Less than a week after setting up an encampment at South Park, antiwar protesters Thursday evening were rolling up their sleeping bags and stowing their gear.

City officials earlier Thursday told them they had to leave by 11:30 p.m., when the park closed. Many had gone by evening; some protesters continued until the deadline.

“Our hearts are still strong. Really, people just didn’t want to get arrested,” said Alexander Berkman, 20, of Lawrence. “Nobody wanted to go through the hassles of the legal process. They’d just be giving the city money.”

Berkman said opposition to the war would continue, but he was not specific as to what form it would take.

“The protests will continue, most definitely,” he said.

Despite a city ordinance prohibiting camping in public parks, the protesters had been in the park in varying numbers since soon after the United States began the war with Iraq.

And despite complaints from park neighbors and others, the city allowed the campers to remain since the tent city began growing Saturday.

Wednesday, City Manager Mike Wildgen said the city’s handling of the protest was no different from the way it dealt with building-code violations and other infractions.

“The first thing we do is we try to communicate with them,” he said. “We don’t go in there and give somebody a ticket.”

After a six-day encampment in South Park condemning war in Iraq, Marie Stockett, Lawrence, rolls up her tent. City officials told the campers they had to leave by 11:30 p.m. Thursday.

The city’s goal, Wildgen said, was to clear the park without a confrontation.

And, he said Thursday, the decision to ask the protesters to leave was made before the complaints began.

“We feel that now that they’ve made their point, it’s time to move and not usurp the park any more,” Wildgen said.

The decision to strike the camp was made when about two dozen campers met late Thursday afternoon to discuss the city’s ultimatum.

“It’s going to be a lot of personal decisions” on whether to leave, said a young man who identified himself only as Eli.

But he disputed the city’s legal authority to remove the antiwar campers.

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“We’re not camping, we’re peaceably assembling,” he said. “We are exercising our First Amendment rights.”

So were a half-dozen war supporters who stood at the edge of the park, encouraging downtown drivers to honk in support of troops in Iraq.

Frank Ramirez, one of the counterprotesters, said he was ready to see the city kick the antiwar campers out of the park.

“I’d love to see it,” he said. “Half those kids over there don’t know what they’re doing — they’re 15, 16 years old. They’ve been breaking the law.”

Eli said the United States was breaking international law by invading Iraq. If the country could do it, he said, so can the campers.

“We have a legal conflict here,” he said.

The encampment did cause some inconveniences — such as reducing the space available for recess and physical education classes at the St. John campus of the Lawrence Catholic School, 1208 Ky. But many people who live and work near the park welcomed the protest.

“They’re not troublemakers,” said 33-year-old Clint Wedel, who lives on Vermont Street. “To kick them all out and give them all tickets — it’s really more trouble than it’s worth.”

One camper, 19-year-old Eric Smith of Lawrence, said the fact the camp violated city rules was little concern in light of “the crime” the United States was committing by invading Iraq.

“Our federal government, if you can call it ours, is giving itself all of the leeway it wants,” he said. “We figured we could bend local law to our demands.”