Day of Capture

Greetings everyone,

I was asked by a few people in response to my last letter to explain more
about my final day in Iraq, which also happened to be the day the U.S.
military announced Saddam's capture.

Early in the afternoon, I was sitting in the living room at our apartment
when I heard a few people shooting from the rooftops. We happen to live
next to a heavily-guarded branch of the Iraqi Communist Party, and it is
not unexpected to hear gunfire on a regular basis. However, it seemed the
shooters were coming from several directions this time. Was it a family
feud? This is also not unheard of. We had the curtains open and decided
the street looked clear enough to walk into the apartments' foyer and ask
our neighbors what was happening.

Our neighbors next door came out carrying pistols (since there's no police
force, every household has a gun). Their eyes lit up. "Saddam, Saddam,"
they said, and made a grabbing gesture. Then they went into the street. My
Arabic was failing me so I went upstairs to our landlord's apartment. The
doors were open, and BBC was playing. This house was a mix of emotions.
The landlord is Syrian Christian and quite westernized. Their housekeeper
is Muslim. While the landlord's wife was smiling and pointing to the
screen, the housekeeper was weeping. "Thank God, things will get better
at last," said the wife. Meanwhile, the housekeeper was touching the
pictures of Saddam's family on the screen and saying each one's name.
"They will hurt him, they will kill him," she said. Then the neighbors
below shot off their pistols next to the house. The housekeeper started
sobbing and yelling. The landlord's wife told her she could tell them
they were under orders to stop shooting. So they stopped. We stayed
watching the TV for about an hour. During this time, the landlord and his
daughter came back from the University of Baghdad. The daughter is driven
to school every day because of the instability. The wife began crying and
hugged them both because she thought they wouldn't make it home. The
landlord watched a few minutes and said, "It is going to be much worse
now." He predicted there would be retaliatory attacks in the coming
days, similar to the rash of bombings during Ramadan.

The shooting itself lasted only about twenty minutes, then settled. It
was much different when the sons, Uday and Qusay, were killed. (I was
mid-flight when that happened). Then, as my teammates report,the shooting
was much more populous and lasted throughout the night. Actually, the
celebration when Iraq won a soccer match against North Korea this fall was
also much more prolonged and intense. (That was a night where we didn't
know what was going on and huddled in the back of our apartment until well
after midnight, thinking a major uprising had begun and perhaps we were
going to die.) There were a few reasons for this subdued reaction, it
seems. One of the probably less obvious ones a few different neighbors
cited is that the U.S. occupation has gone so poorly and people don't feel
their lives have improved much, if any, since Saddam left.

Everyone in the building warned us not to venture far, in case anyone was
looking to retaliate. I was trying to say my goodbyes, so I stuck to our
little street and had to miss others. My Chaldean Christian friend up the
street had not ventured out at all that day. She stayed put with her baby
and toddler. She said, "Sure, I'd like to see him brought to justice, but
I can't even see him on tv now. We've had no electricity all day, and
also no water today either. All I can hear about the news is from my
balcony, since there's no phones either." The power did come on for ten
minutes while I was there, just enough to see a glimpse of the news
conference where he was being examined by a military doctor. Then it cut
out again. Their generator was out of gas due to the domestic fuel
crisis. (Iraqi fuel is being exported at record high levels by US
contractors while gas queues are consistently up to two miles long
throughout the day and night.)

Later we went to church in our neighborhood. It seems much of the
congregation either didn't know Saddam had been captured yet, or simply
didn't care much. People looked tired and strained as usual. The priest
put it well: "We don't really know what this all will mean."

I did venture a little farther onto the main strip to visit another friend
with one of my teammates that evening. People were milling about, but
there was no real mood of celebration. Just the opposite of what the
english news channels were suggesting. I had seen that another branch of
the Communist party held an impromptu street parade near the center of
town, but even footage of that seemed like a comparatively small
gathering. A few children had roman candles and were lighting them.
Still, who knows, they do that every day.

The next morning we left early. On the main street, people were looking
curiously at the newspaper photos of Saddam, but they seemed more
interested in staying warm on the cold day or in catching their taxis.
Whatever they felt, whatever the capture means, life was moving on as it
has been these past eight months under occupation.

Month of the Bombs

I was already awake the morning when I heard the bizzare sound of what I
could only describe as a jet speeding up and slowing down to break the
sound barrier multiple times, only I don’t think jets can do that. Or
thunder, which is unheard of this time of year. Within two hours, BBC
reported that it had actually been a multiple-rocket attack against the al
Rashid hotel, where Paul Wolfowitz was staying in Baghdad.

Since then, it has been a tragic Ramadan. Another day we were just
walking out the door when the force of another blast went ahead and opened
the door for us. It didn’t break, it just puffed open. We went up to the
roof and saw the black smoke rising. That was the Red Cross. The same
day, multiple police stations were targeted by car bombs. And then there
have been the nearly-nightly mortar attacks on the CPA across the river.
My skin is on edge, waiting for the next explosion. It’s very hard to
relax when your nervous system is instinctively fully charged.

I can now tell the difference between a regular bomb and a car bomb. A
car bomb is much more powerful, and has the distinctive ‘double-boom’: one
for the explosive itself, blowing open the car, and the other a
split-second before or after of the gas tank splitting open. It is also
much higher pitched than a regular bomb or mortar. I can also pick out
Iraqi gunfire, US gunfire, Iraqi mortars, US mortars--I don't count US
Apache helicopters or tank rounds because I was all too familiar with them
from before, living with them daily in Palestine.

There are so many groups carrying out these bombings, for so many reasons.
This is the reason I have waited to send this letter, because sorting
them all can be so complex. Part of unraveling the mess is to check our
Iraqi neighbors’ reactions to individual bombings. Those which are
carried out against the US military are, sadly, generally supported.
Responsibility for these attacks are claimed by the Iraqi resistance.
When we ask why they are carrying out these attacks, and why now, the
answer is always the same: Occupation, house raids, and dead children.
There is no justice and no democracy, now six and seven months after the
‘liberation.’ There is no security, either from the general post-war
chaos or from the brutal actions of our own US soldiers. They are not
Baathists, because they hated Saddam. And they are not foreigners.

I am sorry to report that. But that is what is said on every street and
in every house we visit.

Some Iraqis would like the US military to stay, if they would police the
streets and adhere to human rights and due process. Others want the US to
be gone immediately, and get the UN to replace them for the peacekeeping
functions. Others say, “Anything is still better than Saddam.” Others
say, “Even Saddam was better than this.”

The other bombings—of Iraqi schools and cultural landmarks, are pretty
unanimously opposed by Iraqis we speak to. The question is, who is
responsible for these? One leaflet passed out around Baghdad at the
beginning of Ramadan, claimed to be from the Ba’athists and threatened to
bomb every school and university over the first weekend. So most of our
friends and neighbors kept their children at home. But some of them told
us they didn’t think the bombs were from the Ba’athists. One said, “It
could be the Kuwaitis. We deprived them of a year of school when Saddam
invaded their country. Now I think they want to take revenge.”

Myself, I don’t know.

I have learned here that when you see a large group of people clustered
here, it can only be one of two things: either some office is handing out
benefit payments, or there is a funeral. Funerals here involve an
open-faced coffin wrapped in a blanket. [Palestinians do not use coffins.
They use a platform instead]. Someone mounts the casket onto the roof
rack of their car, and all the male relatives and neighbors follow in
procession to the burial field. The women gather in the house of the
deceased and weep together. I know this because in the last little while
I have been to far too many funerals.

Our team has a friend who has received one of the postwar reconstruction
sub-contracts. He is supposed to provide meals for two thousand prisoners
at one of the prisons in Baghdad. To do this, he has a $3,000 budget per
day. If everything is going well, he can make a small profit.
Unfortunately, with power outages and water shortages, things don’t go so
well too often. Right now, he’s losing money. Trouble is, he’s
subcontracted from a Qatari company which receives $4,000 per day just for
hiring him to do the job. Trouble is, the Qataris are subcontracted from
a US firm, Halliburton (its local subsidiary here is KBR) or Bechtel,
which pockets the rest of the contract at nearly $10,000 per day. Just
who exactly is being aided by our aid programs?

