an die Passanten verteilt, machen vor allem auf den Widerspruch zwischen den wohltonenden! Friedensbeteuerungen aus dem WeiBen Haus und dem Festhalten an der Atomwaffenpolitik aufmerksam. Sie zeigt mir das Lincoln-Zitat auf ihrer Wandzeitung, um die Offentlichkeit des Protests zu erklaren: To sin by siience when they should protest, makes cowards of men - durch Schweigen sundigen, wo protestiert werden mubte, macht aus Mannern Feiglinge...

Feige ist das Personchen gewib nicht, was immer man von ihr halten mag. Wiederholt ist sie in den vergangenen Jahren von der Polizei eingeschuchtert und bedrangt, nachts uon betrunkenen Obdachlosen im Lafayette Park angegriffen worden. Die Behorden verschlrfel wiederholt ihre Vorschriften um die stolze Spanierin zun Aufgeben zu zwingen. Ers nmuB sie vom Gehsteig vor den kZaun am WeiBen Haus auf del Gehsteig der gegenuberliegen den Strabenseite wechseln Dann wird die Zahlder Transparente auf zwei, ihre maxi male Hofe auf 1.80 Meter be schrankt, Spater festgelect,dab sie ihre Friedenswache nich weiter als drei FuB (knapp einen Meter) verlassen darf. Einc Verletzung dieser vorschrif galte als Im-Stich-Lassen det Protestposter und wurde die Polizei zur Beschlagnahme des Standes berechtigen.

Auch schlafen darf Concepcion des Nachts offiziell nicht weil dies - rechtlich betrachtet unberechtigtem Camping im Park gleichkame. "Man raubt mir Stuck fur Stuck einzelne Freiheiten". Sie sieht darin einen Beleg fur ihr Urteil uber die USA: The land of the free - as long as you agree. Auf deutsch etwa: Das Lana der Freien, vorausgesetzt, Du sagst zu allem Ja und Amen. Das aues schafft Fia Concepcion ganz praktische Schwie- 1 rigkeiten: Sie kann sich kaum vom Fleck bewegen. Wenn sie einmal pro Tag in einem Obdachlosenasyl auf der anderen Seite des Lilfayette Parks du- schen,!zur Toilette und etwas einkaufen geht, kann sie da's nur tun, wenn vorher Bekannte die Aufsicht uber die Mahnwache ubernehmen.

Kopfhelm unter der Perucke Spatabends lehnt sie sich, im; Sitzen, mit dem Kopf an den Holzrahmen ihres Plakatgestells und schlaft so, "pro Nacht vielleicht vier bis funf Stunden. Am schlimmsten sind die Winter, der vor zwei Jahren steckt ihr noch heute in den Gliedern. "Die StraBen waren spiegelglatt vom Eis. Hier auf der Pennsylvania Avenue haben sich die Autos wie Karussells gedreht, und Bekannte wolltenmich wegholen von der Friedenswache. Ich bin Nacht fur Nacht auf und abgegangen und habe gebetet, Gott moge mich nicht erfrieren lassen."

Sie bestreitet, verbiestert zu sein."Ich bin nicht der Typ, der sich in die Ecke setzt und heult. Icb hin ein lustiger Mensch, und friiher habe ich viel gesungen. Ich bin eine Kampferin". Concepcion zeigt auf ihren Kopf, auf dem sie unter Kopftuch und Perucke einen Helm tragt. Immer. Aus Erfahrung, nachdem sie vor einigen Jahren ein amerikani-scher Marinesoldat ins Gesicht geschlagen hat. Fast verschmitzt bedeutet sie mir: "Im Laufe der 15 Jahre kann ich schon Fortschritte beobachten. Anfangs haben mich viele Amerikaner beschimpft: "Go to Russia!', 'Beschaff Dir nen Job'! oder einfach nur: 'Verschwinde!' Inzwischen finde ich viel Aufmerksamkeit und Zuhorer.

Concepcion versteht sich nicht als Aubenseiterin. "Ich bin keine Exzentrikerin, son-dern durch meinen Kontakt mit so vielen Menschen eng mit dem Alltag verbunden. Die da druben", erklirt sie mit einer Armbewegung in Richtung ihrer prominenten Nachbarn, "die leben in einer Welt der Phantasie, ich aber bin Zeuge ihrer Verbrechen."

Ihren Lebensunterhalt be-streitet sie mit bescheidensten Mitteln. Von kleinen Spenden, die sie bisweilen fur ihre Flug- blatter und fur die in leuch-tender Farbe und mit Friedens- symbolen bemalten Steine bekommt, ernahrt sie sich. Ein Backer aus der Umgebung bringt ihr manchmal eine Tute mit Brotkrumen. Sie brauche nicht viel, rauche und trinke nicht. Sie wundert sich selbst, dab sie das alles bis heute gesundheitlich unbeschadet uberstanden hat. "Das einzige Krankheitsgefuhl, das ich verspure, ruhrt von dem her, was die dort tun. Eigentlich mochte nicht mehr hier sein, aber ich weib nicht, wie lange ich bleiben werde".

Den heutigen Amtsinhaber im Weiben Haus halt sie irgendwo fur ehrlicher als seine beiden Vorganger. Nicht nur, weil Amerikas First Lady ihr einige Male ein paar Sandwiches vorbeibringen lieb. Doch trauen tut sie keinem amerikanischen Prasidenten. Auch die vor unserem Gesprach gerade bekanntgewordene Ankundigung Clintons, Amerikas Kernwaffenversuche ab sofort generell einzustellen; nimmt sie voller Argwohn auf. "Clinton ist ein Wetterhahn. Heute so, morgen so". Man musse auf der Hut und, was sie betrifft, vor Ort bleiben.

Unsere Unterhaltung wird mehrfach unterbrochen. Sobald Passanten Interesse fur ihre Friedenslosungen zeigen, spricht Concepcion sie an, for dert sie auf, sich gegen internationale Waffenverkaufe, fur das Verbot von Atomwaffen-versuchen oder gegen die all-gemeine Doppelzungigkeit des modernen Lebens einzusetzen. Kleiner hat sie's zlicht, kleiner will sie's nicht, deswegen hat sie auch keine Scheu - mit einem Blick uber den Zaun des Weiben Hauses - zwischendurch Satze wie diesen fallen zulassen: "Es gibt keine Grechtigkei oder Demokratie in dem, was Amerika vorlebt. It is all propaganda and double standards."

In den Augen manches Amerikaners gilt sie als Kommunistin, mindestens als vater landslose Gesellin. Das ficht Concepcion Picciotto nicht an. "Ich glaube an Gott, aber nicht an die Kirche oder religiose Organisationen, weil sie alle korrupt sind. Ich bin weder Sozialistin noch Kommunistin, und ich kassiere keine Wohlfahrt. Ich bin einfach nur ein Mensch, der Frieden, Freiheit und Gerechtigkeit liebt."

Wenn's nach den Geheimen ginge...

Solche Bekenntnisse reichen aus, Ordnungshuter zu verunsichern. J.F. Muskett, ein drahtiger junger Mann im kurzarmligen Uniformhemd und mit mustgrgultig gestutztem Oberlippenbartchen, ist einer der Geheimdienstmanner, die ebeniso dskret wie unubersehbar den Komplex des Wieben Hauses umstehen. "Er habe, sagt er zu mir, uberhaupt nichts gegen Concepcion, die bekannteste Nachbarin des Prasidenten. "Sie ist eine friedfertige und anstandige Frau. Ich wurde sie auch nicht wegschleppen. Aber wenn es nach mir ginge, wurde ich sie wegbegleiten, denn mit ihrem Dauerprotest verschandelt sie das Weibe Haus, das zu sehen, viele Menschen extra von weither anreisen.

Wie es aussieht, ist Concepcion, die kleine Amerikanerin aus Galizien, ein kleiner, unangenehmer Stachel in der Seit des Weiben Hauses. Sie weib, dab am 1. September Weltfriedenstag ist. Aber das ist ihr nicht weiter bedeutend. Fur sie ist jeder Tag Weltfriedenstag. Seit knapp 15 Jahren.

NOVA SAO PAULO

1995-06-01T12:34:00.005-04:00

NOVA SAO PAULO

Vigilia pela Paz

Ha 14 anos, Concepcion Martin Picciotto, de 50 anos, vive 24 horas por dia, em vigilia pacifista anti-nuclear, em frente a Casa Branca, em Washington-Estados Unidos. Desde este tempo, ela passa o dia pregando a paz entre os paises. Concepcion conta que durante os 14 anos de sua vigilia, ela ja esteve na calcada que beira a Casa Branca e depois foi impedia, passando a ficar do outro lado, na praca localizada a avenida Pennsylvania. Sobrevive de ajuda de particulares e de donativos que recebe quando vende algum material que ela mesmo pinta sobre a paz. Reconhece ser uma campanha muito sofrida porem ela disse que gosta muito de ficar la 24 horas por dia, e nao importa o sacrificio vai continuar ate quando Deus Quiser.

Os turistas e curiosos que frequentemente passam para conhecer a Casa Branca recebem uma palavra de optimismo em favor da paz, proferida por Concepcion. Ela acha que se todas fizessem a sua parte haveria menor dor e sofrimento no mundo. Os grupos religiosos, direitos, humanos, outras organizacoes e povo em geral devem sempre se preocuparem com a paz no mundo indidtintamente e proibirem as experiencias nucleares que sao os poerigos da humanidade, conclui a pacifista.

Washington Post - Two Worlds Collide Near White House

1994-12-22T12:13:00.001-05:00

The Washington Post, Thursday, December 22, 1994
Two Worlds Collide Near White House
Shooting Puts Focus On Pennsylvania Divide
By DeNeen L. Brown and Wendy Melillo
Washington Post Staff Writers

Usually the two worlds are parallel in the 1600 block of Pennsylvania Avenue: the White House on one side, representing power and some sanity, and Lafayette Square on the other, filled with the powerless, homeless and demonstrators, some who slip in and out of lucidity as they mount angry protests.

On Tuesday, the two sides collided when a homeless man dashed across the avenue and allegedly attacked a U.S. Park Police officer, whose job it is to secure the grounds around the White House.

The man, identified as Marcelino Corniel, 33, who was shot twice--in the chest and leg--had lived in the park for several mouths. He died yesterday at George Washington University Hospital.

Yesterday, a number of demonstrators and homeless people who stay in the park said they believed Corniel had "snapped" because he was angry about what they called police harassment. They said Corniel was upset that Park Police had taken away two lockers belonging to some of his homeless friends. One man said that Corniel wanted revenge because officers had taken away his blankets.

The shooting on the sidewalk in front of the White House has brought new attention to the world of Lafayette Square, a green square once called Presidents Park that has become a grand stage for world protests and a symbol of the American right to freedom of speech.

Yesterday, Frank Fahrenkopf, the former national chairman of the Republican Party, called for officials to clear out the park. "The American people should have the right to bring their kids to see the people's house without having bums abuse them or yell or scream or see people lying in their own filth," Fahrenkopf said.

The park, which was once the front lawn of the White House, has become a neighborhood--the homeless and demonstrators live on park benches instead of in houses. The anti-government- demonstrators have claimed the sidewalk along Pennsylvania Avenue as their territory. Homeless people congregate not far away in the northeast and northwest comers of the park. During the day, they wait on benches, talking Some drink from paper bags and others just sit and stare. Mostly, they wait for food, for sandwich wagons, gracious souls who bring fruit and office workers who deliver leftovers from office parties.

At night, they fend off rats and sit straight up as they "nap" to avoid citations for sleeping-prohibited in the park. As in any neighborhood, there is neighborly tension. "Basically, they have it good on the front line, said a homeless woman named Robin, who moved to the park six months ago, who sits on a cushion on a bench near 15th and H streets NW. "They get stuff on the front line all the time, and they don't tell us about it. We don't get along. They just act snobbish."

Concepcion Picciotto, a woman who has kept a vigil directly across the street from the White House since 1978 to protest nuclear weapons, said she is not part of the group of homeless people. I'm not connected with that," she said dipping a brush in a can of green paint as she drew a peace sign and a dove on a stone. I'm here, to communicate my cause and paint my rocks.

Not far from her live the "Jackson brothers," who are protesting the "assassination" of their father, who they say was a presidential adviser. They also claim to be direct descendants of at least five presidents. They complain about police. "They take a stick and come by in the morning and bang on the boards and scream,'Get up,' "Walter Jackson said.

U.S. Park Police patrol day and night to enforce federal laws that prohibit people from camping in the park. Park Police Maj. Robert H. Hines said security has been increased since Oct. 29, when more than a dozen shots were fired at the White House, allegedly by a Colorado man. He said two officers instead of one are now assigned to patrol the two beats, the sidewalk in front of the White House and the park. Hines denied that officers are harassing people in the park.

He said officers are just trying to enforce the law against camping, "I think each officer allows a little latitude. If someone falls asleep, they might let them sleep for an hour or two," he said. "But if they have been Sleeping all night long, we wake them up. We don't want to get the appearance the park is a camp site."

14 JAHRE FUR DEN FRIEDEN

1994-06-19T12:11:00.003-04:00

TAG UND NACHT VORM WEIBEN HOUS;
14 JAHRE FUR DEN FRIEDEN
Von unserem Korrespondenten Peter W, Sschroeder
BREMER
Sonntag, 19, Juni 1994
NACHRICHTEN
Washington, Amerikaniche Peasidenten Kommen und gehen,, aber sie bleibt; Concepcion Picciotto Vor l4 Jahren zog die geburtige Spanieren mit Friedensplakaten vor das WeiBe Haus und und blieb. Sie hat ihren Plaatz seit uber 5000 Tagen und Nachten nicht mehrr verlassen, Wenn die da ver nunftig werden" sagt die 49jahrige Frau und zeigt auf den gegenuberliegenden Amtssitz des Prasidenten, dann kann ich in die Gesellscraft zuruckkehren :Abersieist beinahe sicher, auf dem Pflaster vor dem WeiBen Hous zu sterben.
Etlichen Amerikanern war und ist Concepcion ein Dorn im Auge,, Fur die ehemalige First Lady Nancy Reagan war die Dauerdemostrantin mit ihren beleiddigenden Transparenten: ein :Schandfleck: Der damalige Innenminister betrachtete die Friedenskampferin als Sicherheitsriisiko und verbot jegliche Demostration auf demm Gehweg vor der Schlaf und Arbeitsstatte des Prasidenten Daraufhin siedelte Concepcion zur enderen StraBenseite uber, an den Rand des Lafayette-Parks. Dort wird sie haufig von patriotischen Amerikanern angepobelt.
Wahrend des Golfkrieges wurde sie von einem Marines zusammengeschlgen, Ein in der Nahe stehender Polizist drehte sich um sah weg. Auch die Administration bemuht sich seit Jahren mit UNO-Angestellte Concepcion zu vertreiben, Beispielsweise dart sich niemand in der Nahe des WeiBen Houses Schlafen legen, Wenn ein Demosntrant sich weiter als einen Meter von seinen Besitztumern- ein-schlieBlich der Protesttschilder- entfernt…..
, durten sie von den sprungbereiten Polizisten beschlagnahmt werden.
Mit dem Einzug von Bill Clinton sind die Belastigungen seltener geworden" sagt die Dauerdemonstrantin, Hillary Clinton-Fan ist Concepcion deshalb noch lange nicht geworden. Der ist elwas besser als die anderen, aber fur den Frieden tut er nich genug Auch unter Clinton gilt weiterhin das Schlafverbot vor dem WeiBen Haus, Inzwischen hat sich Concepcion das Schlafwn abgwohnt. Irgendwann in der Nacht hockt sie sich aufeinen kleinen Karton und dost vor sich hin. Mehr als drei Stunden Ruhe Kommen aberr nur in wenigen Nachten Zusammen.
Im Winter, wenn die Quecksilbersaule oft auf mehi als 20 Grad minus fallt, macht sie die Augen immer nur fur ein paar Minuten zu= aus Angst vor dem Erfrieren. Ansonsten furchtet sie nur noch vor dem, Erfrieren, Ansonsten furchtet sie sich nur noch vor dem Alter,

Passanten drucken ihr gelegentlich Dollarscheine in die Hand, DDaavon laBt sie Handzettel mit Friedensbotschften drucken und kaufl blaue und weiBe Farbe, mit der sie Friedenstauben auf Steine malt. Die Stteine verschenkt sie als Mahnung, daB wir Frieden brauchen" Sie sollen auch ihr Vermachtnis sein,, Die Friedenstauben wird es noch geben, wenn ich nicht mehr demonstrieren kann.

