'Crater' Diggings Defended As Trouble Stoppers

Anti-war activists who helped organize the digging of four bomb craters on the U-M campus May 19 have criticized the news media and University for èmphasizing "malicious destruction" oí University property during the demohstration. The peace groups said the cráter digging constituted a non-violent action which, instead, helped prevent "trashing" of buildings or other violent demonstrations against the Vietnam war. ■- The craters were designed to simúlate the holes left in Vietnam by American war planes. The University gave permission to the demonstrators to dig a cráter herween Hill Auditorium and the Michigan League, but nowhere else. The U-M has threatened to prosecute identified demonstrators who dug three other unauthorized craters in the vicinity of the campus Diag. Genie Plamondon and John Goldman, local residents who helped organize theB demonstration, say the demonstrators felt it imperative to dig craters on the 1 Diag because it was the most centraily 1 located área of the campus, and wo'ild therefore be the most noticed place. "People had been telling us for weeks I that if they couldn't dig on the Diag, I they would dig a cráter on (U-M I dent Robben) Fleming's lawn, or in I front of the ROTC building, or by Cily I Hall," Mrs. Plamondon said. "They also I said they would trash some buildings." fl "So digging on the Diag helped chan1 nel people's energies into non-destrucI tive and non-violent action," she said. The University claims it was '-espeI cially concerned" about digging in tbe I Diag area "because the subsurface is I interlaced with electrie power lines, telI ephone cables, water conduits and sew age lines." Goldman and Mrs. Plamondon dispute this, saying the area near I Hill Auditorium where digging was auI thorized was "much more dangerous," according to maps supplied by the I University. "The maps showed a high-voltage ■ cable near the Hill area where we were I given permission to dig," Mrs. I don said. Not one cable or line was hit ■ while digging on the Diag, she continued. I But a cable was struck while digging at I the authorized spot. The antiwar activists also commented I that the cost of filling in the four craters ■ is nothing in comparison with the costH of the daily destruction in Vietnam.