RAMSTEIN, Germany — Efforts are under way to stage a counterprotest to Cindy
Sheehan’s planned March 11 demonstration outside Landstuhl Regional Medical
Center and Ramstein Air Base.
Sheehan, who is the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq and who protested the
war last summer outside President Bush’s Texas ranch, is scheduled to
participate in a daylong war protest.
Stefan Prystawik, a German writer in Bonn, is working to stage a
counterprotest. On his Web site, at www.stefan-prystawik.de, Prystawik
characterizes Sheehan as “the great-great grandmother of all Bush haters.”
Sheehan’s planned protest is highly inappropriate, and her complaints are
“very much an internal U.S. matter,” Prystawik said.
“First of all, it’s completely inappropriate to instrumentalize the troops
here particularly, and above all, those who have suffered severe injuries and
are at the hospital,” he said. “They are coming here with an attitude to
deliberately demoralize troops who just got back or are going to go back [to
Iraq].”
Also Friday, organizers of Sheehan’s protest said that they had obtained
permission from German officials in Landstuhl and Ramstein to have their
demonstration March 11.
On that morning, a press conference will take place in a Protestant parish
hall in Landstuhl. After the press conference, Sheehan is scheduled to share her
views, said Detlev Besier, a Protestant pastor in Landstuhl and an event
organizer.
It is still possible that the group may try to take gifts and baked goods to
troops in Landstuhl, the U.S. military hospital where wounded troops are treated
before being flown from Ramstein to the United States.
After a break for lunch, protesters will walk from Landstuhl to a parking lot
outside Ramstein’s west gate where a “Camp Casey” will be set up to pay tribute
to those who have died in the Iraq war.
Sheehan’s son, Army Spc. Casey Sheehan, was killed in Iraq on April 4, 2004.
Besier said his group does not like the high emotions stirred by news of
Sheehan’s visit.
“We want to bring the emotion down,” he said.
“We don’t want to have emotional conflict. It’s not our aim to come too close
to somebody. We want to have discussion, and we know Cindy Sheehan wants to open
the minds of mothers who have sons, children around the world.”