Protesten als dagtaak

1994-06-01T12:05:00.002-04:00

Protesten als dagtaak

jan doets america tours

amerika & canada
revue 1994

ledere dag en ledere nacht. Van's ochtends vroeg tot 's avonds laat. Op een beschelden stukje stoep in Lafayette Park, recht tegenover de ingang van het Witte Huls. Connie Picciotto demonstreert sinds 1 augustus 1981 onafgebroken tegen misstanden in de wereld. Als buurvrouw van al drie presidenten is demonstreren haar dagtaak geworden. Samen met haar vriend William Thomas en deeehoorns in het park. Geen van de buren heeeft ze echter ooit ontmoet. Ze vindt Bill Clinton sympathiek, maar betwijfelt of hij haar zal ultnodigen. Haar boodschap: vrede, vrijheld en grechtigheld in de wereld. Acties als "Live By The Bomb...Die by the Bomb' en "Civilized People do not Nuke Fellow Humans'.

Ze zijn mede-oprichters van het White House Anti-Nuclear Peace Vigil. Ze claimt het moderne record voor het langste presidentiele proptest. Deelt pamfletten uit, praat met voorbijgsangers, stelt haar vriend zijn protestborden ten toon. De boodschap is simpel: vrede, vrijheid en gerechtigheid. Neit zo simpel. Dat blijkt uit de reacties. Connie en haar vriend zijn bedreigd en gearressteerd door de politie, geslagen en uitgedaagd door vreemden, genegeerd door de meerheid van hun publiek.

"We offeren veel," zegtt Connie Picciotto, die 43 jaar is. "Maar we houden het vol, want het is het waard."

Een bijzonder leven van een vrouw die geboren is in het westen van Spanje. Ze was al vroeg weeskind. Connie Picciotto werd opgevoed door haar grootmoeder. Toen deze overleed besloot zij naar de VerenigdeStaten te emigreen. Ze was toen 18 jaar oud. Op 21-jarigeleeftijd ontmoette ze een Italiaanse zakenman met wie ze later trouwde. Ze vond een baan als secretaresse op het Spaanse Consulaat. In 1980 ging ze werken als babysitter. In haar vrije tijd begon ze zich op te houden voor het Witte Huis met haar handgeschreven protestborden. Haar roep om gerechtigheid. Ze schreef ook brieven. Op een brief aan Lilian Carter kreeg ze de volgende reactie, "Ik sympathiseer met je zaak, maar ik ben duizend kilometer weg en heb geen macht."

Bevriend

Gaandeweg raakte ze bevriend met andere demonstranten. Ze breidde haar acties uit met protesten tegen de nucleaire bewapening. Ze raakte steeds meer doordrongen van haar doel. Uiteindelijk, op een warme dag halverwege Ronald Reagan's eerste presidentsjaar, pakte ze haar bezittingen en nam de bus near Lafayette Park. Sindsdien verbijft ze daar. Ze leeft op koffie, donuts en brood. Af en toe brengen vrienden haar kaas, fruit en sandwiches. Ze gebruikt het toilet van het nabigelen restaurant en neemt af en toe een douche in een opvangcentrum voor daklozen in het centrum. Germiddid slaapt ze drie uur per dag. Leunend tegen een van haar protestborden.

Kou

"De winters zijn het ergst,"zegt mevrouw Picciotto. Er is geen enkele kleding bestand tegen de kou. De meeste nachten 'ijsbeert' ze dan ook over de stoep om zichzelf warm te houden. Ze leeft van donaties. Op een goede dag 'verdient' ze 15 dollar. Ze geeft het geld uit aan voedsel, het drukken van pamfletten en verf voor haar 'peace rocks' waar ze een aantal jaren geleden mee begon. Nu zijn het populaire souveneirs geworden voor de toeristen, hoewel ze weigert om er geld voor te vragen.

Bedregingen zijn haar grootste zorg Het varieeret van verbaal geweld tot lichamelijk letsel. Acht jaar geleden stompte een marinier haar het gezicht. Soms zijn er bedreigingen van enkele daklozen die het park bewonen. De parkpolitie is een verhaal apart. Slapen wordt beschouwd als kamperen - verboden - en het achterlaten van posters is eveneens verboden. Regelmatig moeten ze op de vlucht. Ondanks die tegenslagen blijzij waar ze is. "Ik kan teruggan naaar de samenleving en gewoon mijn geld verdienen. God heeft echter een belangrijkere taak voor mij uitgekozen."
P.S. van Jan Doets: "Wanneer u een bezoek brengt aan Washington D.C., gaat u dan ook eens langs bij mevrouw Picciotto."

The Washington Post Friday, May 13, 1994

1994-04-13T12:09:00.002-04:00

The Washington Post
Friday, May 13, 1994

History in The Square

By Linda Wheeler
Washington Post Staff Writer

Robert Smith says he's got the best address in Washington. right across the street from the White House.

"I live in Lafayette Park because of the White House over there, the Treasury over there and the Blair House around the corner." said the 4O-year-old homeless man who has dodged police intent on moving him out of the park for six months. What allows me to feel like an impor- tant person."

The location has made the seven-acre federal preserve, once known as the Presidents Park but officially named Lafayette Square in 1834. an international crossroads, the grand stage for protests and for inaugural parades. Nearly every day it is filled by tourists photographing the live-in demonstrators, the homeless panhandling from office workers and bicycle messengers whizzing past chess players and picnickers.

To preserve this contemporary history, the staff of the National Trust for Historic Reservation is recording comments of those who use the great expanse of green lawn dotted with statues of heroes of the early republic and crisscrossed with red and black brick walks.

Michele Craig. director of education for the Decatur House, a national trust property that faces the 204-year-old park. Mid she was inspired to begin the year-long project when her grand- mother recounted childhood memories of Washington and taking tea the nearby Hay-Adams thing that happens every day and everyone experiences it in their own way."

The National Trust is collecting the park's history under a red-and- white stripped tent outside the Decatur House at Jackson Place and H street NW. As people stop by to view historical photographs, they are invited to contribute to the oral history. By yesterday, nearly 300 had stopped by, and Craig said 35 to 40 of them will be contacted for follow-up interviews.

Meridith Smoke, 70, of Washington, told Craig she always brings out-of-town visitors to the park, walking them to all four corners to see the statues and introducing them to the peace demonstrators who have kept a round-the-clock vigil for more than a decade.

One of those demonstrators is Concepcion Picciotto, 47, who has became an unofficial park hostess. Visitors regularly hock around her and listen to her ambling discourse on international issues and corruption at home.

When a group of German visitors came through the park recently, she had fliers to hand out in German. Shortly afterwards, eighth-graders visiting from Montgomery, Vt., photo- graphed her as she displayed the rocks she had painted in primary colors and decorated with white doves. For a donation, 1 visitor can take a peace stone home.

"My work is this work." she told the children. "I take no welfare. I don't take nothing. We have to work for world peace."

Next to Piccioto, an evangelical minister from San Diego had set up a stepladder, climbed up and, holding the Bible aloft, began reciting passages. Picciotto was irritated that he stood so dose to her aged protest signs. He was, she said, taking attention away from her message.

Apostle John C. Zahos. 33, said the Lord directed him to fly to Washington and to preach in Lafayette Square. Next to him, Collin Spruill Spruill. 28, of Washington, played Amazing Grace on a trumpet, saying afterward he hoped President Clinton would bring out his saxophone for a duet. Craig said she plans to go into the park in the next few weeks to interview Smith, Picciotto, Zahos, Spruill and others. During Historic Preservation Week next year, Craig said the statements and photographs of those interviewed will be on exhibit at the Decatur House.

For an the people who view the park as a place to protest or demonstrate. there are many more who see it as a convenient place to play or exercise.

Tom Roberts, 28. an accountant, spends his lunch hour hoping to find a challenging partner for a game of chess. He sets up his board and takes on all competitors. "At lunch time, this is the place to be for chess," he said.

Veteran's Administration employee John Standard. 51. uses the lawn as an exercise mat. The park, he said, is convenient to his office around the corner.

James Sledge. 23, a National Park Service employee for two years. said he would like to talk to Craig but he is too busy mowing the gas twice a week and planting' salvia and dusty miller in flower beds. *This is my park," he said as his red Jacobsen mower rumbled along chopping everything to a uniform two inch height. It is a big spacey piece. with a little group here and littie group there. There is room for everybody."

A WOMAN'S ROUND THE CLOCK PEACE VIGIL

1993-09-19T12:00:00.001-04:00

Daily Express
Malaysia
Sunday, Sept. 19, 1993

A WOMAN'S ROUND THE CLOCK PEACE VIGIL

From James Sarda

PENNSYLVANIA Avenue in Washington D.C. is home to two famous residents both located diagonally across the other.

One is the most powerful man on earth-who exercises great influence from a secure and comfortable white-washed 1818 century mansion.

The other is a woman who braves the wind, rain, sun and snow in a lonely round-the-clock street vigil alerting people to the horrors of weapons and nuclear war.

She also rails against all that her neighbor stands for, decrying what she calls 'inconsistencies of the American government to peoples of other nations.'

A helmet that caps her puny 46-year-old frame is her only protection in life. Although technically homeless. Concepcion Picciotto has won so far in staying power at least.

She has outlasted two of the mansion's occupants - Ronald Reagan and George Bush. "Since sitting here 13 years ago, I have seen leaders the world over enter the 'madhouse' over there." she said pointing to White House across the street.

"I suspect what they discuss most of the time behind those doors is buying weapons." says Picciotto.

She was sitting atop a milk crate on the small sidewalk space which has been her home ever since she decided to demonstrate for a living on Aug 1.1981.

She decided taking her protest to the gates of the White House which draws millions of visitors yearly to be the most effective way of getting her message across.

"People must pressure their governments not to buy weapons anymore.

"There is just too much misery being caused by these.

What people everywhere need is better homes and jobs. Yet governments are engaged in buying weapons to kill people.

Picciotto lacked kind words for both the Republican and Democrat presidents she has ken sharing the neighborhood with.

"There. is no justice or democracy in what America practices. It is all propaganda and double standards.

"Look at the invasion of Panama, Grenada and our involvements in Nicaragua, Kuwait and Somalia.

"Look what happened to (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein. They labeled him crazy. But he was not crazy when he was working for the U.S.

"Those who challenge US injustices are labeled crazy communist or anti-American. "We also give Israel all those weapons and money and disregard the consequences, enters Lebanon with these like Hitler did in Europe.

"What is the difference and why isn't anyone speaking about paying reparations to the Lebanese and Palestinians' "I am here to make a point. That the US is an evil empire covering up its actions under the veil of democracy," says Picciotto.

As if to make her opinion known to those who do not solicit it, she has a lapel badge that reads "They lie".

Picciotto is knowledgeable and savvy for a woman dedicated to spending her life trying to make her principles known.

Newspaper clippings of her by visiting journalists from many countries and in various languages adorn her rack.

Professing to be acting on her own. she engaged in another round of America-bashing.

"The US imposes an embargo on nations it dislikes. "Don't they realize that children and elders am dying from the denial of food and medicines.

"Yet we go about pretending to be Samaritans?"

The United Nations, too, was not spared her ire.

"The UN has become a Trojan horse for America.

"The UN is supposed to be a peacemaker but is acting according to where the US is pushing it."

Picciotto came to her adopted homeland from Spain in 1964 and worked briefly in the UN and the Spanish Embassy.

She married an Italian businessman but it ended in divorce within 20 months.

He took away their own child, a daughter. What followed was seven-years of failed custody battles in both Spain and the US.

She yearns to see her daughter who should be 19 now, but is not pinning too much hope on it.

Picciotto also spoke of experiencing discrimination and abuse as a woman alone on the streets of Washington.

"I have been spat at by right wingers. gassed and arrested by police, have seen my signs destroyed and vandalized. But I will continue to be here until God decides it is time to stop. In the beginning, Picciotto used to spend the day in front of the White House and nights at Lafayette Park just across the street.

However, the National Parks Service tightened the rules and drove the protesters from the corridors of the White House entrance area to the fringe of the park grounds.

In an effort to be rid of her and other protesters, more restrictions were imposed two years ago.

Each protester is now allowed only two signs which cannot exceed more than six feet in height.

They were also disallowed from lying down as this would then be construed as camping, which is disallowed at the park.

As a result she sleeps an average of three hours daily in a sitting position on a milk crate,leaning against her signs.

One had pictures of a devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the Second World War plastered all over it.

"It is terrible during winter. I have to pace up and down the sidewalk in order not to freeze to death.

"Plastic sheets and blankets provide her with !he only warmth during these cold moments."

She is away from her site only when she needs to bathe at a shelter for the homeless or use the toilet at a Hardees outlet nearby.

She usually arranges for a sympathetic volunteer to guard the site when this arises. She runs out of luck at times when it comes to using the toilet. "Many times it hurt my stomach but 1 just have to bear it."

Neither does she believe in going to any prayer house. "I believe in God but not in religious organisations because they am all corrupt. "Besides, I do not have to enter a special building to pray to God because he is every- where.

Although she does not solicit funds, passers-by and tourists do provide a little cash sometimes which she uses to make more copies of her anti-nuclear messages.

In return these tourists receive her "peace rocks" with a white dove painted on them. A vegetarian, Picciotto feeds on bread crumbs delivered free by a bakery to homeless people in the area five days a week. Will she give up her cause if persuaded by the President' "Unlikely. But if he has anything to say to me as his neighbor he must come to this spot. I will want our discussion to be in the open."

