Individuals distributed thousands of flyers, and the group Food Not Bombs handed out hundreds of free apples. There were middle class housewives and lesbians, hippies, punks, rastafarians, Buddhists, Christians, Republicans, Communists, anarchists, all sitting together in the park. Aviano Air Base is located at the base of the Italian Alps. There is only one road in and one road out, and there are few signs that direct your way towards this massive NATO fortress. Hundreds of thousands square yards are surrounded by chain-linked and barb wired fences.
Guard towers mark the perimeter of the base with serious looking sentries manning machine guns.
Anyone trying to get in this base without permission would be shot on sight. 20,000 bold anti-war protesters dared to do almost just that on Sunday afternoon, June 6th. This was the third largest demonstration against the war in Yugoslavia, after the 100,000 strong demonstrations in Rome on April 3rd and 10th, and the 200,000 demonstration in Assisi by Perugia on May 20th. He mentioned also that NATO clearly showed its contempt for the G8 peace plan since they refused to stop the bombings while negotiations around Yugoslavian troop withdrawal were in process. He denounced NATO for purposely bombing hospitals, schools, kindergartens, and old people's homes.