At the CPA, 6,000 US military and civilian staffers must be fed each day.
The cost of providing a Western-style meal (hamburgers, fries, onion
rings, potato chips, alternate entrée, soup bar, salad bar, soda fountain,
coffee, tea, and dessert, plus two cans Coke) is $20,000US per day. KBR
holds the contract and has subcontracted it to another Iraqi company.
What the contract bid was actually for above that I don’t know. Another
Iraqi friend said to us, “if we were only allowed to use local workers for
these positions, rather than housing Americans, more people would be
working [and those who are newly unemployed are mostly government office
workers] and they would have no need to be fed. They would just go home
at the end of the day.” US military and civilian staff are all salaried
on a US pay scale in addition to being fed, and the costs are counted as
reconstruction.

And so goes $20 billion. At most, only 1/4 of it is likely to reach the
Iraqi people.

The rains are here

The rains are here.
The smell of wet dust is in the air, permeating the house. It is not
unpleasant.
The winds are here
And the dust storms.
Did I ever think Arabia capable of monsoons?

The winter here is its own kind of spring. The true colors of buildings
begin to emerge, especially the vivid tiles of the domed mosques, from
their thick dusty brown crusts. It looks a little more like Easter every
day, as many of the domes are egg-shaped rather than the half-spheres of
Palestine. In the meantime, we can be blown off the roof in a damp wind
if we are not careful. Since we are along the Tigris, the wind is
stronger. I have high hopes that it will sweep away the mosquitoes as
well, which are beginning to spawn in earnest in the moist air.

Most of our friends and neighbors are dressed in winter jackets over
sweaters over thick shirts. They look at us as if we are crazy. We are
still in shirtsleeves by day, but some of us are pulling out sweaters and
blankets at night. The temps are probably in the high 60’s now.

I apologize for not having written for so long. It’s been quite
overwhelming here—both in terms of how busy we are and the emotional toll
of witnessing the suffering of Iraqi people under both the old
dictatorship and the new. I say that because everyone here knows who is
really in charge. As a firm believer in nonviolence, I never want to say
that violenceBut after this month of blood and the sudden promises of
Iraqi independence by June, I am not so sure.

Life these days is punctuated with helicopters, tanks, Humvees, and car
bombs and explosions. All of us here are a little jumpy at the slam of a
car door outside. Several weeks ago now, Humvees came down our street and
fully-armored soldiers went door to door registering all the people in the
houses. They came to our building also, and were shocked to see
foreigners living outside a heavily guarded compound, among the people.
They wanted to know how many people lived in our building, and especially
how many foreigners were inside. They registered our building on their
GPS device, and went on down the street. Our neighbors realized then that
we, too, could be harrassed. The military then began regular ‘patrols’ of
our street several times during the day or night. In addition, we noticed
several helicopter patrols hovering low over our building at different
times of day. Since fraternization or association with the US military is
grounds for militant groups targeting NGOs—the UN and Red Cross already
suffering heavily for this—we were feeling less than grateful for their
‘security’ presence. In addition to certainly feeling no more secure with
these tanks ‘patrolling’ down our street at two in the morning and waking
all the neighbors, we certainly were feeling no more rested at night.

I am finally, two months into my stay in postwar Iraq, getting to feel as
though this is a regular team. Everyone is up to speed and pulling
together. I am delighted to be free of the role of team coordinator.
Trying to keep everything moving at the same time as training four new
team members and learning a new environment and trying to referee a
particularly difficult team conflict had completely worn me out. Uff-da!
I dumped the role off on Cliff the second he walked in the door. I’ll
have to pick it up again while he leads the delegation, but that will be
alright for just ten days. In the meantime, I’m working to coordinate our
growing ‘Campaign for Justice for Iraqi Detainees.’ I will send the
releases to you all shortly. This will keep me (and the whole team!) more
than busy, I think, until I head over to Palestine for Christmas and back
home for January. My only regret is that our team should really be
stirring things up on a daily basis here just at the time that I have to
leave here.

I’ve made a few friends here beyond all the families we work with who have
relatives in the US prison camps. One is Katrina, a woman who began
approaching us on the sidewalks saying, “Lisa, Lisa,” She was friends
with Lisa from our team who was here over the summer. She and several
other families are squatting in an unfinished shopping center. Katrina
and her young son live in a small shop and keep most of their belongings
under a set of stairs. She is a widow, and her older children are away
and married. Fortunately, there is a small bathroom in the shop which
provides water for cooking, though some days when the water goes out, they
get it from a tap out on the street. When there is electricity, they cook
on a small electric-coil hot plate. Both times I’ve been in her home so
far, she has made me eat. She also takes pride in sending me home with
small gifts tucked in my purse or pockets—gum, candy, a bar of soap. Last
time she gave me a t-shirt. She even painted my nails. The currency of
friendship in Iraq is the exchange of small gifts, often in slightly
sacrificial acts. Katrina is Chaldean Christian. She looks quite
Kurdish, but I won’t say that to her. Ethnic tensions are running high,
and the Chaldeans don’t want to be associated with either the Kurds or the
Iraqi Arabs. Katrina is the boss around the shopping center, and proudly
has all the men wrapped around her finger. She’s hollered at each of
them until they came in and introduced themselves properly or done her
some favor (I especially enjoyed seeing the man who opened her tiny can of
tomato sauce with a large knife. She rewarded him with a box of matches
so he could light his cigarettes.) She has an unconquerable spirit and
zest for life.

Mariam is an Assyrian Christian woman with a four-year-old daughter and a
baby. She lives at the end of our street in a third-floor apartment. When
I first visited her, she had MTV on in the background, where an American
woman was pole-dancing in skimpy underthings. We were both trying to
ignore it without much success. Finally, after much other small talk, she
asked me if all American women dressed like that and acted like that. I
said no, only a very few do that or dress like that. She accepted this
and then said, “It is not flattering and it is not beautiful.” Over the
past three years I have come to learn that 90% of the known world has seen
Baywatch, and this is their primary cultural encounter with Americans.

I am writing so much here and sending so little. I have started three
letters explaining some of the issues here and they are still waiting to
be completed. In the meantime, I'll continue to send the reports I've
been writing for the project. In some ways, there's really no more to
say.

It is my day off once again, and I find that days off are often days where
my body decides it's okay to be ill. Fortunately, I did get to sleep in
today. Now I'll return home to try finishing those letters, write an
article, and try to stay sane while things go boom and helicopters fall
out of the air.

peace,

Le Anne

Duluhaya: Destruction and Dignity

Duluhaya: Destruction and Dignity

by Le Anne Clausen

Recently, CPT members Anne Montgomery and myself, and visitors Peter and
Meg Lumsdaine traveled north from Baghdad to the village of Duluhaya to
document human rights abuses by the US military. Duluhaya is a small
agricultural village just south of Samarra, in the ‘Sunni Triangle’ of
Iraq.

On the road, traffic was blocked for hours due to the ambush of a US
military Humvee. A sergeant blocking traffic one-half kilometer from the
ambush told us that Iraqi insurgents attacked the vehicle with an
improvised explosive device (IED) and a gunman firing an AK-47 after the
blast. He also said the soldiers inside the Humvee were very badly
wounded. However, something seemed awry: the Humvee was part of a
20-vehicle military convoy heading north along the road. There was
immediate availability of communications, but it was taking an unusually
long amount of time for a helicopter to arrive to transport the wounded.
I realized what this meant: the soldiers were likely already dead.

We next visited a farm near the village, which had been hit by US shelling
on September 29th. The 30kg shell destroyed a support pillar at the
corner of the house, as well as a one-square-meter area of the patio on
which it landed and shattered several windows. The shell hit the house at
10pm, when most of the family was inside the home. The family reported
that US forces had shelled the area nightly for the past three months.
The father of the home, who is a sheikh in the village, met with US forces
to ask them not to fight in civilian-occupied areas. “Every evening they
bomb my gardens,” he said. “We don’t need this; we need freedom and
electricity.”

The family members also took us to document walls around the village,
dozens of which had been bulldozed by US forces. “Any graffiti that
opposes the US military’s presence, they bulldoze the wall,” said one
relative. “They could use paint if they wanted to, but they want to teach
a lesson.” On one such wall, which fronted the village’s school building,
someone had written, “This is Democracy?”