Picciotto also has a postal address that was arranged a sympathizer. It is: White House Antli Nuke, Peace Vigil; P.O. Box 4931. Washington D.C. 20008.

China People's Daily 1993

1993-06-01T12:04:00.000-04:00

CHINA: 1993

Revista Maryknoll, March 1992 Cargando la cruz ajen

1992-06-01T11:58:00.000-04:00

Reflexion grafica por Sally Hanlon:

Revista Maryknoll, March 1992 Cargando la cruz ajena

Concepcion Piccioto, oriunda de Espana, lleva 10 anon dia y noche frente a la Cas Blanca en vigilia permanente por la paz?
Concepcion Picciotto, a native of Spain, has spent 10 years [97: 16 years] of her life in front of the White House day and night in a permanent vigil for peace. What will I contribute to peace?
Revista Maryknoll.

White House Demonstrators Under Siege

1991-06-01T22:01:00.001-04:00

Peace Park
Under Siege

by Miriam Olsen

If the National Park Service has its way, the Lafayette Peace Park community across the street from the White House in Washington, D.C., may become one of the uncounted casualties of the Persian Gulf War.

Since its inception in 1981 by William Thomas and Concepcion Picciotto, the Lafayette Peace Park has maintained a 24-hour a day presence, perhaps the longest such continuous peace vigil in the United States. Since 1983, the community has been the target of a myriad of National Park Service regulations designed solely for the purpose of removing what many consider to be a troublesome "eyesore" from the White House environs. Regulations put into effect throughout the decade include strict definitions of what constitutes "camping", limits on the size of signs, and the now-famous "60 decibels"regulation. Soon these will be joined by proposed new rules, including one limiting personal possessions in the park to no more than Three cubic feet.

The Minnesota Peace Drum and a group of nine Minnesotans, five of them Native Americans, spent the days and nights of January 13-17 in Lafayette Park Two of the group's members returned with the drum five weeks later. after reports of greatly increased arrests and harassment by Park Police reached them.

Two women, Bev Nii-Anderson of Hackensack. MN (a member of the Leech Lake Pillager band) and I returned to Minnesota on March 2 after four days in Washington. D.C. They report that the Peace Park community is now the object of constant surveillance and intimidation by the Park Police. Enforcement of NPS regulations is arbitrary and selective: Peace Park residents are kicked by officers every half hour during the night, and if they are asleep- are arrested for "camping," while homeless who sleep throughout the park are allowed to rest undisturbed Upon release from jail, personal property (signs, blankets, musical instruments, even eyeglasses) is not being returned to protesters. If they move more than three feet away from their property (even to go to the bathroom) Park Police enter the gate in the newly constructed iron fence to confiscate it.

The drums of Lafayette park are now silenced every evening at 7 p.m. by a cadre of Park Police officers. Thursday evening, February 28,sixteen officers came through the gate to usher the Minnesota Peace Drum out of the park. When the police were asked if the drum could be set down and not beaten so the Minnesotans could remain with the vigil. their reply was: "If you sit that drum down, it will be confiscated and you will be arrested."

Arrests of this small protest community, committed to maintaining, at any cost to themselves, a nonviolent witness for peace and disarmament, began to escalate when the fighting began in the Persian Gulf and it continues, even though the war is "over." 'As of February 18. there had been 121 arrests of Peace Park residents since the onset of the war. Total arrests as of press time approach 200.

Originally known as the "President's Park" after its purchase for $469 in 1791. Lafayette Park was separated from the White House lawn by Thomas Jefferson, who decided it for the people's use. Visitors from across the nation and around the world include Lafayette Park and its protest community on their stops at the White.House. They chat, ask questions, and gather leaflets from Peace Park residents.'They request permission to pose for photographs in front of the no-longer- allowed signs. "How wonderful it is for you Americans," a Korean visitor exclaimed to a member of the Minnesota group during those days in January. "How wonderful that you are allowed to oppose the President's policies right across the street from his house...."

Miriam Olsen is a peace activist and Northern Sun member who lives and writes in Browerville. MN. She may be contacted at RR 3 #136. Browerville. MN 56452, phone (612) 594-2454. Bev Nii-Anderson can be reached at P.O. Box 353, Hackensack, MN, 56452, phone (218) 675-5176.

1991-03-02T21:58:00.000-05:00

EL PAIS
Diario independiente de la semana
Redaccion Administrativa y talleres Miguel Yuste 40-28037 madrid-tl-{91}337-8300 80 pesetas- ano xv1 numero 5.083
Edicion Madrid
Sabado 2 de marzo de 1991
GENTE
CONCEPCION MARTIN
10 anos de protesta
ante la Casa Blanca
J.M. Washington.
Desde el 1 de agosto de 1981, unaa gallega de Vigo vive las 24 horas del dia en vigilia pacifista antinuclear frente a la Casa Blanca. Concepcion Martin Picciotto, de 46 anos, conocida como Connie, es la historia de una desesperacion personal que la llevo a expresar su impotencia istalandose con un fardo de ropas y una pancarta a a escasos metros del domicilio del presidente norteamericano. La acera del numero l.600 de la Pennsylvania Avenue, domicilio postal de la Casa Blanca, es tambien, desde hace 10 anos, el de esta gallega, nacionalizada norteamericana, atormentada por un drama familiar y hoy dispuesta a seguir su dramatica vigilia :hasta que Dios quiera.
Connie comparte con otro pacifista- Thomas Doubting-, vecino de pancarta unos metross al lado de su vigilia desde 1981. Los dos, Connie y Thomas, son los veteranos de una protesta que forma parte del paisaje turistico de uno de los lugares mas visitados de Washington, el parque de la Fayette, frente a la Casa Blanca. Concepcion llego a su vigilia pacifista, que dura ya 10 anos, despues de mover Roma con Santiago pidiendo ayuda para un dramatico problema personal: un tribunal de Manhattan le concedio la patria potestad de su hijita al marido, del que Concepcion acaba de divorciarse en 1974, un italo-norteamericano con el cual se habia casado cuando ella tenia 21 anos. Del tormentoso divorcio, la emigrante gallega perdio a su marido, a su hija, su trabajo y su casa. Y desde entonces no volvio a ver a su hija, que ahora tiene 17 anos.
"Yo queria irme a Espana para educar alli a mi hijita, pero mi marido y su familia se opusieron y montaron toda una campana de acoso hasta que acabaron quitandome la potestad de la nina. Dijeron que no era una madre adecuada", dice. "Aqui no hay justicia, todo es un negocio. Y yo fui una victima de este sistema corrompido. Aquello fue una injusticia y un acoso del sistema social norteamericano, que contra el que llevo luchando desde entonces, y asi seguire haciendolo hasta que Dios quiera"
Ayudada, tan generosa como inutilmente, por grupos religiosos y de derechos humanos, Connie comenzo un peregrinage por despachos politicos de Nueva York y Washington en busca de ayuda, que nunca obtuvo. En Madrid el Ministerio de Exteriores tampoco lwe fue muy util, ya que le dijeron, que habia perdido su nacionalidad espanola. Y cansada y mareada y enloquecida en su frustracion, un dia , en 1978, comenzo a expresar su protesta portando pancartas frente a la Casa Blanca. Luego, el I the agosto de 1981, siguio el ejemplo de un pacifista, Thomas Doubting que habia comenzado una vigilia pacifista permanente, y se instalo con el.. Desde entonces, sobreviven frente al acoso policial, las inclemencias del tiempo, las provocaciones de patriotas radicales y las agresiones de algun que otro loco que se acerca por alli. Las ordenanzas de Servicio de Parques y jardines, que custodia la zona, les prohiben dormir en sacos, sentarse en sillas o portar mas de una pancarta.. Tienen que permanecer unos metros separados el uno del otro, y sus pancartas no pueden tener mas de unas medidas estipuladas y que la policia se encarga de verificar a cada rato.
Concepcion, que vive de la ayuda de particulares y de los donativos que recibe cuando regala unas piedras de la paz pintadas por ella, reconoce resignada la dureza de su campana.
Me costo muchisimo ponerme aqui las 24 horas del dia. Es un sacrificio enorme, pero seguire hasta que Dios quiera.

WOMAN LIVES PEACE

1991-02-01T21:57:00.000-05:00

HIGH TIMES

MURPHY HIGH SCHOOL

MOBILE, ALABAMA

February 1991

WOMAN LIVES PEACE
By LUTZ KLEVEMAN
On A chilly morning in the last autumn during the CLOSE-UP program, I strolled through the streets of Washington D.C. Surrounded by seemingly listless and hasty people I approach the White House. Fascinated by this building which I have only seen on TV before, I prepare my camera.

Suddenly, I discover a woman on the other side of the road who officiously sweeps stubs together. I come nearer greet her and stand still, curious about her reaction. Gay eyes out of her wrinkled face look at me and she answers with a friendly "Hello" and "How are you today?" I feel invited, and we easily engage in conversation. Proudly, she presents me her stand which is covered by pictures and information ma- terial. The slogans on the yellow boards are fairly visible.

Since 1981, Concepcion Picciotto has been living on that spot. Every season, day and night during almost tell years under the open sky, she has demonstrated for peace. She is a living pence vigil against the nuclear war.

"Today, we have to set clear signs of peace against rearmament, of the super powers the discord in the world she asserts." Her voice doesn't sound fanatic, rather tender.

She talks to people to inform and convince them shout the madness of war. Excitedly she says, "Each day is different. Today I meet you, tomorrow maybe in African or a Japanese..."

Although the courageous woman can be seen daily by the President and his family, no official has ever bothered to talk to he;. Instead, there have been laws enacted to re- strict her field of activity and to drive away the troublesome person. "this control only reveals their fear, " Concepcion, says defiantly.

Several times policemen and Navy soldiers have beaten up the defenseless woman and destroyed her stand. The evidence she shows me, newspaper clippings and pictures of her face covered with blood. Despite those maltreatment's Concepcion continues her mission for freedom justice, equality, and pence. The source of her resoluteness and confidence is God. "When danger arises, I wait, I see, and I pray she tells me.

For farewell we embrace each other and wish each other peace and a nice day. I'm glad that she exists.

A LIFE OF PROTEST

1988-12-10T21:56:00.002-05:00

A LIFE OF PROTEST

By George Joseph Tanber
TOLEDO MAGAZINE, Decmber 4-10, 1988

WASHINGTON: She's beginning her eighth winter in the neighborhood, yet she's never met the only other residents of the block.

Mr. and Mrs. Reagan, meet Concepcion Picciotto.

Not so simple, it seems, has been the response. They've been harassed and arrested by police, beaten and taunted by strangers, and ignored by most of their audience.

"We are sacrificing a lot." says Mrs Picciotto. who is 43. "And we are enduring a lot. But it's worth it.

Her face is weather-beaten, but her dark eyes sparkle, reflecting the enthusiasm she has for what she calls her "life's work."

Winters are the worst, says Mrs. Picciotto. No amount of clothing keeps the cold out, and she spends most nights pacing the sidewalk to avoid perishing.

"Imagine." she says,"I have seen people freeze to death in that park, right across the street from the house of the most powerful man in the world."

AT LAFAYETTE SQUARE IN FRONT OF THE WHITE HOUSE

1988-01-02T21:54:00.000-05:00

La Casa Bianca
3,366 persone tutte al servizio di un inquilino

Punt E Mes l'alternativa

Anno - Numero 239 - L. 1200
mercoledi 2 novembre 1988
la Republica
I segreti della "reggia" americana
dal nostro corrispondente
ENRICO FRANCESCHINI WASHINGTON - Accovacciata a terra tra pile di violantini, ritagli di giornale, cartelli che inneggiano alla pace nel mondo, borse, pacchettini, una cesta di pane secco, e il sacco a pelo che le fa da letto, Concetta Picciotto indica la Casa Bianca, dall'altra parte dellaa strada, e dice, nell'italiano stentato dell'emigrante della seconda generazione:

"Per me Bush o Dukakis uguali sono. Non me importa chi fisce la dentroal posta di Reagan. Tutti e due non buono. Non me piace"

Da sette anni si e accampata qui, proprio di fronte al 1600 di Pennsylvania Avenue, l'indirizzo piu esclusivo d'America, la residenza del presidente degli Stati Uniti: d'inverno e d'estate, di giorno e di notte, conduce cosi la sua isolata, testarda protesta control l'America, accusandola di spendere in armamenti quello che portrebbe usare per vincere la fame nel mondo e portare la pace tra I popoli.

...origine siciliana (debonno esserci dei parenti di mio marito a Catania, ma io non li hosentiti mai, dice), Concettina Picciotto e l'insolita sentinella dell'oggetto del desiderio che da un anno fa discutere una nazionne intera e di riflesso mezzo mondo. Se ne parla se ne scrive, lasi evoca di continuo: ma, generalmente, per I media e peri candidati che se la contendono, la Casa Bianca e soprattutto un concetto, un'idea di potere, un simbolo. Invece, naturalmente, e anche una casa vera e propria, per di piu, ora, con I tipici problemi di una casa che sta per cambiare inquilino. E forse, in assoluto, la residenza di un capo di Stato piu vicina alla strada, alla gente, solo una cancellata la sepera dal traffico di Pennsylvania Avenue, e dal marciapiede si distinguono perfettamente le finestre al secondo piano, dove vivono Ronald e Nancy Reagan. Eppure I washingtoniani vi passano davanti indiffernti, in auto o a piedi, ormai abituati a queata straordinaria intimita con il loro "Commander in Chief" comandante in capo.

Gli unici a prestare attenzione sono uno sparuto gruppetto di dimostranti, che aditano nel giardino davanti alla Casa Bianca, Lafayette Park, dove esorta una piccola tendopoli. Vicino Concetta Picciotto, barricati dietro cartoni sacchi a pelo, giacigli di fortuna, vivono una dozzina di hippy, pcifisti, ecolgiti provienti da tutta America e anche dall'Europa. "Io sona arrivata da due settimane" spiega Ann, tedesca di Monaco, 23 anni. Di giorno fa il giro dei ristoranti con un amico, raccolgono gli avanzi, e vengono qui a spartirli con I numerosi vagabondi che stazionano nel parco. "Anche queato e un modo di manifestare per la pace" dice. "Non le dia retta" la interrompe un nero che passegia su e giu nervosamente. All'occhiello della giacca ha un distintivo che invita a votare per Dukakis. "Questi qui sono un branco di razzisti, odiano noi neri e gli ebrei, passano le notti in orge disgustos" continua l'uomo. Fa un infuocato comizio di tre minuti, e se ne va. "Ci vuole pazienza, chissa chi e, forse un matto, forse un provocatore" riprende la tendeschina, "ma non importa, ognuno ha diritto di pensarla come vuole". Ma davvero fate le orge notturne davanti alla Casa Bianca? " Beh, magari capita che qualcuno faccia l'amore, la notte fa freddo, bisogna pure scaldarsi. Ma l'unico atto collettivo e quello che recitiamo ogni sera al tramonto, tutti insieme, tenendoci per mano, in mododa suscitare una corrente di energia positiva, che attraversi la strada, raggiunga la Casa Bianca, avvolga il presidente e lo spinga ad essere piu buono nei suoi rapporti col mondo".

