Chicago, IL – More than 200 activists from 73 organizations met at the Kent College of Law here, Aug. 28, to lay the groundwork for massive protests at the G8 and NATO summit is scheduled for May of 2012. The conference, initiated by the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) served as the founding meeting of the “Coalition Against NATO / G8 War and Poverty Agenda.” Participants agreed that the meeting was a resounding success.

Joe Iosbaker, the Chicago spokesperson for UNAC, told attendees, “We have been running flat out since June to bring this meeting together to found both a national coalition and a local coalition against NATO and the G8, to say no to their wars and attacks on the lives of workers and oppressed people. This meeting today brings together over 70 organizations. We have key groups here – folks who played a leading role in the major anti-war and anti-corporate globalization protests in recent years; veterans of all the anti-war movements since Vietnam; as well as leading fighters in the community and labor struggles in Chicago. We have reached out broadly, gathering support from faith-based activists, from Arab and Muslim, African American, Puerto Rican and Chicano/Mexicano communities, and all the organizations in Chicago and across the country in the anti-war movement to build the largest protests possible in May.”

Iosbaker was one of the anti-war and international solidarity activists whose home was raided by the FBI on September 24, 2010.

Speaking of the protests planned for the Summit, Iosbaker stated “When we march on the McCormick Convention Center, our front banner will read, ‘Jobs, Housing, Healthcare, Education, Pensions, the Environment – Not War.’ We think that will speak for most people in this city, and we think that tens of thousands will join us to say ‘No to NATO/G8 and their War and Poverty Agenda.’”

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