UC Santa Barbara Students Against War Disrupt Army Biotech Conference

Anti-war protesters celebrated on February 13th after having forced the US Army's Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies (ICB) to cancel the second day of its annual conference at UC Santa Barbara. The day prior, over 500 UCSB students and Santa Barbara community members disrupted the conference to demand an end to UC complicity in weapons research designed to kill Iraqis in an illegal war.

UCSB administrators and ICB conference organizers responded to the student's non-violent direct action by calling in dozens of police and sheriff's officers. The Santa Barbara County Sheriff's gang task force unit was called in alongside California Highway Patrol forces. Three protesters were arrested during the day's confrontation. Many students were pushed, hit, and threatened by the police, while one student claimed to have been tazered, and others reported police brandishing batons and pepper spray. UCSB has not seen this level of police repression of political activism since the early 1970's when Governor Ronald Reagan proclaimed marshal law to quell anti-war organizing in Isla Vista.

Demonstrators broke through police lines, dismantled blockades and occupied the courtyard in front of UCSB's Corwin Pavilion. A space previously reserved for war makers on a lunch break was soon covered in anti-war, anti-government, pro-peace, and pro-freedom slogans, as well as peace signs, hearts, circle-A's, and the now-infamous Anarchy Heart, a common symbol amongst today's growing anarchist movement. Also present were anti-police messages and web addresses for sites like crimethinc.com and indymedia.org.

The ICB is a $50 million Army-funded research institute hosted by UCSB, with sub-contracts at MIT and Caltech. According to the Army's 2006 Budget Justification to Congress, the "ICB is focused on advancing the survivability of both the soldier and weapons systems through fundamental breakthroughs in the area of biotechnology," including sensors, electronics, and photonics for these military applications. The annual conferences feature military-sponsored biotechnology researchers from all over the United States.

"The ICB's research directly contributes to the war in Iraq as well as to the US military's long-term project of, to paraphrase the Army, war that will not end in our lifetime. Therefore, it was the most salient target possible for an anti-war protest at UCSB," protest organizer Larri Craig said. "Our victory in this action represents a major triumph of people power over the United States' bloated war machine."

The anti-war direct action movement has been building steadily at UC Santa Barbara during the past year, starting when roughly 1,500 protesters shut down Highway 217 last February 15 to protest the war in Iraq. In other recent actions, students have driven CIA recruiters from campus, conducted a nine-day hunger strike against the University of California's development of nuclear weapons, and conducted a large "critical mass" bike ride from Isla Vista to downtown Santa Barbara.

More Coverage of February 12th and 13th on Santa Barbara and LA IMCs: 350 War Resistors Blockade and Disrupt UCSB Army/Industrial Conference - 3 Arrests || UCSB Students Against War Disrupts Collaborative Biotechnology Military Research Conference || Army Biotech Conference Disrupted by UCSB Antiwar Activists || Follow-Up: UCSB Army Conference Totally Shut Down!