`Fino a tre anni or sono, l'accompamento dei dimostranti era dal lato della strada dove c'e la Casa Bianca; poi la polizia l'ha fatto spostare ("viotando I nostri diritti civili " dice Cocetta Picciotto "ci perseguitano in continuazione"), affermando che turbava la quiete publica e impediva l'accesso visitatori. C'e un continuo afflusso di di turisti, che fanno la fila per entrare alla Casa Bianca: la maggior parte proviene da fuori citta, o dall'estero.

La visita ristretta ad un'ala dell'edificio, transformata in museo; bibliote che e salette che di regola non vengono usate dalla famiglia presidenziale, ad eccezione, della sala da ballo e della grande sla da pranzo dove avvengono I banchetti ufficiali. Sul depliant che ognuno riceve all'ingresso c'e scritto; "Il presidente e la sua famiglia la invitano a vedere questa splendida dimora e a conoscere di prima persona il suo speciale calore, la sua dignita". La gente e visibilmente emozionata, l'invito ottiene l'effetto desiderato, fa scattare una certa familiarita tra l'anonimo americano del Nebraska o del Tennessee e la quasi regale figura del presidente: un legame che rafforza l'amore viscerale del cittadino medio verso il Capo della Casa Bianca.

Ma I turisti non possono vedere l'Ufficio ovale, dove lavora il presidente, o la residenza, al seconda piano, con le camere da letto, la stanza della tivu, la sala da biliardo (voluta da Nixon), le ca; mere per gli ospiti, la stanza della regina (cosi chiamata perche ci hanno dormito quattro sovrane e la stanza di Lincoln (ancora abitata, secondo la legenda, dal fantasma del presidente). Il turista non puo immaginare che sotto la Casa Bianca si estende un labirinto di cunicoli, di cantine, passaggi sotterranei, rifugi antiaerei; e che oltre a svolgere le funzioni di casa, la "White House" e una specie di grande ministero, in cui lavorano talmente tante persone che il numero esatto e un segretto di Stato: 622 sono nel libro paga della Casa Bianca, mail totlae dovrebbe arrivare a 3.366, secondo un libro appena pubblicato, "The Ring of Power" (L'anello del postere), scritto da un ex-funzionario dell'amministrzione, il qualle ha scoperto che circa 2.700 militari e agenti del servizio segreto, stipendiati dal Pentagonio, lavorano in realta nella casa presidenziale.

Ogni presidente porta con se un gruppo ristretto di nuovi consiglieri e collaboratori, ma il grosso degli impiegati, delle segreterie, del personale di cucina e manutenzione, resta al suo posto. Tocca a loro adeguarsi ogni quattro od otto anni ai gusti del nuovo inquilino. Alcuni sono insostituibili: come le 20 centraliniste che smistano 7,000 telefonte al giorno, e sono in grado di rintracciare chiunque, ovunque, in qualunque momento.

Non e sempre stato cosi: iniziata a cosruire nel 1792 per ordine del primo presidente, George Washington, abitata a partire dal 1800 (quando la residenza del presidente e il Congresso furono trasferiti da Filadelphia ava nuovo capitale, Washington appunto), un tempo la Casa Bianca funzionava molto peggio. Ha avuto l'acqua corrente nel 1834, la luce a gas nel 1848, l'acqua calda nel 1853, l'ascensore nel 1881 e l'elettiricita nel 1891. Leprime "first lady" stendevano la lavanderia in sala da pranzo, gli inglesi l'hanno bruciata durante la guerra d'Indipendenza (solo un tremendo temporale impedi chi fosse del tutto ridotta in cenere). le truppe nordiste ci hanno bivaccato dentro durante la guerra di secessione. Alla festa d'inagurazionne della sua presidenza, nel 1832, Andrew Jackson apri le porte della Casa Bianca al popolo: ne salto fuori una tale baraonda che il presidente scappio dormire in albergo (4 anni dopo, alla festa d'addio invito il popoio a mangiare con lui un immenso formaggio, che fini sbriciolato sui tappeti, lasciando per settimane una puzza insopportabile).

Ci sono voluti quasi cent'anni perche fosse denominata ufficialmente "White House" (prima era chianata semplicemente "President's House"), anche se fin dall'inizio venne vernicita di bianco, guadagnandole il sopranome di "casa bianca". Adesso un lato e color seppia, hanno tolto l'intonaco per effetuare dei lavori di restauro: non in vista del nuovo presidente, ma per il 1992, quando verra celebrato il bicentenario della Casa Bianca. All'uscita della visita guidata, I turisti possono leggere su un cartello eslicativo tutti I particolari dell'opera di abbellimento restauro, intrapresa "per mantenere lo splendore originale della residenza presidenziale".

Poi escono su Pennsylvania Avenue, e nel sole di queato autunno ancora tiepido incontrano le sagome di quattro noti protagonisti della vita politica: Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Mike Dukakis, ed Oliver North, il "Rambo" della Casa Bianca, l'ufficiale dei Marines al centro dello scandola Irangate. Per 5 dollari, un fotografo ti riprende in posa con il tuo eroe preferito, a grandezza naturale. Chi e il piu popolare stamene? "Bush, vogliono tutti posare con lui" risponde il fotografo, e aggiunge "io pero voterio Dukakis".

1987-02-15T21:53:00.000-05:00

WHITE HOUSE ANTI-NUCLEAR PEACE VIGIL
24-HOURS A DAY SINCE 1981
C. PICCIOTTO & W. THOMAS
P.O. BOX 4931
WASHINGTON D.C. 20008

December 1987
Washington, D.C., U.S.A.

Dear Mr. Gorbachev:

This letter was born of discussions and arguments. Although I alone am signing it, it carries within the silence, pain and struggle for peace and justice of many people.

I come to you through this letter to welcome you in Peace to Washington, D.C. and to ask you to continue your courage and wisdom in innovative suggestions aimed at reaching world disarmament.

Your moratorium on weapons testing had tremendous world impact, but a weapons freeze, moratorium or reduction cannot assure survival. Only the absence of genocidal weapons can assure continuance of the species.

We cannot negotiate the amount of evil the world can allow itself. All genocidal weapons are evil.

You may know of me and my own efforts to make an impact on the world toward the same goal, since my antinuclear peace vigil has appeared in newspapers in your country and, I'm told, on television, too. It is known as the "White House Antinuclear Peace Vigil, 24 Hours a Day since 1981, maintained by just two individuals: William Thomas and Concepcion Picciotto."

In spite of our having been jailed several times, having been beaten and abused, and living a very rough life; in spite of our signs and work being confiscated and destroyed, we have always returned to rebuild and share our message even more broadly, refusing to give in to mindless forces, believing that the truth is sure to win. All that matters is that there be justice for all, and not merely for a few.

On December 20, 1984 our subpoena (from Concepcion & Thomas) was served on President Ronald Reagan and a crew of government figures.

Before and since we, Concepcion and Thomas, have suffered much indignity as we maintain our stand right outside the presidential door. Surely there must be a way to bring a halt to such blatant violations of constitutional law, a Constitution that President Ronald Reagan swore he would uphold.

President Reagan goes right on, seemingly unable to explain his action (or inaction) aimed at sinking the Constitution ship he sails.

Demand Peace and Justice, Mr. Gorbachev, for you alone can demand and enforce world disarmament. Do not shrink from the struggle.

I wish you all good health and strength and success in your many difficult tasks.
Sincerely, Concepcion Picciotto
IN FRONT OF THE WHITE HOUSE

Park Next to White House Is Demonstrators Haven

1986-01-06T21:52:00.001-05:00

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
VOL. CCVI NO. 124
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1985

Park Next to White House Is Demonstrators Haven

One Way to Capture Mr. Reagan's Notice Is to Erect Big Sign!
Trash as Protest Symbol?

By ROBERT E. TAYLOR
Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON - Concepcion Picciotto has a great view of the White House and it of her. That's the trouble.

When President Reagan gazes past his front lawn, across Pennsylvania Avenue to Lafayette Park. the first thing he sees is Mrs. Picciotto and her sign. "Stop the Arms Race. Dismantle Nuclear Weapons declares the lettering on one of her largest signs. a l0-foot-by-12 foot (3 meters by 3 1/2 meters) hand- painted piece of plywood that is one in a row of similar signs stretching 40 yards along the sidewalk. Signs and posters of all sizes portray messages. missiles and mushroom clouds, even a white-robed Mr. Reagan cradling a missile amid fiery Armageddon.

Most of the signs belong to Mrs. Picciotto and another demonstrator, William Thomas, who jointly claim the modern Record for presidential protest. Almost round the clock since mid-1981, they have 'stood sentinel duty here in what she calls a "vigil for freedom. peace and justice."

Mrs. Picciotto, 41 years old, says she began her protest career in. 1975. Mr. Thomas, 38, started protesting at the White House, he says, not long after being forcibly expelled from Britain in 1980 (he had thrown away his U.S. passport and declared himself a "stateless person"): last spring, he married Ellen Benjamin, a self-described former yuppie who quit her job and joined his protest.

'We sacrifice our lives," Mrs. Picciotto says.'We want to open the minds of the people to the destruction of the planet."

But Mrs. Picciotto's signs may have shown the White House their last anti-nuclear winter. The National Park Service, the overseer of the historic square, is proposing to ban big signs in Lafayette Park. It cites complaints that the placards "interfere with the view of the White House prevent picture taking and ... generally ruin the aesthetic quality of Lafayette Park." It even calls them a safety hazard: When one blew over, officials say, it crowned a passerby, who required stitches.

Specific Rules

The Park Service's remedy is brutally specific. It's rules, expected to be made final shortly, would restrict each demonstrator to two self-supporting signs, which would be elevated no more than 6 feet, and which always must be attended by someone, within 3 feet. The signs could be no larger than 4 feet square and a quarter of an inch thick.

Why that particular size? The Park Service's "Sign System Specification Manual," which it uses to figure the size of its own signs in the various national parks decrees that 4-by-4 signs allow 10 lines of letters readable at least l00 feet away. The manual says there isn't any real need in the park to have larger lettering that could be seen from farther away. The American Civil Liberties Union, on the other hand, is unconvinced. "Perhaps this is why so many Pedestrians get eaten by bears on Park Service property every year." the ACLU suggests.

The ACLU and some others complain that the rules, first advocated in 1983 by then-Interior Secretary James Watt, needlessly abridge constitutional rights. But many a park passerby is unsympathetic. "I hate to say it, but it's become an eyesore", says Michael De Cavallo, a Howard University student. David Denholm of Vienna, Va. in a letter to the Park Service, calls it a "disgusting display."

Lafayette Park-It is named for the Revolutionary War hero- long has ken a haven for people seeking to influence presidents. A plaque still marks the bench where financier Bernard Baruch dispensed sage advice. In recent years, however, the advice has become less and less conventional. A fear years back. a group protesting the plight of the homeless lived in tents in the park through much of the winter. More recently, one woman spent a week up a tree, there protesting nuclear weapons.

Those displays pale before some other applications for park permits. One wanted to build "facilities necessary for an actual abortion and a Christmas Day live birth," according to the Park Service. Another sought approval to erect "a spaceship and spaceship landing facilities."

Last summer, one regular demonstrator actually "brought in a bunch of trash to the park as a 'natural resource demonstration'", according to Mr. Thomas, Mrs. Picciotto's partner in protest. The collection included paneling, doors, paper bags and a porcelain toilet. Mr. Thomas claims Park Police left it there for two weeks to buttress the case against the signs. But the Interior Department attorney, Patricia Bangert says that, if a person claims trash is a protest symbol, "there isn't a whole lot we can do about it."

Some park signs double as homes. The supports for one 20- footer enclose a living area for Bill Hale and Jimmy Wayne Powell. One afternoon, Mr. Powell is seen changing clothes inside, amid empty beer cans, a rug and ashes from a fire. Emerging bare-chested, with streamers of toilet paper flowing from his seaman's cap, Mr. Powell declares he is demonstrating for "religious freedom for American Indians." The sign above him calls for expanding public libraries.

Mrs. Picciotto keeps the trappings of office as well as home. Her largest signs lean together to shelter folding chairs, a briefcase, typewriter, bicycle, and small trailer packed with anti-nuclear leaflets. She also squirrels away bags, clothing, food and thermoses of hot coffee for the long night ahead.

Foiling Police

She does, after all, sleep here. She sits on a folding chair, she says, her head propped against a sign. "Camping" in the park is prohibited, so when police find her eyes closed she is off to the pokey. But catching her isn't easy. Park residents post lookouts to alert sleepers to police patrols. And making charges stick in court is tough, frustrated Park Service lawyers complain.

Mrs. Piccciotto's weather-beaten face peers out from under a dark wig and scarf. She mostly eats food donated by church groups to homeless people and what she finds in dumpsters behind restaurants. She use park lavatories, though they close at night.

Mrs. Picciotto charges that the growing restrictions on park demonstrators are "like what Hitler did in Germany, they're taking away the rights of the people, bit by bit." The ACLU agrees, partly. It says that while some restrictions might be warranted, the purposed limits are "arbitrary and unreasonable."

The conservative Washington Legal Foundation, meanwhile, counters that the rules are ambiguous, and "too permissive".

Some other groups find themselves in unaccustomed roles. For example, the Sierra Club, which might be expected to worry about damage to the park, is opposing the rules on free-speech grounds. Meanwhile, Reagan administration officials, seldom accused of being tree-huggers, are defending the environmental sanctity of the square.

Precedent suggests any curbs will be upheld. In defense of aesthetics and presidential security, the Reagan administration already has barred signs from the sidewalk directly in front of the White House. The federal courts, although divided, ultimately upheld that ban as well as one on sleeping in the park.

An Interior Department lawyer expects the final sign rule to be published, with "minor" changes, late this month. Its effect will be delayed by a 30-day notice period and possibly by court challenges.

But even Mr. Thomas, the demonstrator, says the writing may be on the wall for the protestors. He says he has proved his point and talks of "getting on with my life". Stroking a tangled brown beard, he adds, mostly to himself: "I've been thinking- Israel would be the best place to try to work for peace."

From the international edition: WALL STREET JOURNAL, January 6, 1986

(received in mail from Kuwait)

SHADOW WHITE HOUSE

1985-11-15T21:50:00.001-05:00

DC HOME NEWS November 15, 1985
SHADOW WHITE HOUSE

LAFAYETTE PARK - There's a famous park here in Washington, across the street from the White House. By the government it's called Lafayette Park, or President's Park. By some cab drivers, press, and public it's called Peace Park, D.C.
It's the kind of place where the champion demonstrators of the western world congregate 24 hours a day throughout the year, to make their views known to the president, who lives just across the street

There's a woman in Peace Park who has become quite famous for her four-year continual presence, day and night, seeking a total nuclear ban.

