[antiwar-van] "Human Shield" Peace Activists Mobilize for Iraq

[Carole Karkhairan]

Thanks to Cathy Woods for forwarding this - www.creativeresistance.ca.

"Human Shield" Peace Activists Mobilize for Iraq 
by Andrew Cawthorne
January 8, 2003 by Reuters 


LONDON, Jan 8 - To the delight of Baghdad, anti-war activists round 
the world are staging their own mobilisation to Iraq to act as "human 
shields" if the bombs start falling and in solidarity with the Iraqi 
people.

As the United States and Britain build up their military presence in 
the Gulf, the volunteers from Western and Muslim groups are also 
planning to converge on Iraq for what they view as an 11th hour peace 
mission.

Shrugging off criticism they are handing a propaganda gift to Iraqi 
President Saddam Hussein, the groups involved insist they can recruit 
hundreds or even thousands of volunteers.

"I am calling for a mass migration to Iraq. We can stop this mad 
war," said Ken Nichols, a Dutch-based former U.S. marine who was in 
the 1991 Gulf War and is now behind one of the highest-profile human 
shield convoys.

His "We the People" group is seeking volunteers to join a convoy 
leaving London this month. They plan to travel through European and 
Middle Eastern capitals to arrive in Iraq in early February where 
they intend to fan out to key installations.

"If war starts, I will be in the most vulnerable areas. I want to be 
out where the bombs drop," Nichols added, saying hundreds would be on 
his convoy. "If there is a risk of large Western casualties, that is 
quite a political liability."

Another big rallying point is in Iraq's neighbour Jordan.

There, a campaign led by leftist, Islamist parties and civic bodies 
is seeking 100,000 human shield volunteers.

Organisers, the National Mobilisation Committee for the Defence of 
Iraq, would not give current figures but said many were responding 
and that the first convoy would leave in a week.

"The war against Iraq is a war against the whole Arab nation," 
committee head Hakm al-Fayez told Reuters.

The new human shield plans have inevitably revived memories of the 
Gulf War when Saddam forcibly held thousands of Western hostages 
after his invasion of Kuwait. Many were put near sensitive sites in a 
futile bid to dissuade attacks.

Iraq also used Iraqis -- alongside some foreign volunteers -- as 
human shields in 1998 against U.S.-British bombing.

IRAQI DELIGHT

Not surprisingly, Baghdad has welcomed the latest offers. "This is a 
practical Arab and international reaction to the hostile build-up of 
troops in the Gulf and neighbouring countries," said one senior Iraqi 
official, Saad Qasim Hammoud. To avoid being seen as pawns of Saddam, 
some among the many groups and charities organising trips to Iraq are 
shunning the tag "human shield" and are as critical of his government 
as they are of U.S. and British war plans. These groups prefer to 
couch their aims in terms of educating the West and showing 
solidarity with ordinary Iraqis.

"We do not support any government," said Kathy Kelly, of the 
U.S.-based Voices in the Wilderness (VIW) group which has long 
opposed sanctions on Baghdad and is now organising an "Iraq Peace 
Team" to travel there. "We want to be alongside people at a difficult 
and stressful time. We hope there will not be a war. If there is, we 
will be there," added Kelly, who was part of a 72-member peace camp 
inside Iraq near the border with Saudi Arabia in 1991.

One poignant stance has been taken by a group of American relatives 
of September 11 victims -- "Families for Peaceful Tomorrows" -- who 
left for Iraq days ago on a week-long visit. "My hope is that all 
people will come to realise that loss of more human life will not 
solve the problems of the world," said Kathleen Tinley, who lost her 
uncle Michael when two hijacked planes crashed into New York's World 
Trade Centre. Many of the activists said they were well aware of 
Saddam's alleged crimes -- both in terms of repression of Iraqis and 
the weapons capacity that is the West's main bone of contention -- 
but they could not be quiet on the suffering of ordinary Iraqis.

"If people had actually read the U.N. reports or been to the country, 
like I have, and seen babies dying of diarrhoea, they would realize 
what the West has been doing with its sanctions and what this is all 
about," said British student Matthew Barr, who is leaving for Iraq 
with a VIW group.

-- Additional reporting by Matthew Jones in London, Suleiman 
al-Khalidi in Amman and Iraq, Italy and Germany bureaux

© 2003 Reuters Ltd

Source: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0108-07.htm
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