Next we traveled to a large date palm grove which had been completely
clear-cut by the US military. The military said it was necessary to do
this because an insurgent fired upon US troops from the grove. Over 1,000
trees and two houses were destroyed in the process. Eighty families
nearby depended on the income from this grove. Date palms must grow for
fifteen years before they are able to bear fruit.

Our final stop for the day was a funeral. Men were lined up in mourners’
tents outside in a dusty field, while crowds of black-clad women filled
the house. We met the family of the man who had been killed by US forces
during a raid of their home. The man was killed as he was trying to
protect his wife from being beaten by the soldiers. The soldiers also
shot their 12-year-old son, wounding him in the shoulder, torso, and
thigh. The bullets are still in his body. Their house—doors, floors, and
even the refrigerator—-were pockmarked from the soldiers’ machine-gun
fire. The soldiers also ransacked the house and took $1,500 and several
family photographs. Just before we left, the dead man’s friends brought
out a letter to show us, signed by 1st Lt. Justin Cole at a nearby US
military base. The letter, bearing the dead man’s photograph, stated that
the man had been helpful to US troops previously and if US officials
needed anything else from him, he would willingly cooperate. The letter
closes, “Please treat this gentleman with the dignity and respect that he
deserves.”

Something has gone terribly wrong in my country’s quest to bring freedom
to the Iraqi people. Most of the human rights abuses I saw carried out in
Palestine by the Israeli military during my two years with CPT there I
have seen carried out in Iraq by US forces in just the two months since I
arrived here. Many Iraqis our team has listened to from this area speak
of initially welcoming the US troops, who removed Saddam. They were
hopeful for a peaceful, prosperous life on their farmland with their
families. What they received instead was house raids, and dead wives and
children. Now they support the armed resistance. In return for these
violations of dignity and human rights, daily my neighbors return to the
US in coffins draped with flags. At the end of these past several weeks
of numerous soldier casualties, what has my country learned?

Traveling back along the road blocked earlier by the Humvee ambush, we
noted that the site of the ambush was completely cleared of all evidence
of an attack. Even the burn marks were cleaned away. It is a practice
designed to increase morale of the soldiers who must still patrol the area
after an ambush, and to remove any signs which might raise the morale of
the resistance: Pretend it never happened. Our team has seen this
practice used by US forces on several prior occasions.

How much more will we pretend has never happened, and at what cost?

Photos corresponding to this release will be posted shortly on
www.cpt.org/gallery

Testimony taken from a minor mistreated by U.S. forces in Iraq

Greetings everyone, I'm sorry for not having written. Work has been very
busy. We are compiling a number of stories like this and I will start
sending them to you as I can. This is the first one we released on our
Iraq CPT list:

TESTIMONY OF AN IRAQI MINOR DETAINED AND MISTREATED BY US FORCES

The following statement was recorded by CPT members Le Anne Clausen
and David Milne in a neighborhood heavily affected by US house raids
in Baghdad. The family has asked that the 16 year old youth who gave
the testimony not be identified because his relatives are still
detained.
--------------

"At 2:30am, US troops came to our house, and ordered our entire family
outside. They ransacked the house searching for something, but they
didn't tell us what they wanted. They broke the locks to our cabinet
[a large storage chest and display case along one wall of the front
room] and threw the contents onto the floor, even though our father
gave them the cabinet key so they wouldn't have to do this. They
took our money and a gold wedding necklace belonging to my mother.
My father, cousin, older brother, and I were tied and taken away. We
were not told why we were being taken.

"We were taken to the soldier's military base at a palace within this
district and kept in a small dark room. We were tied at our wrists
with plastic ties behind our backs the entire night. In the morning,
we were put out into the sunlight, as a type of punishment. The
soldiers were verbally abusive towards us. We asked for shade, but
the soldiers refused. We were squatting in the sun all day.
[Temperatures at the time were 110—120F]. When I was taken, I was
only wearing my underwear because I was sleeping. I was
embarrassed. These were my only clothes during the time I was in
custody.

"The first day, our hands were still tied behind our back with the
plastic ties. Because of this, we were unable to drink any water.
We explained this to the soldiers, and they refused to re-tie us so
we could drink. We asked if just one of us could be re-tied with his
hands in front of him so that he could help the rest of us to drink.
The soldiers refused. The soldiers re-tied us with the plastic ties
in front of us on the next day.

"The water they gave us for drinking was also kept out in the sun
with us. This way it was too hot to drink. Another day I asked a
soldier for water, because I hadn't had anything to drink for the
entire day in the sun. He beat me on my back and chest, while
another soldier kicked me in the back. Both were verbally abusive
towards me during the beating.

"I was forced once to drink a strange kind of juice. I didn't like
it, so I said, `no, thank you.' The soldiers then put the bottle in
my mouth and forced me to swallow all of it.

"We were treated like animals. The soldiers would grab us by the head
and shove us in the direction they wanted us to move. When we were
beaten, I couldn't distinguish when it was from a baton and when it
was with fists. We were forced to squat much of the time.

"One night my 18-year-old brother and I were kept in an open-air
passageway, but we didn't know how large it was because we were
blindfolded. We heard a tank approaching us. It was so close, the
ground was shaking beneath us. The sound was deafening. We were
screaming to each other and the guards, we were sure we would be run
over and executed. Then the tank passed."

[The son asked his mother to leave the room so he can tell the CPTers
something privately].

"My brother asked for some water. The guard gagged him and began
beating him around his mouth until blood started flowing from his
mouth. My brother screamed in pain. We also screamed in protest,
and to encourage him to scream so they would stop this abuse. We
were then beaten also, for advising him to scream. We were beaten in
the neck, back, and behind." [The boy demonstrated how and where he
was beaten. He indicated that his buttocks were held apart and he
was kicked in the anus].

"It is because of this beating that my father is now suffering from a
heart condition."

"I was released wearing only my underwear and forced to walk back to
my home in broad daylight. I was humiliated. Also, everyone thought
from my dress that I had been caught stealing. I was also badly
sunburned from my time in detention without shade.

"The officers told me upon my release, "Don't tell anyone about what
happened here, or we'll come pick you up again." I was released at
3pm, and told to come back at 4pm to care for the other detainees—if
they wanted clothes or food, I was to get these things for them. I
protested, saying, "This is not my duty." A woman soldier screamed at
me, "Shut up! Shut up!" I left, and didn't return until the next
day. At that time, the soldiers refused to let me into the base. I
returned home.

"I am in shock now from this treatment, and I can never forget it
until I die. When I got out, I behaved as though I was crazy, like I
was lost."

The boy's mother told the CPT workers, "When my son first came home,
he was abnormal. We couldn't control him, he was completely
changed. He has nightmares every night, and wakes up shaking and
screaming."

A friend of the family, who was present during CPT's interview with
the family, is a local human rights activist and attended a human
rights conference organized by the Coalition Provisional Authority
one month earlier. He said he raised this case with the sponsoring
officials. The CPA sponsoring officials warned him not to discuss
cases like these when the conference was over. The officials did not
give any reason for their order.

The mother said, "The US has a hypocritical policy. They speak all
the time about human rights, but they don't believe in it themselves.
"Since this happened, I am lost now. I don't know what I can do."

The family feels that the detentions were arbitrary. No soldier has
returned to their home to tell them why they have been arrested or
what they were searching for on the night the soldiers broke into
their home. No receipts were issued for the money and jewelry
confiscated and it is unlikely they will ever get these back, or
receive compensation for the broken furniture. The family was only
able to get information about their relatives' locations through
lists provided by Christian Peacemaker Teams working with the mosque
in their district. The son was held for ten days. The three detained
relatives still remain incarcerated at various prison camps throughout
Iraq.

Via Dolorosa Kerbala

Via Dolorosa

We are driving to Kerbala again, this time to observe and be guests at the
celebration of the birthday of the Imam Mehdi, or the disappearing cleric
of the Shi’a tradition.

Now we are passing the Bagdad Hotel, the thick, tall concrete barriers
looming ominous over the street, hard to ignore as you zip by. Anne says,
the concrete is a bad idea, it will only serve as a target for
dispossessed Iraqis. [Two days later, she is proved right]. Our team
used to live in the hotel next door.

Evidence of Iraq’s wars are visible in the people on the street as we pass
them by…those who walk on stumps, without prosthesis. Those who sit on
the ground, the posture of disgrace in this country, with no legs at all.
This is the legacy left behind by landmines, and now by cluster bombing.