Liberty And Junk For All?

1985-08-24T19:22:00.000-04:00

Liberty And Junk For All?

The Washington Post
Saturday, August 24, 1985

For reasons connected with the high cost of parking at the fancier Washington hotels, my occasional early-morning walking route to a press breakfast takes me across Lafayette Park, just opposite the White House.

Here, where Henry Adams once built a great house, and where Andrew Jackson still rears his horse in equestrian splendor,my dedication to the constitutional right of petition undergoes -and invariably flunks-- a stern test. It is not unlike the test your belief in free speech would undergo if someone were screaming political slogans in your ear every time you hit the sidewalk.

The test for me is the clutter of billboards, placards, tents, mock cemeteries and whatnot that now disfigures one ofWashington's most agreeable squares, and one of the few refuges of distinguished architecture.

I was delighted, therefore, to read that the National Park Service: intends to crack down on the demonstrators who (often in absentia) have turned Lafayette Park into a junkyard, a zealot's haven but a citizen's eyesore.

New regulations would restrict the size: of placards--a long, ugly row of which now conceal, at eye level looking across Pennsylvania Avenue, the north facade of the White House. They would also have to be attended, or they would be treated as abandoned property.

The Park Service is, if anything, over-cautious. But depend on those who confuse vandalism with liberty to find even these mild measures objectionable.

The American Civil Liberties Union, bless its myopic soul, predictably finds this tightening frivolous, perhaps unconstitutional. "They want to make Lafayette Park look more pretty," said an ACLU spokesman, "[but] we just don't think that is a very weighty concern to justify the infringement of First Amendment Rights.

Not a weighty concern An exercise of rights that blights, all day every day, a public square? How far, one is led to speculate might libertarian numskullery go?

If someone with a burning message is moved to bedeck the Washington Monument with a huge wraparound banner the 100-foot level, or hang a sandwich board with anti-nuclear slogans around Mr. Lincoln's neck in the Lincoln Memorial, must tho aesthetic interests of tens of thousands be dismissed?

Why must the rest of us suffer, in silence some trashing of the commonwealth every time a world-saver with $20 to spend for a signboard and a paint brush goes into action! By long legal usage, even the most essential personal liberties are subject to reasonable "time, place and manner" restrictions when their exercise becomes a nuisance or a menace to others.

It is, as Holmes told us. no legitimate exercise of free speech to cry fire falsely, in a crowded theater, causing a panic. And nd even the silliest judge in the land would uphold your right to ring my door- bell every day at 3 a.m. to deliver your urgent warning against nuclear power.

This is not a plea for banning the right of timely and appropriate petition. It is an argument for measure, and for what might be called the Fifth Freedom: the right to enjoy unlighted the graces of the American landscape.[WHAT WOULD THE LANDSCAPE LOOK LIKE AFTER A NUCLEAR WAR?]

And by the way, while thousands of tourists must seek their first southward glimpse of the White House across a forest o[ placards, just who is being petitioned for a redress of grievances! Ronald Reagan is at the ranch. Congress is in recess and even when in town does business near Lafayette Square.

The petitioners and demonstrators should be permitted to do their thing at set times in the park, or in front of the White House or wherever they wish, then fold up,their demonstration sets and move on.

Outrage over the casual spoliation of the American land and cityscape of which the trashing of Lafayette Park is part--is made the keener by visits to European cities. They somehow manage to avoid becoming political gulags without sacrificing their visual grace.

Not so us. Like the clutter erected on the west side of the Executive office Building, like disfiguring, shoddy, box-like office buildings, steamy parking lots, instant-food strips. daily litter sufficient to make a landfill of the Pacific Ocean bed the junking of Lafayette Park is of a piece with our national tolerance of ugliness: And this in the name of liberty! Thomas Jefferson, who had much to say on that subject, was a man of taste who saw that virtues need not be graceless, nor beauty incompatible with liberty. A citizenry that becomes visually brutalized exposes itself to political brutalization as well.

Capital Park Dispute Free Speech or Eyesore

1985-08-23T19:02:00.003-04:00

Capital Park Dispute
Free Speech or Eyesore?

USA TODAY
FRIDAY, AUGUST 23, 1985 By Leslie Phillips
USA TODAY

The cluttered landscape of Washington's Lafayette:Park provides: a haven for protester and their causes - and a visual black eye for lots of residents and tourists, Concepcion Picciotto, who lives between placards emblazoned with mushroom clouds, says new restrictions proposed by the Reagan administration violate the Constitution.

"You can say a requiem for the First Amendment," she said Thursday from the park, located across from the White House. "I think it's very unfair."

The American Civil Liberties Union says if the new regulations go into effect unchanged, it will sue.

But for Joseph Plock, a bank officer, who passes the demonstrators on his lunch hour, the proposed rules don't go far enough.

"I think they (the signs) should all be ripped down," he fumed. "It's litter."

From a 12-foot-high proclamation opposing the bomb to a "Stop the Arms Race Now" message in seven languages, about two dozen signs border the White House side of the park.

Among the main changes, which are subject to a 60-day period of public comment: Each protester would be limited to two signs no larger than 4 feet by 4 feet and they would have to stay within three feet of their signs.

"We've had everything down there from desks to make-shift toilets," says Park Service spokeswoman Sandra Alley.

Nevertheless, it's a curiosity for tourists.

Concludes 15-year-old Ivan Austin of England: "If I was the president, I wouldn't like it much."

(picture: SIGNBOARD PROTESTS: placards line Lafayette Park across from the White House. photo by Lee Anderson

New Rules to Curb Lafayette Protests 'Visual Blight' Cited

1985-08-21T18:54:00.002-04:00

New Rules to Curb Lafayette Protests
'Visual Blight' Cited

By Karlyn Barker
Washington Post Staff Writer

The National Park Service, arguing that the proliferation of permanent protest displays is causing "visual blight" in Lafayette Park, has announced new regulations that would restrict both the size and the number of protest signs there and prohibit the plywood huts and other structures that have sprung up across the street from the White House.

The regulations, according to the Park Service, are intended to control the manner, but not the content, of protests by demonstrator;s who have settled into the park on a long-term basis and turned its picture-postcard beauty into what many call an eyesore.

"We've obviously had a lot of complaints about conditions in the park," said Sandra Alley, associate regional director of public affairs for the Park Service's national capital region. "We're not trying to curb First Amendment rights, but we are seeking some sort of balance.

Hand-carried signs would be exempted from the new regulations, and protest groups would be allowed to set up temporary speaker's or "soapbox" platforms for rallies in the park.

But other "structures"--the huts, chairs, desks, makeshift toilets, kitchen sinks and other personal items that officials say protesters have brought in or "stored" in the park--would be prohibited.

Under the new regulations, scheduled to take effect in late November after a period for public comment, signs placed or set down in the park must be no larger than four feet in either dimension and no thicker than one quarter inch. They may not be elevated more than six feet from the ground at their highest point and may not be combined with other sigrls to form larger structures.

No protesters may have more than two such signs in the park at any one time, and those signs must be "attended" at aII times, meaning that: someone must be within three feet of the sign or it will be considered abandoned property.

Park Service officials say they need the tighter restrictions because protesters have begun setting up billboard- like, hand-painted signs along the Pennsylvania Avenue side of the park, obscuring the view of the White House. posing a Safety threat in high winds and generally ruining the park's esthetic quality.

But park protesters and civil libertrians, who have tangled with the Park Service before, raised concerns yesterday thnt the new restrictions could violate constitutional protection of free speech and free expression.

"They`want to try to make Lafayette Park look more pretty in the view of some people," Arthur Spitzer, legal director of the ACLU's local office here. "We just don't think that is a very weighty concern to justify the infringement of First Amendment rights."

Though an around-the-clock antinuclear vigil has been going on in the park for more than two years, court decisions have prohibited overnight "sleep-in" protests there. Long-term demonstrations on the sidewalk in front of the White House also have been banned, a move that has made Lafayette Park all the more attractive to protesters.

"I came here June 27 and I just haven't gotten home yet," said Prima Blakus of Portland, Ore., who sat in a chair at the southeast corner of the park yesterday and flashed the peace sign to passing motorists. "Now I've gotten stubborn,I'm waiting for world peace." More than 50 signs--encouraging everything from world peace to, birth control to freedom of religion--were set up in the park yesterday, sharing space with lunching office workers and drawing the attention of tourists. Only two demonstrators, Blakus and Concepcion Picciotto, were in the park with the signs.

Picciotto, an organizer of the anti-nuclear vigil, said she and a companion, William Thomas, built several of the larger protest signs that face the White House. "The more weapons they build, the more signs we have to have to show the people what is happening," she said.

But Park Service officials, in a memorandum accompanying publication of the regulations in yesterday's Federal Register, warn that without the new restrictions the "dumplike atmosphere" and "building boom" in the park could get ~worse. They say they have received requests for permits to establish a library in the park, a landing spot for;l spaceship and facilities to perform an abortion.

WATCHERS AT THE GATE

1985-08-08T18:53:00.000-04:00

THE NORTH IRELAND TIMES
THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 1985

FEATURES

WATCHERS AT THE GATE

Beaten, abused, living rough, they stand like some moral Maginot Line on a permanent White House peace vigil...

SPECIAL REPORT By COLIN McALPIN

ON June 1,1981, a man and a woman began a remarkable vigil for peace in a small park across the street from the Washington White House... there messages line the sidewalk facing the home of the President of the United States, signs of all shapes and sizes, in various colors, with drawings of the mushroom cloud of skulls...angled side by side, they stand like a moral Maginot Line resisting the White House.

The man and the woman-Concepcion Picciotto and William Thomas- live under the stars, exposed to the rain and snow, summer and winter, without tent or sleeping bag. They feed like the pigeons and squirrels in the park, on what comes along, sometimes from the nearby McDonald's or Hardees bins.

Concepcion was born in Spain and educated by nuns to live by high spiritual and social principles and values.

She takes the time to talk to passers-by about why she and William maintain their lonely and long-lasting vigil: "As a young dreamer, I came to the United States searching for something different - a more promising way of life. Over 20 years ago I became an American citizen. Peace, justice and freedom have always been my ideals, and I believe that these ideals should be available for all people."

When she became a citizen she swore to uphold the constitution...but today she says she sees that the constitution is just a game, a mere facade, a stage play.

Concepcion is a small, untidy woman, surrounded by the rubbish of her camp life. All she wants, she says, is to be "given the opportunity to be heard properly before being hastily condemned because of my actions and activities as a United States citizen."

Sitting in the humid evening of a Washington summer, with the tourists carefully steering a path out of her reach, she told me of the ordeal of maintaining the vigil.

She and William have been arrested innumerable times. He was severely beaten by a Park Police Officer while taking photographs of the Officer assaulting another protester who was handcuffed. She has been forcefully strip searched, and suffered defamation of character by the same officer. "Our signs are regularly confiscated, and broken," she says. "We just come back and defend our rights to free expression in the courts, make more signs, go on with our work."

They seldom sleep, only in brief snatches. If the police catch them asleep they will be charged with camping: "We are not camping, but exercising our right to 'speak out' against the forms of political and technical insanity which presently threaten all life on earth."

On December 8, 1982, one of her mentors and friends, Norman Mayer was killed at the nearby Washington Monument, suspected by the police of having dynamite in a van parked alongside the tower.

Concepcion - known as 'Connie' to a growing worldwide army of supporters of the anti-nuclear lobby-was then joined by the 38-year-old William, an intellectual known simply as 'Thomas' to the millions around the world who follow this story of the only round the clock peace vigil against nuclear weapons being conducted anywhere in the world.

For their pains, quite literally, they have been attacked and beaten by right wing 'patriots' as well as the police. But their anti-nuclear vigil continues to send a message to the White House.

'Decent, Civilized People Do not Nuke Fellow Humans', says one... 'Live By The Bomb, Die by The Bomb', another. 'NATO and Warsaw Pact Countries Stand Astride The Same Uncontrollable Weapons Pile. The World Trembles at Its Fate', says another...'There Is No Shelter From the Nuclear Bomb', says another.

Press from around the world have photographed this quiet couple; people come from every country in the Western world to see if they are still keeping up their vigil...they do, sneaking a couple hours of half-sleep whenever they can before the police come around to shine a light in their faces-"I have a psychic antennae that picks up an approaching policeman at fifty feet," says Concepcion with a smile, "I can be awake before his night stick starts to poke me into the caged wagon."

Concepcion and William are the lonely watchers at the gate. And they'd like to hear from you. They can be contacted at C. Picciotto and W. Thomas, White House 24-hour anti-nuclear vigil, P.O. Box 4931, Washington, D.C. 20038

Pledge of Resistance

1985-07-02T18:51:00.002-04:00

Pledge of Resistance

Iowa Idea
Spring/Summer 1985

"I had the pleasure of representing our local United Mine Workers Union in the national convention. . . and introduced a resolution favoring the adoption of international socialism. We got so prominent that they called it the IOWA IDEA. -G.H. Freyhoff of Mystic, Iowa, February 7, 1903.
These and many other signs in Lafayette Park in Washington D.C. stand facing the White House for Nancy's and Ronnie's daily inspection.

24 HOUR A DAY, 4 YEAR
WHITE HOUSE ANTI-NUCLEAR VIGIL
Today in front of the White House (across the street from the White House lies Lafayette Parks two worlds are joined and separated by Pennsylvania Avenue.
On the South side in the mansion at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue live Ronald and Nancy Reagan. Across the street without address or visible means of support, live a woman and a man known as Concepcion Picciotto and William Thomas. They began their vigil there on June 1st, 1981, and are there till the present.
Mr. and Mrs. Reagan live well housed and well fed. The crumbs from their table feed Concepcion and Thomas for a week. They live under the stars, exposed to rian and snow, summer and winter, without tent or sleeping hag. They feed like the pigeons in the park, on what comes along, sometimes from the Mc Donald's or Hardees dumpsters.
Mr. Reagan, across the street issues moral messages against abortion and an Evil Empire, for freedom, the market, and school prayer.
Concepcion and Thomas tend their messages night and day. These messages line the side walk farina the White House, signs of all sizes and shapes, in various colors, with drawings of the mushroom cloud or skulls. Angled side, the signs stand like a moral Maginot Line resisting the White House.
The Police harass Concepcion and Thomas, and they have been arrested innumerable times, Thomas was severely beaten by Park Police officer David Haynes while Thomas was taking photo graphs of Officer Haynes assaulting another protestor who was handcuffed. Concepcion was forcefully strip-searched 'and suffered defamation of character by the said officer. The signs were confiscated and broker. They came back and defended their rights to free expression in the courts, making more signs, clIng ing to their turf. They sleep little, by snatches. If the police catch them asleep they will he charged with camping.
Although the insist they are not camping, but exerci zing their right to "speak out" against the forms of political and technical insanity which presently threaten all Life on Earth, ultimately their problems are the Government's problems, their complaints the complaints of us all, as they stand before the Goliath of rights denied.

