by Christopher Sanchez
Daily Lobo
Student Desi Brown said UNM's Peace and Justice Fair began last year to get people to discuss peace.
"It isn't just a five-letter word. We can talk about it," said Brown, president of Students Organizing Action for Peace.
For the second year, the UNM Peace and Justice Fair was held Wednesday in the SUB and other locations around campus. Forty-five activist groups participated in the fair through panel discussions, exhibits and guest speakers.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
Brown, whose organization co-sponsored the fair, said he hoped students would get something out of it, he said.
"My goal for today is to see every student walk out the door with something they want to do," he said.
Student Jerome Chavez said he attended the fair to check out organizations involved.
"It's a good event to promote how students can get involved, which is part of activism," Chavez said.
It was good to see a variety of organizations, he said.
"It lets students know about organizations out there and the possible careers to work for social justice," he said.
Student Eric Lieberman represented Presbyterian Student Fellowship with a booth of information about nonviolence.
"We wanted to lend community support and be part of the community and show that peace is a possibility," Lieberman said.
He said a good turnout of people stopped by the group's booth, but it would have been nice to see a diverse crowd.
"The people here are already interested in peace," he said. "It would be nice to get people in here that didn't know about it, to provide awareness."
Lieberman said he found out about the fair through e-mail a couple of days before. More publicity would have helped, he said.
Brown said the fair was advertised through local papers. He said about 800 people went to the fair throughout the day. He was disappointed because it was the same turnout as last year, he said.
The daylong event ended at 10 p.m. with music and slam poetry, which was intended to attract more students.
One of the panel discussions concentrated on student involvement and was moderated by Brown. The panel had four student organizers on it.
During the discussion, Brown talked about why he wanted to become an organizer.
"I want to work as little as possible for money, and I want to work as much as possible for freedom," he said.
Brown said members of the panel wanted students to know that they, too, can become organizers.
Later in the evening, Iraq war veteran Tony Garcia spoke to the remaining organizers about the devastation of war.
"I'm not anti-military," he said. "I'm anti-this war."
Garcia said the war seemed justified at the time he went to Iraq.
"We were told the Iraqis were in charge of 9-11. Then they had weapons of mass destruction," he said. "We went. We fought. And we fought well."
He realized the war was unjustified when he came back home, he said.
Civilian life was hard when he got back from the war, he said. He started drinking heavily and was arrested once, but then he got help, he said.
He urged all veterans to seek help after the war.
"Tell them to reach out for help so they don't have to experience the same pain I went through. The pain I am going through. The pain I will go through for the rest of my life," he said.