In Kerbala earlier we met the human rights organization who took it upon
themselves to clear all the landmines and cluster bombs laid in the city
by US forces this summer in advance of the next major pilgrimage. One
man, a former soldier in the Iraqi army who instructed the other local
volunteers in the process, removed over 5,000 of the explosives by
himself. Then he was killed when trying to disable a cluster bomblet in a
schoolyard. I know I’ve mentioned him before. I think of him often.

Now the US occupying power has announced two new policies: all press must
clear their stories about US soldiers or military actions through the CPA
before releasing them or risk being ejected from the country. We met
another European crew who reported on human rights abuses and were
censored in this way. They are the main channel in their country and well
respected. The second is that if anyone fires on US forces from a grove
or field, that agricultural area will be razed, even if the perpetrator of
the attack is not the owner of the field. Yes, you are right. It is just
like the policy of the Israeli military. Already we have been asked to
see one field that used to support 80 people’s existence. It comes in the
same week as the razing of Gaza. I heard my friend Laura on the BBC radio
explaining the damage there, and the UN estimating 1,500 Palestinians are
now homeless. I believe them. I have walked that neighborhood, I knew
those houses. Rachel and Tom bled on that sand.

Last week I took the testimony of a 16-year-old boy who was tortured while
being held in US custody for ten days. I have to prepare this report and
send it soon on our team’s mailing list. As I wrote down his words, in
the back of my mind I kept thinking, How can we do this? What are we
thinking? It is just like Israel. The names of the players are all that
has changed. My question now is, who was the teacher and who was the
pupil? Who is the father and who is the son? Everything I have reported
on about Israeli human rights abuses in Palestine has been duplicated ten
times over in Iraq by US soldiers. I am beginning to hear that US
newspapers are developing some courage and beginning to report on these
events. The next question is, how do we stop our neighbors and sons from
carrying on with these crimes? It is not just Iraqis who will suffer from
their behavior. Eventually all soldiers return home.

I am watching in Aadhumiya as workers lovingly rebuild the dome of their
mosque destroyed by shelling in the war. They are lining up the turquoise
tiles, and replacing the wood and stained-glass windows of this
Turkish-style holy place. Across the street is the largest Sunni shrine
in Baghdad. It too was rocketed, after the war was over, by US forces.
Its minaret clock tower barely stands, and is held up now by scaffolding.
All the glass in the ornate windows was blown out. The top corner of the
main gate was knocked off by the rocket after it passed through the tower.
It is grotesque. Like in Viet Nam, when young men with fighter planes
picked the largest temples to destroy, ignorant of the culture and history
they were wiping out, so now even a too-short cycle of history repeats
itself.

I am learning lessons in coping with outrage. I have more lessons to
learn in coping with guilt for my nation. Others on the team are newer
and their emotions flow freely.

Why, I ask, were 10,000 spare troops sitting in the yard of the Ministry
of Oil after Baghdad fell to our control? Why did we fail to protect
Iraq’s cultural institutions from looting when every war with this level
of damage, at least in this century, has been immediately followed by
looting? That of Iraq’s culture which we did not destroy ourselves we
allowed to be pillaged by others while we sat by in our brand new,
state-of-the-art tanks and ate sandwiches made with white bread. After
all, those who are our soldiers now were the children we set in front of
our television sets with a bowl of popcorn to watch the war that took
place then.

Perhaps I seem a little redundant in driving this point home: This is our
next Viet Nam, and it will come back to haunt us. The most useful class
of my college education for this fall was the course on Viet Nam. A young
kid in a helicopter rockets a thousand-year-old temple. And kills the
people. And comes home and the invincibility finally wears off. And the
nightmares set in, both for himself and his family. How much of our
homeless population and our mentally-ill population now are none other
than returned Viet Nam veterans?

There are rumblings here, both among the soldiers and among Iraqis in the
street. I hear them both, and don’t always know what to think. These two
groups have more in common, it seems, than one would think. The rumble on
both sides is that suicide rates among soldiers are at an all-time high.
That 600 soldiers have been declared no longer physically or
psychologically fit for duty and sent back to the US and dispersed among
hospitals around the country. That deaths of “green-card” soldiers are
not being reported to the media and the bodies are being disposed of
quietly here.

I am glad Camp Cropper at the airport has been closed down. I saw a
reprint of an AP article citing increasing pressure to close the camp due
to human rights abuses taking place there. As I read, I learned the
person in charge of that camp is an officer at the CPA whom I meet with
weekly. He seemed like such a nice man. When I talk with the soldiers,
they all seem like such nice people. They are fathers and brothers and
sisters and wives, and then they all share this very dark side. What
shall we do? What will they be like when they come back?

I see here that tempers soar with the temperatures. Soldiers in the
streets tell us, “We’re not trained for this.” Our translator gave one
guard a few Arabic phrases such as, “Please move over here. Stand right
there. Wait one minute.” He was grateful, and wrote them down. There
was no translator with him, and he was responsible for controlling a crowd
of several hundred people. We have seen what happens to soldiers when
they work in these conditions. They begin screaming, cursing, shoving,
and finally shooting because they simply can’t communicate. I wouldn’t
want to be a soldier here. Not just for moral reasons but for their own
well-being. They don’t know when they’re going home. “If we only had a
date to live for, we could go on, it would be bearable,” one told us while
we waited in line at an office a few weeks ago. I wonder how he’s doing
now.

I heard on the radio some US commentator saying with all the money Bush is
requesting for the Occupation, “We are in an economic crisis here at home.
Americans don’t want to pay for new Iraqi post offices, and the Iraqis
don’t want foreign corporations building them for their own private gain.”
Then I heard a member of the resistance here say, “We are only sabotaging
the oil lines that lead out of Iraq, pumping our wealth away from our
country where it is needed most now.”

We are sitting in traffic again. It has taken an hour to crawl halfway
across town. There are Iraqi traffic cops back on the streets. “Seeing
traffic police makes you feel your wait is a little less in vain,” says
Anne.

A sobbing man came to our apartment last week looking for help. His
brother had been detained by the US. “My brother doesn’t do anything,” he
cried. “In fact, all he does is drink.” We were able to help the brother
and negotiate with the military, and he was released within 48 hours—which
is rare—and the overjoyed brothers invited our team to his farm for a
dinner in gratitude. As we drove there, we passed the ancient Persian
city of Ctesiphon, and saw the curiously-shaped arch and fortress which
still stand there. We also saw the sun set in brilliant red over the date
palms and the Tigris. It was a date and citrus farm, dairy, and fish
hatchery. Irrigation streams ran through the farm. The man was quite
wealthy but lived alone except for his servants, and the house was quite
simple. Children would have loved this place. As it was, we were most
excited by the puppies. That night, we ate the samech bil’ tannour, fish
roasted in a traditional Arab oven which looks like a large clay vessel
surrounded by bricks, and it was the softest, best fish I had ever tasted.
This was after being stuffed with fruit and nuts all evening. We barely
made a dent in the platters on the table in front of us.
Across the river from the man’s house, two barges lay rusted in the water.
They were gasoline carriers, he explained, but they were rocketed during
the war and burned there.

It was a Thursday night when we were there, the night for weddings in
Iraq. Car after car after bus filled with wedding-goers passed by the
front gates with a drum and trumpet band in each bus. Here again, the
festive collided with the realities of war.

I see the central bus station and train station here in the center of
town. I hear that rail lines have been resumed to Turkey and Syria. I
hope I can travel the whole of the Middle East someday by rail. As long
as there’s air conditioning in the cars, that is. In our car right now,
there’s not.

Eventually we unravel our traffic knot and make our way to Kerbala. Soon
we move from our side of the four-lane highway over to make a two-lane
road, because so many pilgrims are walking, bare-footed, on the asphalt in
the late Iraqi summer sun, to reach Kerbala by nightfall. To help them on
their way, the farmers and villagers along the road set up tents with tea,
bean stew and rice, and plenty of water. As with the pilgrimage to Kadhum
last month, groups of young men pack together bearing the brightly-colored
flags of their tribe and chant and dance their way southward.