Concepcion Threatened as Police Look On

1985-06-27T14:53:00.002-04:00

ANTI NUKE VIGILlST THREATENED

by DANSFORTH B. TAYLOR

HOME NEWS WIRE

Washington, D.C. - Lafayette Park - A Metro Police officer pulled his motorcycle up to the curb in front of Concepcion Picciotto's Anti-nuke demonstration and said: "Connie, you made it through last winter, but you won't make it through this one.

He smiled, gunned his cc's and sped away.

He called Ms. Picciotto by her familiar name "Connie." He had a blonde mustache and he wore a helmet and dark glasses.

"I took it as a death threat," said Ms. Picciotto, a 43-year-old woman who has manned the 24-hour anti-nuke demonstration across the street from the White House for the last four years.

Several nights earlier, a man came after Ms. Picciotto wtth a two-by-four, smashing her signs instead, as she ran for police help.

"The man chased me all over the Park," she said. "The Park Police watched but did nothing. Then the man said things to the police so they handcuffed him and took him away.

"He was back, sleeping on the park bench a few hours later. The Police would like to see me scared out of here ."

The right to demonstrate in Lafayette Park is being threatened by forces that would eat away at the Democracy from the inside. Our own people, our "peace" officers, are harrassing our own citizens who dare to think that bombs can de dismantled.

The Metro Police Chief and the Park Police Chief here in Washington are being alerted to this situation before It gets to be tragic.

"Lafayette Square 'Swept' Clean

1985-05-10T14:44:00.005-04:00

"Lafayette Square 'Swept' Clean

By Kenneth Bredemeier
Washington Post Staff Writer

May 10, 1985

The team of 15 gray-shirted National Park Service maintenance workers arrived shortly before 2 p.m. yesterday at the Lafayette Square sidewalk office of Casimer Urban Jr., self - styled presidential candidate.

Within half an hour, the workers had carted off many of his books and personal papers and hauled away his office, a triangular 10-foot-high plywood structure he had erected and covered with crudely painted messages calling for the impeachment of "R.W. Reagon." They left his two desks and assorted other office equipment.

A short distance away, a small contingent of' U.S. Park Police yanked long- time anti-nuclear demonstrator Ellen Thomas off a portable stage as she screamed at them and arrested her and a man who tried to assist her. Workers promptly hoisted the stage onto a truck and took it away, too.

At Lafayette Square, directly across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, such scenes are commonplace these days.

The park has become a battleground between the conflicting demands of court decisions supporting the First Amendment right to demonstrate, albeit with a raft of rules, and those who think the clutter of hand-oainted signs and rickety structures built by the demonstraters has turned the park into an eyesore.

Sen. Mark Hatfield (R-Ore.) complained to the Park Service earlier this year about the "growing visual pollution around Lafayette Park," which he called "highly offensive."

U.S. Attorlley Joseph E. diGenova, echoing the feelings of some, but not all, visitors to the park, said, "While some of these people think they're making a statement, in fact they're making a mess. At this point, it's beconling a disgrace .... We're going to do whatever we can within the law to keep the park clean."

Interior Department officials have ordered police and maintenance workers into Lafayette Square five times in the last three weeks to look for signs that don't comply with Park Service regulations, as well as loose lumber and piles of clothing and personal belongings that demonstrators are prohibited from keeping in the park.

But, just as soon as the workers have carted off truckloads of signs and possessions, they reappear.

This cat-and-mouse game, which is not likely to be resolved soon, had its origin in two court decisions last year.

In one Instance, the U.S. Court of Appeals here approved a series of Interior Department regulations on protests on the sidewalk in front of the White House that limited the size of signs to 3 feet by 20 feet, prohibited all stationary signs in a central zone and banned wooden signs.

As a result, most protesters, many of them demonstrating against Reagan administration nuclear arms policies, have now moved to Lafayitte Square, where there are no size limits on the signs and they can be built wlth wood. Some signs are now--20 or 25 feet tall, such as one saying, "We believe no issue is more important than the threat of nuclear war."

In the second decision, the Supreme Court last year banned over-night sleeping in Lafayette Square as a means of protest, saying it was not a First Amendment right.

That decision has led to almost constant conflict between the Park Police and the small band of 24- hour-a-day demonstrator s, who trade off guarding each others' signs through the night. Until earlier this week, most of them, as well as two dozen or more homeless people, had been sleeping on the steps and entrance arcade of the National Court Building, across Madison Place from the park.

But Federal Protective Service officers at the urging of court officials, this week booted out the sleepers, who now have opted for spending the night on the sidewalk.

Arthur B. Spitzer, the legal director for the local division of the American Civil Liberties Union, has fought government restrictions on protests in the vicinity of the White House. He said he is monitoring the latest Lafayette Square sweeps by police and maintenance workers.

"The First Amendment protects your right to have a fairly big sign," he said. "But there's some things; there I couldn't defend, such as large piles of personal belongings. I have no objection to the government hauling away things that are not communicative .... "The protesters can't homestead there."

Royce C. Lamberth, head of the civil division in diGenova's office, said officials are studying ways "to improve the situation in Lafayette Park" and may try to devise further rules on the demonstrations, such as limiting the size of signs.

Meanwhile, many of the long term demonstratots vow to kecp their vigils.

Conception Picciotto, a 43-year-old native of Spain, said she has maintained her anti-nuclear protest on Pennsylvania Avenue for four years, and said she will continue "as long as God gives me health ard strength.

"The Constitution allows us to present our views peacefully," she said as she handed out literature this week. "We are not going to give up."

LIFE AT GROUND ZERO

1985-04-25T14:42:00.001-05:00

The Home News
Serving Dade County for 41 years

Your Hometown Newspaper APRIL 25, 1985
LIFE AT GROUND ZERO

by Dansforth B. Taylor

There's a famous park here in Washington, across the street from the White House. It is called Lafayette Park. It's the kind of place where the champion "demonstrators" of the Western World congregate 24 hours a day throughout the year, to make their views known to the president, who lives just across the street. There's a woman (there in the park) who has become quite famous for her three year continual presence (day and night) seeking a total nuclear ban. One of her mentors and friends for years, a Dade County citizen, Norman Mayer, was shot and killed at the Washington Monument three years ago, Dec. 8, 1982, suspected (at the time by the police) as having a half-ton of dynamite in a van parked by the tower itself, supposedly ready to explode at the touch of a radio signal from Mayer.

Mayer's reach for immortality was based on a bluff. There turned out to be no dynamite in his van at all. Still, he was shot in the head from three hundred feet on the basis that he had reported the existence of the "dynamite" to police who claimed to have no reason not to believe him.

The story is more fascinating when looked at through the eyes of this fiftyish-appearing lady who may certainly be dubbed the "Chief Demonstrator of Lafayette Park."

Meet "Connie" Concepcion Picciotto, who is more than willing to point out that Mayer was the "father figure" to the care of committed demonstrators who see themselves as setting a world-class standard for the specialized lobbying effort against "NUCLEAR WAR."

Connie's partner is a 38-year-old intellectual names William Thomas,known simply as "Thomas" to millions of fans around the world who followed the story of the only' 24-hour peace vigil against nuclear weapons being conducted anywhere in the world.

Connie and Thomas must never sleep soundly, or the police of Washington will arrest them.

That is the game that has been played since June 3,1981. Both Thomas and Connie have been arrested scores of times. They have been beaten by zealous patriots and they must never sleep too deep
.

Thomas got deported from England for trashing his American passport and he headed for Washington.

"They just pushed me through the doors at Customs and said 'welcome to America'." Thomas feels that he is a man without a country because he believes that the United States nuclear policy is dangerous.
Thomas joined Connie in 1981 and the 24-hour anti-nuclear vigil started.

Enter Norman Mayer.

Mayer paid Connie a-penney-a-piece to pass out his anti-nuke literature. Norman, who was nearing seventy years, became o father figure to the anti-nuke movement. He stood up for them in court and he had a plan he would not reveal. A plan to get the world's attention on the nuke issue. A faster plan. He watched and he helped.

Thomas had gone on a 57-day hunger strike. Norman talked him out of that with a bouquet of roses. Thomas was dying on the sidewalk and Norman brought roses and said he had a better way to get the world's attention than to die.

On Dec. 8, 1982, Connie and Thomas were arrested one more time. Norman returned from a trip and found them gone. It was time for Norman to do (in his mind) the one great heroic act for his dialogue on freedom, truth and the meaning of life.

"The main point I'm trying to make," he says, "is that the earth is a unit, it's a whole thing. It is not compartmentalized. And what people do is divide this unit up with imaginary lines. This is not productive...they fight wars over land they do not own. The only thing you actually own is your own life...

"I can clearly see that there are many different concepts of reality, but a concept of reality doesn't change the actual reality. There is a real plane and an imaginary plane, and when we live in the imaginary [plane it causes chaos"-and that, he says, is why the world is in the mess it is in: festering with war, crime, cruelty, starvation, poverty, oppression and assorted petty personal problems."

Thomas says there's only one reason he bothers to talk to people: to provoke them into thinking about the existence of God, "because if they believe there is no justice beyond what we can see in one lifetime, then the rule of the earth will continue to be Might is Right - and it isn't." To him, God is reason.

He said the purpose of life "is to acquire wisdom and attain moral perfection."

To that end, he embarked on an odyssey six years ago, leaving behind a wife and a New Mexico jewelry business, to experience life and find out what is true and what is not.
At the time, he was studying the Bible, and he found himself preoccupied with the notion that money is the root of all evil."I had a house, three cars, bank accounts, insurance policies and I thought: I have all these things, these 'rewards',and yet the Bible tells me I am not living the right way...And I thought, if that was true - if money led to evil, and if you need money to live - then the syllogism followed that evil is necessary, which was not palatable to me."

So he set out to see if he could live without money or jobs, in order to prove that money was unnecessary. "To tell the truth," he says, I had some anxieties. I was leaving my wife behind. I said, "Is this rational? Are you sane? But I had to test this out. And I knew that if I found it to be true, then the world was living a radically irrational existence."

Thomas' journey took him to New York where he worked for a week as a carpenter to make enough money for a one way ticket to Casablanca. From there he walked on foot to Cairo. He had no money.

"There were days I went without food," he says, and in six months I did sleep outside for about six weeks. But otherwise food and shelter were just provided. I never asked anybody for anything. I had a blanket over my shoulder and the clothes I was wearing: that was all. People would just come up to me and say, "Where are you going? That's a long way. Where are you sleeping? Come with me." They asked me, they frequently asked me what I needed. I never asked."

He returned to the United States for a time, working as a dispatcher for a cab company and as a stone carver. Then he resumed his journey. Over several years, he said, he traveled back and forth across Europe. HE found himself last year in London, where he was jailed for several months after overstaying his visa. Eventually the authorities deported him to the United States. He arrived last October at Kennedy National Airport, where he had to be forcibly removed from the plane. "I was dragged into the customs office," he says, "where I was told I was now in America and free to go where I pleased."

The seed to that ordeal was a decision he had made in London months before: He no longer wished to be an American citizen. In the course of his wanderings, he had come the conclusion that the United States was contributing to the destruction of the earth and exploiting its inhabitants. Therefore, for him to advise others not to fight over land and exploit one another, while he was benefiting from the American passport, seemed hypocritical to him. Association with a country whose ideals he loved but while practices he abhorred was inconsistent with his goal of attaining moral perfection.

So he had taken the waterproof wallet containing his union cards, his social security card, and his passport and had thrown it into a lake in Hyde Park, England. "I assumed," he says, that there was nothing wrong with throwing away my passport because I knew myself to be a free man... Then I decided I would walk back to the Mideast, but when I got to Dover, I was arrested...

"I argued that I couldn't have a visa, because I didn't have a passport, for reasons I have already explained. Additionally, visas are designed to control populations, and since I was leaving the country, I was no threat to the population...They had no right to tell me I had to be an American. It is not for anyone else to decide who I am; it is for me to decide..."

Thomas has written down his thoughts and his experiences, an account that exceeds 300 pages. In March, he telephoned the Soviet Embassy here, saying he had a manuscript dealing with the conflict between America's ideals and its practices and asking if the Soviet embassy was interested. He says he has no sympathy for communism, but thought he'd try to communicate his ideas on this through another channel. When he arrived at the embassy, he met with V. Doroshenko, the third secretary in the information department.

According to Thomas, he and Doroshenko exchanged ideas, and Doroshenko asked if there was anything the embassy could do for Thomas, who told Doroshenko he was interested in peace. Thomas said Doroshenko then told him that the Russians too, were interested in peace. "And then I told him," Thomas recalled, "that I thought this mutual buildup of nuclear weapons had to do with mutual fear between the two nations. And he said yes, he thought that was true. And then I told him that in order to prove that Americans had nothing to ___ of the Russians, I wanted to surrender myself to the Soviet Union. He said, "You don't have to do that," and I said that nevertheless I would. He said, "You cannot, and I said, "I will. I am not leaving. So they had me removed by the police."

Doroshenko confirmed that the meeting took place and confessed to having been puzzled by Thomas' calm refusal to abandon the idea of surrender. "I told him," said Doroshenko, that he would have to go to the chancery first if he wanted to go to the Soviet Union, but he wouldn't move, so what could I do?

The young scriptwriter with the curly hair who had stopped hours before to ask Thomas what he stood for had been preceded by an old man with no hair who was carrying a lot of newspapers under his arms. "What is this about?" he asked. The papers flapped under his arms like wings. Thomas answered: "Wisdom and peace." The old man's mouth fell open. Then he walked away, shaking his head vigorously, and saying, "You never let up do you?"

Thomas thanked him

THE NORMAN MAYER VIGIL CONTINUES

1984-10-11T14:23:00.003-04:00

ALTERNATIVE PRESS
BUFFALO, N.Y.
October 11,1984
WEEKLY PUBLICATION OF THE
ALTERNATIVE NEWS COLLECTIVE

Surveillance of the White House:
THE NORMAN MAYER VIGIL CONTINUES,

A "Petition in Hieroglyph"
by Ed Powell

Norman Mayer's soul goes marching on, though his body was killed by a Washington SWAT team on Dec. 9, 1981. Norman's two friends, Thomas and Connie, kept his message alive through a 24 hour vigil in front of the White House. Norman's leaflets turned into huge signs, "As an Act of Sanity Ban Nuclear Weapons," Or " Have a Nice Doomsday", and took on new content: "Live by the Bomb. Die by the Bomb."

During the first year (1982-83) Robert joined the vigil as a permanent member; a handful of others came, later left. Now the vigil is up to a hardcore of 12 members who live in Lafayette Park, proving you can not only survive but flourish without money if you have friends.

Thus a new community is sprouting in the very center of the nation's capital. The homeless are creating a home for themselves, in defiance of law and social pressure. "WHITE HOUSE Officials DESTROY PROTEST SIGNS" runs an Associated Press story of June 24, 1984 but a week later still more signs had grown. Visiting dignitaries in the White House could thus look out on the rabble, perhaps ask embarrassing questions. "The signs", say; the AP, "were clearly visible from the north portico of the White and from the Windows of the State floor, used for official parties and state dinners" (Buffalo News, 6/24/84).

On August 6, The Washington Times ran a page 1 story, "SIGNS TAKING ROOT IN LAFAYETTE PARK". The Times explained how the number and size of the signs had grown since last year's effort to regulate them, and quoted a White House staffer: "They look horrible...My little nieces and nephews come to visit Washington and when they went back to upstate New York that's all they talked about" (Washington Times August 6, 1984).

Understandably, kids Like life - and Washington is mostly made up of dead stone. In Lafayette Park people are beginning to talk to each other and play guitars; men take off their shirts...

Lafayette Park: Not Just Another Pretty Postcard

1984-09-07T13:45:00.001-04:00

Lafayette Park: Not Just Another Pretty Postcard

THE NEW YORK TIMES
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1984
By IRVIN MOLOTSKY
Special to The New York Times
WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 - It used to be that one could stand in the middle of Lafayette Park, look across Pennsylvania Avenue and recognize the grand view of the White House that appears on so many travel brochures. No more.

Today, between the visitor and the mansion, there are dozens of protest signs calling for an end to the arms race,eradication of the narcotics trade, elimination of the national debt and a return to a belief in God.

Live by the Bomb/Die by the Bomb," one sign warns. "God Is the Absolute," says another, painted on a wooden billboard as big as the side of a van. Still another cries out: "Arrest Me, I Question the Validity of the Public Debt. Repeal Section 4, Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution."

Between the statues of Andrew Jackson and the Comte de Rochambeau are nine empty tents erected in a crescent shaped "Reaganville" to protest what activists contend is the lack of proper concern for the homeless on the part of the President.

On the other side of Andrew Jackson, a voice rising from two loud speakers attached to a wooden platform 10 feet high ridicules people who accept the theory of evolution because, it is argued, that would require a belief that people have descended from maggots.

A Look of Permanence

The symbols of protest have a look of permanence about them. But that has not been achieved without a few court fights, here and elsewhere, between the government and the demonstrators over how to draw the line between the constitutional right to protest and the right to be left alone and enjoy a park.

"The problem, if that's what you want to call it, is that 10 years of court decisions have held that structures must be allowed at demonstrations, said Patricia Bangert, a lawyer with the National Park Service. Other court decisions, she added, have ordered the Government to permit demonstrations on a 24-hour basis and to allow amplified sound.

Just about the only victory the government has enjoyed in this area was the Supreme Court decision June 29 upholding a ban on overnight sleeping in the National Parks near the White House. It is because of that ban that the nine tents of "Reaganville" stand empty in Lafayette Park.

'An Eyesore in Some Ways'

What do tourists think of the scene?

Bruce Lilley, on a visit from the Baltimore area, where he is a graduate student in biology at the University of Maryland, took no offense at the protest signs as he looked at victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima depicted in photographs that had been tacked to a board. "The pictures are pretty impressive," he said. "You can't get an idea of what radiation does to you until you've seen the pictures."

Mr. Lilley said he saw some good in the protester's efforts. "There's Ronald Reagan over there in the White House and he looks out at this," he said. "It shows how strong the First Amendment is. It might be an eyesore in some ways, but it's better to make a mistake in favor of freedom and not to shut it down."

The tents are a tempting setup for tourist photographs because a corner of the White House can be seen in the background, behind the trees in full leaf. Sharron Uhler, an archivist from the University of Missouri at Kansas City, could not resist the temptation to snap two colleagues from Topeka as they stood next to a sign that said, "Welcome to Reaganville 1984 Where Sleep is Considered a Crime."

"I think it's just kind of interesting," said Miss Uhler, who was in Washington for the archivists' convention. "It's good that we can have a mini tent city in front of the White House."

The tents are about 8 by 10 feet and have rust-colored sides and cream tops. They were put up by the Community for Creative Nonviolence, which is trying to find shelter for the city's homeless.

The tents are empty, just like the President's promises," said Mitch Snyder, a leader of the group, which lost the case in June in the Supreme Court. The broken promises, Mr. Snyder added, included a failure by the administration to refurbish an old building that his group had used to house 700 people a night last winter.

Mr. Snyder says most people, including Government officials, do not begrudge his organization the opportunity to express opposition to President Reagan by erecting empty tents in the middle of the park. But some, he said, "would trade esthetics values for the First Amendment." He said the collection of tents was not an eyesore but instead "enhances the view of the White House, especially in this Administration."

Nuclear Arms and Fast Food

Many of the protest signs concern nuclear disarmament. One, a wooden version, is about 10 feet wide and 15 feet high and says that the end of the threat of nuclear war is "The Absolute Responsibility of every rational being on this planet."

"People give me money, but I use it mostly for printing," said Concepcion Picciotto, pointing to a pile of handbills and petitions behind one of her posters. She and William Thomas erected many of the signs on nuclear arms, according to their handouts.

Miss Picciotto added that she had been living off discarded food from nearby fast-food shops. "But now they are under orders to lock the dumpsters, so it will feed the rats instead of people," she said.

As Miss Picciotto spoke, a group of perhaps 20 Japanese tourists walked up Pennsylvania Avenue. When they got to the front of the park, half of them turned to take pictures of the White House and the other half photographed Miss Picciotto's and Mr. Thomas's signs, among them some showing bodies burned in the 1945 United States atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Concepcion Information List | Conchita Personal Story
Photographs | The President's Neighbor

SIGNS TAKING ROOT IN LAFAYETTE PARK - THE WASHINGTON TIMES August 8,1984

1984-08-08T12:51:00.001-04:00

THE WASHINGTON TIMES
August 8,1984

SIGNS TAKING ROOT IN LAFAYETTE PARK

By Charles E. Wheeler
The Washington Times

Many of the signs are almost the size of billboards and most have sturdy, semi-permanent support braces anchored in the park.

"They look horrible," a White House staffer said yesterday.

"My little nieces and nephews came to visit Washington and when they went back to upstate New York that's all they talked about," she said.

Here starts an anti-nuclear 24 hour vigil since June 1981 maintained by Thomas and Concepcion," says a narrow, hand- lettered sign.

More than 100 feet (and 18 signs) later, the row of protest signs erected by "Thomas and Concepcion" ends.

"There are no real restrictions on structures like there are on the sidewalk in front of the White House," said attorney Trish Bangert of the Interior Department, when asked about the size and semi-permanent status of some of the signs in Lafayette Park.

Restrictions apply only if a structure is attached to a tree or disrupts the environment in some other way, she said. All of the protest signs in Lafayette Park are free- standing.

Signs by Thomas and Concepcion account for more than half the total number now resting in Lafayette Park.

They aren't the only protesters, though. A new 12-foot by 12-foot sign was getting a final touch of paint Monday just a few yards from where Thomas and Concepcion have their display.

Most of the signs condemn nuclear war, but one 15-foot-long by 10-foot-high sign says, "God is the Absolute."

A smaller sign says: "Arrest me-I question the validity of the national debt."

The most imposing structure stands 16-feet high, is 12 feet wide and cries out in silver and black paint, "Have a nice Doomsday".

They don't bother me at all," said Sue Eubanks of Fredericksburg, Va. "They're better across the street [in Lafayette Park] so the president can look out the window and see them," she said.

"If they've got time to paint signs, they've got time to get a job and go to work," said as Indiana man who just arrived with his wife for their first visit to the nation's capital.

"That's how we got the money to come to Washington-work," he said.

The signs "should be there, of course," because "its a free country" said a man from New York City.

"Oh, my Lord! They're funny, though," he said.

"There ought to be a better way to do it than littering," said Mike Kuntz, a University of Nebraska student visiting from Lincoln.

"It's just a barrage of senseless words and graffiti across from the White House," said his friend, Joe Frazier, a University of Virginia student from McLean.

The Federal Court of Appeals held a formal hearing July 25 concerning the constitutionality of some of the Park Service regulations restricting signs on the sidewalk directly in front of the White House.

A decision is expected within a month or two, an Interior Department spokesman said.

Protesters maybe able to go back across the street the White House sidewalk if the court rescinds the Park Service regulations. If not, the protest signs in Lafayette Park may continue to grow in number and size.

Protesting According to the Rules

1984-08-03T14:28:00.001-04:00

Protesting According to the Rules

The Washington Post
Saturday, November 3, 1984 By Philip Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer

Daily, except for unwelcome trips to court or jail, Concepcion Picciotto has stood her White House vigil since the summer of 1981, protesting the spread of nuclear arms. In those three years, she has been arrested 15 times.

"I believe in the ideals of this country," Picciotto says in her native Spanish accent, vowing to stand fast: within eyeshot of the president of the United States across Pennsylvania Avenue.

She wears a wig the size of a football helmet and a chestful of buttons carrying political slogans. But Picciotto's legal difficulties are not rooted, at least directly, in anyone's suspicion that she is a wide-eyed, bomb-throwing radical.

Instead, Picciotto and other protesters have run afoul of a new thicket of regulations drawn up by the Interior Department, enforced by the U.S. Park Police and recently blessed by the courts, and designed to restrict those who choose the president's doorstep to express their political opinions..

The rules, in effect since May, are expected to get their first major test since winning court approval when demonstrators gather today for a rally called by the Community for Creative Non-Violence.

The regulations leave little to a demonstrator's imagination:
A demonstrator who is not carrying a placard or sign, for example, may sit to rest on the White House fence ledge. If he rests while holding a placard, he is subject to arrest.

Signs of up to 20 feet in length and three feet in height may be set up on portions of the White House sidewalk. All must be at least three feet from the fence to guard against concealed explosives.

Signs constructed of cardboard, posterboard or cloth may be carried by demonstrators. Wooden signs are forbidden because, security experts testified in court this year, they could be used to scale the White House fence.

In a central zone extending 10 yards on either side of the White House fence centerpost along Pennsylvania Avenue, stationary signs are prohibited in order to clear the view for tourists. Demonstrators may be in the "central zone" while carrying signs, if they keep moving.

In a series of recent court cases, federal officials have defended the rules as necessary to protect against acts of terrorism and preserve the beauty of the White House view.

Lawyers for the demonstrators, including the American Civil Liberties Union, continue to complain that the restrictions are illegal intrusions on First Amendment guarantees of free speech and the right to assemble.

With relatively little fanfare, the onset of the regulations-prompted, according to the administration, by the threat of a demonstrator to blow up the Washington Monument two years ago-has turned the White House sidewalk and Lafayette Park into a legal battleground.

"There is no more important place for demonstrators than out in front of the White House," says Jeffrey Pash, a lawyer at the prestigious law firm of Covington and Burling who has represented some indigent protesters in court.

"Whether the First Amendment has been backed into a corner, that might be a little strong. But the regulations are certainly a setback for people like Concepcion."

"Frankly we were shocked that we had so much trouble getting the rules through the courts," counters Royce C. Lamberth, chief of the U.S. Attorneys office civil division. "The White House is probably one of the most vulnerable living residences of a head of state in the world."

Interior spokeswoman Sandra Alley said Interior received numerous complaints from tourists before the department banished large, permanent protest signs from in front of the mansion to nearby Lafayette Park.

Administration officials say their concerns about presidential security were heightened considerably when, on Dec. 8,1982, a longtime White House protester,Norman Mayer, backed a truck up to the Washington Monument and threatened to detonate 1,000 pounds of dynamite. When Mayer tried to drive away, possibly headed for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,police shot him to death.

"One thing that was obvious," Lamberth said of the episode, "was, what do we do when the same thing happens at the White House?"

In the view of attorney Pash, security then became "an all purpose alibi" for a crackdown on demonstrators' activities near the White House. "Whether Mayer caused the new regulations or was more of an excuse is certainly open to question," he says.

As evidence of the administration's attitude, Pash cites a Jan. 13, 1983 MEMO by then-Interior Secretary James Watt. In the memo, included in a recent court case, Watt asked for a briefing on the demonstrators. "My intention is to prohibit such activities and require that they take place in the Ellipse," well south of the White House grounds, Watt said. His sweeping idea never took effect, but interior moved to implement its stricter regulations soon afterward.

Earlier this year, U.S. District Judge William B. Bryant threw out the rules, branding them "totally ineffective" and "demonstrably too vague." Bryant's ruling, however, was stayed by the U.S. Court of Appeals while the government's appeal was pending.

Last Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals in White House Vigil for the ERA Committee v. William P. Clark, upheld the regulations for both security and esthetics reasons.

In the face of such pronouncements, Picciotto says she tries to toe the Interior Department's Line. "I just moved in here," she says, indicating a patch of sidewalk in Lafayette Park where demonstrators have been told to stand during the reseeding of the park lawns.

"I think I'm all-right here, but I'm not sure."

Camping or using park land for living accommodation purposes.

Attaching signs or other objects to lamp posts, trees or structures in the park.

Constructing, including painting, signs or structures in the park.

Storing construction materials-lumber paint, tools, laundry carts, luggage, household items,food or personal property-in the park.

Injuring federal property, including snow fencing, grass or other vegetation or structures.

Erecting structures without an official permit.

Using sound equipment so as to disturb nonparticipating persons in the area unreasonably.

Failing to hold or secure signs so as to eliminate safety hazards. Signs must be secured from high winds and supports must not pose a tripping or other hazard.

Failing to have dogs or cats entirely under control and caged or on a leash not more than six feet long.

NOTE: In order to reseed the park, public access to the grassy areas currently is being restricted. Until the grass is established, which is expected to take another two to four weeks, all activities, including demonstrations, have been relocated to the sidewalks within the park.

RULES FOR SIGNS ON SIDEWALK IN FRONT OF WHITE HOUSE

No signs or placards shall be permitted on the White House sidewalk except those made of cardboard, posterboard or cloth having dimensions no grater than three feet in width, 20 feet in length, and one quarter inch in thickness.

No supports shall be permitted for signs or placards except those made of wood having cross-sectional dimensions no greater than three quarters of an inch by three quarters of an inch.

Stationary signs or placards shall be no closer than three feet of the White House sidewalk fence.

All signs and placards shall be attended at all times they are on the White House sidewalk. Signs or placards shall be considered attended only when they are in physical contact with a person.

No signs or placards shall be tied, fastened, or otherwise attached to or leaned against the White House fence, lamp posts or other structures on the White House sidewalk.

No signs or placards shall be held, placed or set down on the center portion of the White House sidewalk, comprising 10 yards on either side of the center point on the sidewalk. However, individuals may demonstrate while carrying signs on that portion of the sidewalk if they continue to move along the sidewalk.

Marine Assaults Concepcion and Thomas

1984-02-16T12:49:00.000-05:00

WEEKLY PUBLICATION OF THE ALTERNATIVE NEWS COLLECTIVE

ALTERNATIVE PRESS BUFFALO, N.Y.

WEATHER: ACID RAIN TODAY IN NEW YORK STATE. CHANCE OF ACID SNOW IN CANADA. HOT AIR BLOWING IN FROM WASH. D.C.. CHANCE OF FALLOUT TOMORROW.