Inside the city pilgrims packed every street in ways you or I have not
experienced, even in Jerusalem for Good Friday. For the evening, we
joined our friend Sayyid Ali in his family’s hostel and I held a two
year-old on my lap most of the evening until the men began dancing in the
hall below and I filmed our male teammates taking part. The birth of Imam
Mehdi—the Cleric who Disappeared, rather than be martyred along with all
other forefathers of Shi’a, and who will return with Prophet Jesus on the
Judgement Day according to their tradition, is celebrated much like
Christmas. This included ornate creche scenes with angel dolls in Arab
clothes hovering over the baby Imam in a manger, and brightly colored
candles in tree-like arrangements, and lots of sweets, with which everyone
filled our hands and pockets. We were then led up to an unfinished
building so we could observe the millions of pilgrims processing between
the shrines of Imam Hussein and Imam Abbas, martyred in the same battle.
From above, the movement of the pilgrims seemed choreographed and
peaceful. From below, it was a peaceable chaos! Yet the millions of
pilgrims still could sleep on their mats in the streets, men and women,
including small babies, gathered by tribe and village together to camp on
the pavement, thousands more still walking by within an inch of their
heads as they dozed. The last of the pilgrims had arrived in the city and
were well fed—physically and spiritually—and rested for their efforts.
The evening was a joyous moment before the troubles—noted only by the
single file men in black chanting their praises for a man named Muqtadar
Sadr—would erupt in the streets of Kerbala and the people there would fill
the streets again only for funerals and sorrow.

A Visit to Sayyid Ali

Sayyid Ali, on my second visit to his home with our team, presented me
with a soft gray hijab—the kind that pulls over your head like a stocking
and falls to your elbows. No pins are required to hold it in place. It
is a little heavy, but I kind of like the weight on my head. It also
holds the slippery black abaya in place a little better. The Sayyid has
really shown his appreciation for my understanding of Muslim people and
willingness to learn about the Shi’a, even though he knows I am starting
seminary next year. I told him that one of my life’s goals was to teach
Christians about Muslims so that they would befriend them rather than wage
wars against them. He chuckles and says, little by little, I will convert
to Islam and then I will never want to leave Iraq. He is joking though,
and we are becoming good friends.

That day we also had our first lunch at his home. He brought out large
platters of chicken and rice, salad and pickled vegetables. First he
insisted that we try to clean our plates. Impossible, of course. Then,
after tidily pulling the meat away from the bones with the flatbread and
bringing it to my mouth, a polite Beit Sahour table lesson I learned in
Palestine, he laughed. “Eat with your hands,” he said. “It is the
natural way.” I felt a little funny about it while in a suit, but he had
no trouble eating this way in all his clerical robes. Iraqis have a
pronounced earthy practicality about basic life matters that also makes
them seem more eloquent and spiritual.

Our translator is a former staffer at the Ministry of Tourism. He lost
his job when Baghdad fell, then had his office looted in the aftermath.
He’s enthusiastic about our work, always suggesting and occasionally
overwhelming us with suggestions of leads to follow, but really more than
translating you can see he lives for the moments when we’re just traveling
place to place and he can point out the sights. Then his eyes really
light up. Curiously, this is a trait true to some extent of most Iraqis
I’ve met, particularly now that they are more free to associate with
foreigners. They know their history down to the smallest detail, and they
know their religion, whichever it may be. In this second part I am
feeling more and more ashamed of myself for beginning to forget just how
exactly certain Bible stories happened or who said just what. It doesn’t
sound so difficult, but just try reciting scene by scene, word by word the
story of Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones, or the story of Abraham
entertaining angels in the desert. Fortunately, my embarrassment is
driving me to some serious review sessions.

In other news, it seems I’ve been getting kissed a lot lately, and
fortunately not by the local young men. I’ve made lots of friends among
affectionate older Iraqi women, and they grab me and smooch four, five
times. I think this is mainly because I speak a little Arabic and use it
to compliment their cooking heavily. Two women now, including our
translators’ old auntie, have offered cooking lessons, which might have
useful dividends for my teammies.

Every other person we meet seems to have an engineering degree, and they
are impressive builders. I have no doubt that Iraqis have no need of
Halliburton and Bechtel to rebuild their country at inflated US costs paid
in oil; these are the people who can take simple mud and stone and create
buildings that have lasted since the dawn of civilization. Not to mention
the beautiful architecture lining the streets of the modern cities. Still
they are working from mud brick and stone as well. Over a decade of
sanctions has made our friends able repairmen as well. I had the
misfortune my second day here of buying an iron without its original
packaging. I should have realized then it was broken, but somehow missed
the crack in the water reservoir and discovered the electrical short when
I got home. Still, our friends brought it back the next day as functional
as new. I have no idea how. Probably very few of us in the US would know
what to do. Somewhere between money-back guarantees and our disposable
culture, we’ve un-learned quite a bit.

There is all sorts of looting still going on. I notice that four of the
five famed luxury hotels of Baghdad have been turned into US military
barracks. Little flags and the occasional pair of boxers hang out the
windows of the Palestine tower. The ballroom must be getting put to good
use as a lounge. I wonder about the pool. The same is true of the
Sheraton Ishtar, the Mansour, the Rasheed, and the Baghdad. I notice
mainly white soldiers in the air-conditioned Baghdad conference center
turned US ‘Iraqi Assistance Center,’ as well as in the air-conditioned CPA
Palace compound, formerly Saddam’s central palace, and very few white
soldiers in the humvees and tanks patrolling the streets of Baghdad, or on
foot. It’s something I just want to sit with and continue to observe
before saying anything more.

There is also looting which seems quite appropriate, if only as poetic
justice. We met several human rights organizations which have set up shop
in former villas of the Republican Guard and Baath party elites. I
especially admire the Free Prisoners Association, which after looting its
office space took advantage of the day the security services went into
hiding to loot their office of the millions of files of political
detainees and executions throughout the Saddam era and hustle them off to
undisclosed locations around the country. Now hundreds of relatives pour
into their offices every day with renewed hope of finding their loved
ones. If only it were so easy for them, they say, to get the lists from
our military about its detainees.

Part of our work is supposed to be encouraging the local human rights and
peace groups which are springing up all over. Their task is so immense
and heartbreaking I’m not sure just how to do that. Maybe I could bring
them jellybeans. I’m feeling otherwise a bit ill-equipped for the job.
Still they plug on in ways I cannot imagine. The Human Rights
Organization in Karbala had little special training or equipment but knew
a major pilgrimage was soon to begin late in the war, so they took it upon
themselves to remove 20,000 [internationally-outlawed yet popularly used
by our forces] cluster bombs from their streets and yards in about one
week. One man who did have some training, a former Iraqi military
officer, removed 5,200 in that time with his own hands until one he was
trying to disarm blew up and killed him. It was planted in an elementary
schoolyard. The group didn’t have to do it—under international law it is
the US’ responsibility to clear their own unexploded ordnance—but they saw
the US was in no mood to do so and the need was urgent. The industrious
mine-sapper was given a high martyr’s funeral in Kerbala, he who truly fit
such a description.

I have now learned how to enter and exit the smallest and most awkward of
taxis while wearing long skirts and heels with true grace. I wish I could
explain my magic formula to you all. I think though it is mostly
practice. Or wishing peace upon the driver. Our drivers, many of whom
hold advanced degrees, frequently wax political. One more profound
statement I heard recently was, “Our country is lost. That which is Iraq
is no more.”

I’ve been several times now to the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University
of Baghdad and always feel right at home. The walls surrounding the
building are covered in colorful and free-thinking murals. Inside, a
large mural of Guernica puts things in perspective quickly. There is also
a sculpture garden created by students, and the most striking is a female
form wrapped and dangling as if a butterfly’s cocoon, about to open. It’s
just a meter away from a stoic Sumerian warrior posed for the fight.
Hmmm..

I think most of the uncovering work about the truths of the old regime is
probably happening quite well by Iraqis’ own selves. When I think about
the mass graves panic back home on US television, that families are not
waiting for a proper DNA testing, but Iraqis are talking to each other and
working things out and figuring out their past in many ways and that’s all
that’s really needed. What our country learns or doesn’t learn, curious
though we may be, is really just an afterthought. We need to focus on
learning from our own actions, anyway. I think about how true it is that
history repeats itself if you choose not to learn from it. Like that
dictators often follow foreign military occupations. Or that looting
follows almost all wars. Or that foreign-appointed governments are often
viewed as just that, puppet regimes, and never gain local credibility.
Several Iraqis here have said that they are certain the atrocities of the
old regime will be taught in schools, similar to Germany’s Holocaust
education program, so that this may never happen again. Wow, so soon. Do
you suppose our country will ever start teaching our Viet Nam war
atrocities in high schools? Or our Gulf War atrocities? Or anything
after our WWII victory, A-bombs de-emphasized, where most high school
history courses end?

Thoughts on the Road to Holy Kerbala

Thoughts on the road to Holy Kerbala

We passed through Alexandria, one of Alexander the Great’s multiple cities
founded by himself. Our driver told us this is the last one he built
before he died. That may explain why so little evidence of his time here
still exists. Afterwards, the empire fell apart. Now it is a sleepy
little hamlet, which passersby would not suspect of such a notorious
heritage. We'll be going back soon though, to meet with an ambitious
young college professor who has started his own human rights organization
there. Perhaps then we will learn more. Iraqis, delightfully, love to
give tours to guests of their cities.

I never expected I’d spend so much time since being here in hijab, or
abaya (the long, loose black robe that rests on your head but is open in
front), or even that cheap indestructible polyester suit jacket I picked
up in Jerusalem before coming here last winter. Then again, I never
expected I’d be meeting so many high level Muslim clerics. Mainly these
have been the head Shi’a and Sunni clerics of Baghdad at their respective
shrines, (though I have recently befriended the Ssaid’s wife who is my
age). In Kerbala though, we met the Great Teacher (‘Ayatollah al-Odmah’)
Mohammed Taki al Mudarssy, who is of the same level as Ayatollah al Hakim
who was recently assassinated in Najaf, and Ayatollah Sostani, who has
taken his place. Each time I have met a new leader, I have been reserved,
respecting of the Shi’a gender roles and having the oldest male present
serve as spokesperson. Eventually, though, I get pulled into the
conversation to the amusement, then genuine interest of everyone involved.
I am well aware of this special privilege afforded to me in my role as a
foreign, Christian woman human rights worker.The Ssaids and Ayatollahs
have been most gracious hosts, and easy to talk with. I have now spent an
incredible amount of my short time here among the Shi’a and have had so
many of my preconceptions overturned. Shi’a, rather than being the
fundamentalists of Islam, are actually a lot more like the Catholics.
This is really quite easy to see when you have a Catholic priest with you
at these meetings. They are pious people who devote much attention to
shrines, pilgrimages, and physical and artistic expressions of their
faith. One beautiful custom is to stop after each meal and even in the
street to collect fallen crumbs of bread and place them up on a ledge.
This is because bread is the simplest, cheapest food one can eat, the food
of the poor, and to tread on it is to desecrate what others may need to
survive. I see this custom slightly altered in Palestine, Jerusalem
particularly. There, the Muslims are Sunni. I could write more now on
this but will save other new realizations for later.

The wife of Ssaid Ali in Baghdad presented me with a beautiful and ornate
ring the other day when we met. It is a stone called ‘Yacout,’ which I
believe comes from Yemen. It appears black, but has a reddish tinge when
held to the light. She also presented me with a plea, to help her locate
the body of her father, who was executed in 1983 by the former regime. He
was a veterinarian working at the military academy when he was called in
by the security forces and ordered to give injections to convicts. He
refused, and was thrown in to prison himself for two years before he was
hung. This conversation and plea leads our team to the mass graveyards in
Baghdad and many other cities. It will take a long time, I think, and the
task of finding one person among so many is immense. How can we do it, I
wondered to myself, without DNA testing? Of course, as the Westerner, I
look to technology for a solution. Our translator has a much simpler
idea: “Let us go to the graveyard and find the minder for this place and
talk to him and see what he knows. Probably they kept very good records.”
Ah.
And so we begin.

As we drive to Kerbala, we pass the date-palm jungles, the bullrushes
standing maybe twelve feet high above the marshlands along the roadsides;
the mudflats and the salt-gathering places. The villages are a different
kind of life than Baghdad, where the men wear long robes and head
coverings, all white, in contrast to the women robed all in black, a sort
of turned-around wedding scene.

I never thought I’d see machsoms here, the large earth-and-debris piles
blocking the roads that were a sad fact of life in Palestine. But they
are everywhere, whether placed by US forces to slow traffic near their
bases, or by locals to warn of danger from unexploded ordnance or bridges,
earlier bombed, that cannot carry heavy trucks. We crept over another
such bridge today, which mostly resembled a bridge but its sides were
somehow squashed, if you can imagine squashed, pulverised concrete and
flattened siderails. I didn’t know concrete did that.

We crossed that bridge over the wide, lazy Euphrates river, as wide as the
Mississippi, and lined with green, even in the heat of the summer.
Suddenly you pass from the dry brown mud flats to the jungles and even
thin green grass and pastures and wonder what happened until you see the
source of the green belt. These are prime farming areas, and favorites of
road travelers for stopping to rest.

I love roadside stops, literally ‘oases,’ here, under the date palms, with
little round huts build of dry reeds around a plastic patio table, where
you can drink fresh juice and tea in virtual seclusion. Other times there
are tiny amusement parks with aging rides for children. All have plenty of
colorful and curiously-shaped patio lights. And roofs from the sun.

As we pass these things I think that I am never sure which makes me want
to cry more when I am in Iraq: the heartbreak of people’s suffering,
which is much, and unabated during this new Occupation; or the sheer
beauty of this place, which endures throughout and keeps the people strong
as much as does their faith.

At a going-away party for a neighbor in our building last night, I met a
most suprisingly amazing man: a white-haired Swede, who has lived here
quietly the past 25 years. He first came to deal in oil, then after the
1991 invasion and sanctions turned to other goods. He actually was quite
well acquainted with Saddam and his sons (the sons he refers to as,
“absolutely nuts,”) and often went across the river as Saddam’s guest for
long talks. He was able to speak his mind freely with him, apparently
because the president realized he was unattached to any larger group and
had no clout. Truly, our solo neighbor just upstairs from us has seen it
all. One of my teammates is astounded. “Why aren’t the CIA and
journalists pounding down your door to interview you?” He shrugs his
shoulders. Perhaps its because he’s so unpretentious that nobody expects
him. He is a sort of wallflower, who I took pity on and tried to include
in the conversation. Little did I know!

He had something to say about what’s happening now, which rang true for me
in a new way. “The US had a golden opportunity here,” he said, “after the
war, when they were being welcomed with open arms. Then the post-war
looting began and they looked the other way, they allowed the country to
be ransacked while holding on to the oil alone. In doing so they
squandered their welcome. And then they became occupiers and everything
else ugly that goes along with that.”

When my same teammate also voiced his worry that Iraq would be exploited
by new corporations racing to move in and profit from the disorder and
post-sanctions economy, he said, “The Iraqis will never allow it. They
will resist them. They ousted the British occupiers and now will oust the
US occupiers. That’s the reason they are sabotaging the oil lines. They
see the corporations coming in and draining off the country’s wealth for
their own gain and they’re determined to stop it.”

I am still thinking of the Kadhum Pilgrimage last Monday, so unlike
anything I’d ever seen before. Swells of people, a solid human mass in
the streets; little stalls lining the way offering free breakfasts and tea
to those who may have journeyed up to 50km on foot to reach the shrine.
Iranians and Pakistanis mixed with Iraqi Shi’a, standing out only just
barely from the rest of the crowd. Brilliant colored flag processionals
entering the shrine, followed by triple-robed sheikhs and Ssaids,
Ayatollahs, and other holy men. Dozens of groups of young men flailing
themselves with metal chains to the beat of a funeral drum, followed by
beautifully decorated funeral platforms carried on shoulders. The human
river flowed slowly into and out of the gold-domed shrine, and everyone in
the crowd of millions knew their part in the ritual. Kadhum, the shrine
in the neighborhood which also bears its name, is the tomb of the great
Shi’a religious leader Musa Kadhum, who was martyred and left in a ditch,
an ugly way to die anywhere, and especially here. When his followers
discovered his body, they carried it on their shoulders to this place,
beating their chests and flailing themselves to convey their grief. Each
year, they re-enact this processional. That is, in addition to the very
real processionals they are forced to have quite often. Very few Shi’a
leaders live to die a natural death.