Volume 6 Issue 15 February 16-22, 1984
AFFIDAVIT OF CONCEPCION PlCClOTTO

I, Concepcion Picciotto, under the penalty of perjury, hereby depose and state that:

On January 22, 1984, at about six AM, a small blue automobile stopped in front of my anti-nuclear protest signs on the south side of Lafayette Park, bordering Pennsylvania Ave. facing the White House. A man, who later identified himself to Park police officers as John Deming, U.S. Marine Corps, Navy Annex, Va., emerged from the passenger door of the automobile. Mr. Deming walked to the end of my signs, and punched a sign which read, "Live by the bomb; die by the bomb." He then kicked the sign, breaking it.

I recognized Mr. Deming from an occasion which had occurred approximately two months earlier. At that time, during the late evening, Mr. Deming had accosted me in the same location, the site of a round the clock vigil against nuclear weapons which I have been maintaining for over two and one half years. Mr. Deming repeatedly cursed and threatened, telling me that he had been trained to kill. After some time, a police officer arrived, and told Mr. Deming to leave. Before leaving, Mr. Deming warned me that he would be back.

When I noticed what Mr. Deming was doing to my sign on the morning of the 22, I asked him why he was doing it. He told me, "These signs are shit!" He then began calling me a number of names including "communist", and "nigger", and told me to "get out of this country". He began to advance on in a threatening manner, and I told him I was going to take the license number of the car. He got back in the car, and drove west on Pennsylvania Ave. before I could get the number.

A short time later I saw a man approaching from the west. I did not immediately recognize Mr. Deming because he was now wearing a blue ski jacket, while he had been coatless when , he left in the car.

Mr. Deming walked past me and began to punch holes in a sign which read: "God is the Absolute."

"You are a coward", I yelled at Mr. Deming, terrified at his behavior.

Mr. Deming then punched me in the mouth. He grabbed the aluminum head-dress which I wear, and forced it down over my face, cutting the bridge of my nose. He held the head- dress over my face making it hard for me to breathe, and increasing my terror. I broke away, and ran into the street. screaming for help. I saw Mr. John Foxcroft and called for him to phone the police.

At about that time my friend. William Thomas, arrived at the signs, and Mr. Deming immediately attacked Thomas by punching him repeatedly in the head, knocking Thomas to the ground more than once.

Park police officers Rico Woods and Charles Stubby arrived shortly after. They summoned an ambulance to inspect my wounds, and questioned Mr. Deming briefly, before he was driven away in an Armed Forces police car.

This is at least the third occasion on which Thomas has been physically assaulted by a U.S. marine in connection with our protest activities, and at least the fourth occasion on which s marine has attacked our signs.

signed: Concepcion Picciotto
January 23, 1984

Concepcion Information List | Conchita Personal Story
Photographs | The President's Neighbor

Judge Lifts White House Picket Rules Washington Times

1983-05-05T12:46:00.001-04:00

Judge Lifts White House Picket Rules

The Washington Times
THURSDAY, MAY 5, 1983

By David Sellers
Washington Times Staff

A federal judge yesterday struck down new National Park Service regulations that limit the activities allowed as part of demonstrations on the sidewalk in front of the White House.

"I don't think there's any justification for not having that 30-day period:' Bryant said. "There's no articulated exigency."

Assistant U.S. Attorney John Bates said he was not certain whether his office would appeal Bryant's order.

The new regulations, implemented April 22, prohibit individuals from exhibiting placards or signs on the White House sidewalk unless the person holds them at all times.

The regulations also provide that any packages or containers put down on a sidewalk must be attended and law-enforcement officials must be permitted to search the property. The property also may not be permitted to remain on the sidewalk for more than an hour Bates argues that there are three reasons to support implementation of the regulations: security, congestion and enjoyment of the White House. Although Bates claimed that the demonstrators impede pedestrian and vehicular traffic and "limit the significance and enjoyment of the White House experience for the public:' he based most of his argument on the security concern.

"These are carefully considered regulations that have a minimal impact," Rates argued. "There's no attempt to ban people from demonstrating ."

Two government witnesses who testified at yesterday's hearing, Secret Service Assistant Director Jerry Parr and U.S. Park Police Deputy Chief James Lindsey, said that recent events convinced them of the need for the regulations.

Specifically, they referred to last week's explosion at Fort McNair in Southwest Washington, the bombing of the American embassy in Beirut and the incident involving Norman Mayer, who last year threatened to blow up the Washington Monument with 1,000 pounds of dynamite he said he had in his truck, Mayer was a frequent demonstrator in front of the White House.

ACLU legal director Arthur Spitzer, who represents several demon- strators including the White House Vigil for the ERA Committee, based his argument on two areas: the merits of the regulations and the method by which they were implemented.

Spitzer contended that the government had been considering the regulations for several months and that there was no emergency that Justified bypassing the 30-day comment period.

Spitzer also argued that the regular protesters, including one of his clients, Edward Saffron, who has demonstrated in front of the White House for 14 years, were mindful of the needs of the public and allow tourists to have a clear view of the White House.

"Here the First Amendment interest is paramount. It's not a privilege to use the White House sidewalk; anyone can walk there," Spitzer said.

(picture: Connie holding sign "Quick return to the White House beat". A day after a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order against enforcement of rules governing picketing at the White House, this protester arrived to carry her sign and take up a sitting position along the wall.)

Connie - The Protest Goes On - Houston Chronicle March 13, 1983

1983-03-13T12:28:00.005-05:00

The Protest Goes On

Sympathizers with demonstrator who was slain at White House
continue their anti-nuclear vigil

Houston Chronicle March 13, 1983
BY MONA MEGALLI
United Press International

WASHINGTON -- A guard at the gate calls them the regulars. the ones who sit, stand or pace Pennsylvania Avenue nearly every day picketing the White House.

People for or against nuclear war, abortion, the Vietnam War, budget cuts, and many other issues have made the northern front of the White House their forum.

"Whatever makes the headlines one day, there's someone who comes in the next day to file for a First Amendment permit. It goes in cycles," says National Park Police spokeswoman Sandra Alley.

Some protest there for a few hours, others persist in their cause for years. Most remain anonymous. Norman Mayer didn't.

On Dec. 8, Mayer, 66, who had demonstrated daily before the White House against nuclear weapons since June 1982, besieged the Washington Monument for 10 hours before he was killed by police.

Coincidentally, nuclear warfare again was the preoccupation of the few regulars who braved a blustery Washington morning One day this month.

Through the White House fence, Concepcion Picciotto threw crumbs to the pigeons on the presidential lawn. She leaned over a large sign that warns of nuclear holocaust in red and green lettering.

Another sign read:"God Bless jelly beans and H-bombs."

Mrs. Picciotto, in a soft Latin accent, spoke of initially coming to Washington to seek justice and freedom.

"I had been on a campaign across the country and couldn't accomplish anything." she said. "I Was here all day and accomplished nothing. Now I am committed to a 24-hour vigil against nuclear weapons. I have been here for 17 months now."

Mayer used to give her a penny for each anti-nuclear pamphlet she handed out for him. Mrs. Picciotto said.

Pressed for details, she suggested that William Thomas, a fellow protester who once was Mayer's protege, could answer more questions. She said he had been on vigil for 19 months.

We walked behind an enormous sign of a mushroom cloud of eerie psychedelic hues. The sign, raised on a mobile platform, slopes to form the side of a shelter, like one-half of a peaked roof.

Thomas, 35. an articulate man with a bushy brown beard and a bad cold, lay on its floor under a quilt. Packed paper bags lined a shelf built into the shelter he has made from bits and planks of discarded wood. Every night, he said, they pack all their signs and roll their shelter farther along the sidewalk to sleep in front of the Old Executive Building.

"All sorts of people have been coming up to talk to me since Norman died," Thomas said."Before, when I started not too many People came. All I had was a filthy pair of jeans."

His clothes looked clean -- an orange down jacket brown corduroys, and wine leather boots. "Concepcion finds these," he said.

Thomas earnestly launched into a monologue for Mayer, against nuclear Warfare. He went on to explain how, by living "without accommodations." he illustrates humanity's ability to do without the possessions They use atomic warfare to protect.

Another regular, Edward Saffron. 65, bundled in blue against the cold, clear morning, said he has walked his beat for a few hours a week since May 26, 1969. The neat, open-faced man sported a blue and white muffler and a sandwich board calling for world disarmament.

He will only hand out his typed, copyrighted, five-sheet pronouncement on global survival to people who are interested. "I'm not a millionaire. I have to pay for these," he said.

"After this, I'll go home, eat something, switch on the television and take it easy. I'm here to make the White House know I am here," he said.

"We get a lot of regulars. After a while, unless they are violent, all they do is merge in the past." said J.C. Lindsey, deputy chief of Park Police Office for Operations. As long as protesters cause no trouble "they're our guests," Lindsey said.

Concepcion Picciotto - Hijacker of White House Anti-Nuclear Peace Vigil from Founder W. Thomas

PLEASE VISIT AND SPREAD THE WARNING- Concepcion Picciotto - White House Anti-Nuclear Peace Vigil Hijacker from Founder W. Thomas

Mr. President, meet your closest neighbor

Introduction

Mr. President, meet your closest neighbor: Concepcion Picciotto.

The Vigil: Past To Present

The Vigil: Past To Present

Reflections of the Past: The Early Years

Connie and Thomas Call Sidewalk Home

Connie's Beloved Thomas' 'MANIFESTO OF INDEPENDENCE'

MANIFESTO OF INDEPENDENCE:

A FAST FOR LIFE, LIBERTYAND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

by William Thomas

Connie's Dear Friend Norman Mayer Slain - Vigil Continues

Connie and Thomas Legal Battles Con't

Conchita's Signs Taking Root in Lafayette Park

Connie and Thomas - Watchers at the Gate

Connie Advertising a the White House?

Concepcion's Life of Protest

A LIFE OF PROTEST

By George Joseph TanberTOLEDO MAGAZINE, Decmber 4-10, 1988

Conchita's Round the Clock Vigil

Daily ExpressMalaysiaSunday, Sept. 19, 1993

From James Sarda

Connie - Proof that if you keep trying, some will listen

Reflexion grafica por Sally Hanlon:

Revista Maryknoll, March 1992 Cargando la cruz ajena

Conchita - Inspiring Peace Activists World-wide

Connie - "We must teach our children to value Life"

Concepcion - No More Hiroshimas

Connie, an Unmatched Defender of Free Speech - 1st Amendment

More than 30 years the Soldier for Humanity

Washington Post - Whatever Happened To... ... the protesters at Lafayette Square park?

Washington protester who outlasts presidents

Washington protester who outlasts presidents

Minn Tribune: Will it ever end?

Will it ever end?

Protester outlasts 4 US presidents

One-man demos to silent protests

One-man demos to silent protests

Pennsylvania Avenue's other famous couple

Pennsylvania Avenue's other famous couple

Last Updated: Friday, August 15, 2008 | 3:51 PM ET

By Andrea Lee, CBC News

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YES: People We Love

Washington Post - Vigil for peace marks 25th year

Vigil for peace marks 25th year

Protesting for peace

Protesting for peace

Spanish immigrant calls sidewalk home in decades-long showdown with White House

by Jason Kane and Nicole WetherellHatchet Reporters

Una Mujer Contra El Sistema Americano, Los Domingos De La Voz (Spanish)

Letter From Newaygo High School, Newaygo, Mi.

Les presidents americains passent... Conchita reste (REPORTAGE)

Les presidents am�ricains passent...Conchita reste (REPORTAGE)

Lone Woman on a Relentless Anti-Nuclear Crusade

Washington Times - White House protester undaunted for nearly 20 years

BILL CLINTON NACHBARIN

BILL CLINTON NACHBARIN

DEAD LITTLE GIRL OF HIROSHIMA

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Article in Korean News: June, 1997

Article in Korean News: June, 1997

Received from Shinichi Miyake, Hokkaido, Japan, 2/11/97

NEWSLETTER "YA- USU-BETSU"NO. 1 February 1, 1997

Received from Shinichi Miyake, Hokkaido, Japan, 2/11/97: Thank You, Ms. Picciotto!510 Signatures arrived here in Kushiro

La gallega apostada ante la Casa Blanca lleva 16 anos viviendo a la intemperie

Concepcion Martin inicio la campana de protesta al ser dela custodia de su hija

La gallega apostada ante la Casa Blanca lleva 16 anos viviendo a la intemperie

El proximo martes, cuando las elecciones norteamericanas confirmen la anunciada victoria de Bill Clinton para un segundo mandato presidencial, ep flamante presidente democrata ocupara de nuevo su despach oWASHINGTON. R. GARCIA-RICO

The Little Giant

WHITE HOUSE PEACE VIGIL SINCE 1981

The Little Giant

Concepcion, standing up for her rights.

A FAST FOR LIFE, LIBERTY
AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

By George Joseph Tanber
TOLEDO MAGAZINE, Decmber 4-10, 1988

Daily Express
Malaysia
Sunday, Sept. 19, 1993

by Jason Kane and Nicole Wetherell
Hatchet Reporters

Les presidents am�ricains passent...
Conchita reste (REPORTAGE)

NEWSLETTER "YA- USU-BETSU"
NO. 1 February 1, 1997

Received from Shinichi Miyake, Hokkaido, Japan, 2/11/97: Thank You, Ms. Picciotto!
510 Signatures arrived here in Kushiro

El proximo martes, cuando las elecciones norteamericanas confirmen la anunciada victoria de Bill Clinton para un segundo mandato presidencial, ep flamante presidente democrata ocupara de nuevo su despach o
WASHINGTON. R. GARCIA-RICO

WHITE HOUSE PEACE VIGIL
SINCE 1981

Uber eine merk-wurdige Frau and Nachbarin des USA-Prasiden / Aus Washington berichtet
REINER OSCHMANN
Neues Deutschland
Freitag, 1, September 1995

By DeNeen L. Brown and Wendy Melillo
Washington Post Staff Writers

amerika & canada
revue 1994

The Washington Post
Friday, May 13, 1994

By Linda Wheeler
Washington Post Staff Writer

Daily Express
Malaysia
Sunday, Sept. 19, 1993

Peace Park
Under Siege

By George Joseph Tanber
TOLEDO MAGAZINE, Decmber 4-10, 1988

La Casa Bianca
3,366 persone tutte al servizio di un inquilino

WHITE HOUSE ANTI-NUCLEAR PEACE VIGIL
24-HOURS A DAY SINCE 1981
C. PICCIOTTO & W. THOMAS
P.O. BOX 4931
WASHINGTON D.C. 20008

December 1987
Washington, D.C., U.S.A.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
VOL. CCVI NO. 124
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1985

One Way to Capture Mr. Reagan's Notice Is to Erect Big Sign!
Trash as Protest Symbol?

Capital Park Dispute
Free Speech or Eyesore?

New Rules to Curb Lafayette Protests
'Visual Blight' Cited