And so it is here in Karbala, where the twin shrines of Hussein and Abbas,
brothers hunted and killed in a brutal fashion, are built only a few
hundred meters apart from each other. The shrines themselves became
deathbeds for thousands of Shi’a during the 1991 Shaaban revolution
following the Gulf War, when the Shi’a took seriously Bush Sr.’s call to
revolt against Saddam and our government’s willingness to back them up.
Only Bush was not serious and the Shi’a were mowed down when the regime
crushed the revolution, even as they took sanctuary in their shrines. The
Human Rights Organization in Karbala, which we visited the same day,
estimates 25-30,000 are buried in mass graves around the city.

In beauty, these shrines surpass even the most famous churches of our own
religion, carefully hand-crafted of cut mirrors and painted tiles, and
lovingly washed each day. At night, they are aglow with the same lights
that adorn the roadside stops, causing them to glitter and seem
otherworldly in a world which by day is full of sand and sorrows. All the
poor come to lay their few wares down on the pavilions outside the
building, and many without wares take their rest on the cool marble floors
of the courtyard inside the gates. No one disturbs them all day.
Loitering is welcomed. This is what makes them most beautiful of all.

Two weeks on and lots to learn!

Hi everyone,

I feel quite badly for not having sent a message before this. It has been
a whirlwind existence these past two and a half weeks, mainly full of
meeting new partners (an ever-increasing number of local human rights
organizations especially), and also religious leaders, community leaders,
and lots of Iraqi families with heartbreaking stories to tell. I hope to
share many of these with you soon.

My first observation from my time here in Iraq is that it’s the first
project where I may not come back thinner than when I left. We’ve been
invited to lunch nearly every day this week. ‘Lunch’ is a massive meal,
even bigger than in Palestine, after which we need not eat until the next
morning. The benefit is that we’re all getting out of a lot of cooking
and dishes chores. Some of the people who are inviting us over are
English-speaking Iraqis who haven’t had a foreigner in their house in the
past thirty years and just want to make friends. Such is the case with
Musa (Arabic for Moses), a hyperactive guy who brought us a little vase of
silk flowers and a nice card just and invited us to his home to make
friends and encourage us to stay because so many internationals are
leaving.

My second observation, now after meeting about a hundred Iraqis, is that
everyone we meet says pretty much the same thing, whether they are
religious leaders, human rights workers, mothers of detainees, or
university graduates: It’s kind of nice that Saddam is gone, so thanks
for that, but we don’t need you to occupy us and tell us how to set up a
democracy. (After all, these are the best- and most
internationally-educated people of the middle east.) One university
student summed it up well: “We have oil to pay for our rebuilding, and we
have the knowledge to rebuild our country. So what we _don’t_ need is for
the US to come in as a middleman, profiting from both ends.”

The upsurge in new political parties, independent newpapers, human rights
organizations and social welfare/charitable organizations are all a very
good sign that Iraqis know best how to address their own needs. They’re
not waiting for this US-hand-crafted government to be handed to them, in
fact, they’re pretty much ignoring what they know will be a puppet
government and building their own civil society without any help from our
military. Nobody I met yet has any enthusiasm about the US-appointed
Governing Council. No one even talks about Ahmed Chaluby.

But that's enough politics for today. Otherwise in life, our little team
is doing well. Many people in Baghdad have bought personal water filters,
much to my relief because I've ended up drinking all those proffered
glasses of water I swore I wouldn't before I came here. My younger
teammate, Matthew, admits, "I just say a prayer before every glass." So
far, I have not been seriously ill but have had a two-day respiratory
issue, one heat-exhaustion headache, and one stomach threatening, but not
carrying through with all sorts of evils.

If you want to know what the weather is like right now, I suggest setting
your oven on to bake cookies and then opening it and getting your face
near the racks. Not on the racks, just near. That's exactly what it
feels like when we open the main door to our building. A dry, hot blast
of air. The sweat evaporates immediately. Otherwise, when I go out, I
often am duded up in a polyester suit. This is great for keeping the
sweat next to the skin and cooling me down and getting less dehydrated.
Often I can tell I'm sweating but don't feel warm at all. Strange, but
good.

My Palestinian Arabic is a source of amusement for all who hear it, since
all the colloquialisms I know do not exactly translate into Iraqi Arabic.
People say they understand me just fine, but it's weird. They don't know
the Khalili (Hebron Southerner) jokes here, but think the accent is funny
all the same. I'm finally beginning to catch on to the localisms here.
We don't say Ilhamdulallah, we say Zaen, when you ask how we're doing. We
also ask, 'Shlonich,' or 'what's your color?' instead of 'kief halek' for
'how are you?' And if I want to say okay, (tayeb) I am saying the word
they only use here to describe delicious food.

Tomorrow we are going to the holy (Shi'a) city of Kerbala to meet with
religious authorities and human rights groups there. This weekend we'll
be going to Fallujah to meet with community and tribal leaders after quite
a bit of violence there these past few weeks. We're doing the same amount
of work the Hebron team does, I figure, only there's just half as many of
us doing it. Two more teammates arriving next week will be wonderful.

I am sitting here and chatting with a computer programmer who was tortured
by the security service under Saddam's regime. His elbow is permanently
dislocated. He was using the internet secretly, he says, and now returned
after fleeing to Dubai for three years. He is writing now to a friend he
made from the US military, but is also upset about the bombing and
detainees. I guess he met our team a few weeks ago and wondered why we
are always talking to him about Palestine. I explained that we have a
team there too.

I could write so much more, but it will be dark soon. Security here for
us has not been as much an issue as I thought. The teammates here before
us did a good job of making friends in the neighborhood and we have lots
of people looking out for us. Technically, the building we live in has
security guards, but they are unarmed and live in the building and sit on
the steps and know everyone in the building and their neighborhood. They
also are in charge of starting the generator when the city power goes out.
They're good friends, and I think far better 'security.' Our landlord is
Armenian and studied at al Hakima University which I think was run by
Americans a few decades ago here. He comes to visit often. We went to
St. Raphael's Catholic church last night which has an international
congregation and will probably be our home church here. It's only two
blocks away.

Enough already! Will write more soon.

Peace,

Le Anne

My new life in Baghdad

Greetings from Baghdad!

(This letter is coming to you ten days after I wrote it, due to internet
troubles). I have arrived safely and in good health, but after a pretty
exhausting trek. We have a suprisingly nice team apartment about the size
of our office in Hebron and fully furnished. We’re just off Abu Nawwas
St, about a mile from the Palestine Hotel which makes the news often, and
on the last block before a large park and the banks of the Tigris.

We have power about 1/3rd of the day, and are blessed with air
conditioning during those times. Otherwise it gets humid in the
apartment, and the air can be oppressive in mid-afternoon, but the summer
heat has broken. I was surprised even still at the climate change from
Jordan and the cool of the desert border crossing, where I wrapped up
double in my shawl not to let the almost-icy winds blow through.

On my way here, I had a stopover in Amsterdam which was fantastic. After
accidentally dozing through half my 13-hour wait, I joined a cheesy
minibus tour, and we visited a Gouda cheese-and-wooden shoe-making shop
(free samples and try-ons!); toured the canals; a windmill, all the
downtown historic architecture, and saw but didn’t have time to enter Anne
Frank’s hiding house and museum. The whole city was much more beautiful
and well-preserved than I’d heard or imagined. The air was incredibly
clean, and the people were friendly. I definitely plan to return.
Curiously, those years of studying German paid off once again and I didn’t
have any problems reading street signs or how to use the telephone. The
Dutch don’t seem to translate much.

[An American on our tour looked at the canals and said, “Wow. This looks
just like Holland….” I just hope comments like that are the result of
jetlag only].

I thought I might get lucky on the second stretch of the trip by having no
one else in my row of seats on the plane. Five minutes after I lay down,
though, an indignant Jordanian grandmother was nudging me. She wanted to
sit in my row because her grandchildren were in the row ahead of her. So
much for the nap. But I impressed her with my little Arabic and she
became a very pleasant seatmate. At one point after supper, she grabbed
my wrist and sprayed me with some expensive looking perfume, then doused
herself. Not bad, probably an improvement over my day-and-a half old
clothes. In the meantime, we were treated to a full-color-spectrum sunset
over the Alps and through southeastern Europe. Spectacular.

We spent the night in Amman, and headed out the next night at 2 am. We
crossed the border at sunrise. There were Iraqis working the border
again, some of whom I recognized from before the war, and two US soldiers
who were awfully chipper for standing around looking soldierly at sunrise.
The road to Baghdad was uneventful, but difficult to witness the
destruction. The first was gingerly negotiating the truck around a
missile crater which removed ¾ of the four-lane highway bridge. Debris
was scattered several hundred meters. Other highway overpasses were
removed after having been hit by missiles earlier. I also noticed many
rusty overturned auto and bus wrecks along the highway, which had likely
burned. I wondered, if they also had been hit by shelling, or if they
were rollovers like we’d had, only no government existed to remove them
from the roadsides anymore. And with every one of the hundreds of
disintegrated tire remains I saw littering the highway, I thought about
George.

I am surprised by how much is now open and that the main road, Saadoun
St., is quite active, though interrupted at regular intervals by US tanks
and Humvees. It reminds me of Nablus, where curfew is lifted but Israeli
military vehicles patrol the streets, and the Palestinians try their best
to maintain a normal routine despite their presence. We hear the tanks
rolling by our apartment throughout the day and night, just like in
Hebron. I am surprised by how much bigger US tanks seem than Israeli
tanks, which I had thought were pretty big themselves. They made our
Suburban feel pretty small by comparison. Occasionally we hear bursts of
gunfire at night somewhere in our neighborhood. Many buildings are
destroyed, or occupied by US forces. The building across from us is burnt
and pockmarked with shelling, and no windows remain; after the military
assault on it it was looted; now squatters (refugees likely from destroyed
other parts of town) are making a home of it. I see quite a bit of food
for sale here, though not necessarily staples, for those who can buy it; I
understand half the population who were employed before the invasion now
find themselves not. Someone has organized the young men into a sort of
civil conservation corps who I see cleaning the streets and moving debris,
which I understand fell to the wayside during the invasion. I’ve only
been around the neighborhood on foot here today, tomorrow I’ll venture
further. A few of the cities we passed through on the way from Amman had
little left untouched and many demolished buildings.

Our apartment comfortably holds six people. I’m in charge of
re-organizing to see if we can squeeze any more in, plus create a
serviceable office and reception/living area in the main room.

I went with Jerry Stein to Chaldean mass today. Later I learned I
couldn’t understand the liturgy because they were speaking in Chaldean.
Before that, I was quite worried. Someone gently reprimanded me about
crossing my legs while sitting in church, but I soon discovered it is much
cooler not to, anyway. Chaldean worship is a bodily and sensory
experience, much like Sufi worship (which I had the opportunity to try out
in Toronto, incidentally). The chanting by the men of the congregation
started before we arrived, a continual influx of sound that made the
moments of silence even more profound. Chaldeans genuflect (cross
themselves) multiple times throughout the worship, as well as bow on one
knee when entering and leaving the pew and bowing to the reading of
Scriptures and the transubstantiation. I kept looking out the corner of
my eye to keep up with the others. (Also like the Sufi worship). I
missed only one genuflection, I am proud to say (pretty good for a
Lutheran), but the lady next to me let me know it, too. I placated her in
Arabic by admitting it was my first time in a Chaldean church. It’s good
to know Arabic here.

I designed a curriculum for teaching new teammates Arabic today. We’ve
found a potential teacher who is actually trained as an engineer but is
willing to try. She lives a few doors down. The newbies can look forward
to at least two hours of instruction every day for at least two months.
Sure wish we could have gotten that worked out for Hebron.

It’s really exciting to be working on a new project. My enthusiasm is
growing hourly, and I think this is why I’m still up at 2 am writing right
now. It certainly couldn’t have been the three hour nap this afternoon!

We will be primarily working with detainees and the disappeared, helping
families find out if they are still alive, their health, where they’re
being held, and pressing for the release of those who were picked up at
random and have not been charged, etc., much like the situation in
Palestine. We’ve had a few successes so far. We’ll also be working with
and encouraging the dozens of local human rights and social welfare
societies which are springing up to fill in the void left by the
destruction of the government and the lack of an interim civil
infrastructure under the Occupation. I hear I’ll be spending a lot of
time with women and hearing about the changes in their situation here.
Much the rest of the work will be very similar to what we’ve been doing in
Hebron all along—listening to peoples’ stories and telling them to people
back home who need to hear them; being present in the streets;
accompanying those working for nonviolent solutions to the crisis. I will
write more in detail about all of these.

My own emails may not be frequent, but you are all able to access the
team’s reports either by going to the website, www.cpt.org and reading the
latest as they appear, or by asking via website to be subscribed to our
team’s own listserve (about as frequent postings as the Hebron team’s),
which you’ll receive as soon as we write them.

I should get on towards bed while it is cool and I can still rest enough
before morning. It’s good to get up early and finish our appointments
before the heat of the day overwhelms. Though, if we stay on past noon,
my teammates warn me that we get fed really well by our local partner
organizations and families we meet. We’ll see what the week brings and
when I’ll be able to write next.

Peace,

Le Anne

Memoir for Mazen

I lost another friend this week. His name was Mazen.
I found out when a teammate picked me up for breakfast yesterday morning.
It took a while for the reality to sink in.

US soldiers shot him in the chest.
He was a journalist from Hebron, covering a story at the Abu Ghraib prison
in Baghdad.

Mazen.

I couldn't sleep much last night, after dreaming that I was indeed in
Baghdad, witnessing him being killed, running over to his body on the
ground, red blood intermingling with light brown skin and silver hair,
screaming his name and trying to bring him back. My voice was echoing in my
ears as I woke up, and lingered through the day.

In this dream, the US soldiers look at me as if I'm crazy. Why do I, an
American, care so much and am so upset over the death of this man? To them,
he is just another Arab.

I am shamefully grateful that I was not there and did not and will not see
his body. I do not wish to be broken so soon, after having been broken this
spring and the winter before that and the fall before that and the spring
before that. [Already, I was worried whom I might know at the UN. I knew
Michael, who narrowly escaped and set himself to helping the wounded.
Michael the Invincible, I will call him. Ah.]

I feel sick, knowing that Mazen narrowly escaped death on the streets of
Hebron at the hands of Israeli soldiers and settlers, only to die in Iraq at
the hands of US soldiers.

I thought of Mazen as the Dan Rather of Palestine. I don't know if that's
how others felt. He stood out from the fray, probably because of his
noticeably silver hair on a younger face; his ability to appear polished
even in the midst of chaos; his kind of movie-star bravado personality. He
was, or at least appeared bigger than most Palestinians--built more like a
quarterback. Well, come to think of it, Dan Rather really doesn't have
quite the charisma, or 'presence,' that Mazen did.

When I started working in Palestine, it was a time when international NGO
workers were pulling out because of the violence, and I learned to temper my
relationships, to not get too invested in people because who knows when they
would be moving on. Now, it seems, I could avoid much heartbreak by not
getting close to people with whom I work, because who knows when they will
be killed.

But that is no way to live. And I have too many friends, especially friends
who are journalists.

Mazen taught me a lot about documentation, and how important it is. Mostly
this happened by his yelling at me in mock exasperation, "Why didn't you get
that on film? I can't do anything with it unless it was on film!" One of
these times was after I got beat up by the settlers. That time, I shrugged
my shoulders and sheepishly said, "sorry Mazen, I was busy." But I kept the
lesson.



Sometimes when I was alone on the streets of Hebron (usually stepping out to
buy bread or another forgotten grocery item), and finding myself suddenly in
the midst of soldiers wreaking havoc in the marketplace (and yes, without
having remembered cell phone or camera), I would spot the journalists
standing nearby in a group, taking pictures. During those times when I knew
I was in over my head, I would simply join them. There is strength in
numbers, after all. At other times, when trouble arose from unfriendly
strangers in the street, I remember standing next to Mazen, and occasionally
behind him, for protection, and being kidded by him that I, an accompaniment
worker, needed protection from him! But he was pleased to oblige.

I only wish I could have been there to return the favor, Mazen.

And so, at different times today I find myself on the brink of tears, a dark
void settling in my heart. It's becoming a familiar feeling.

It makes me realize anew how I am entering face-first into the storm and how
it will hurt. I want to steel myself somehow for the experience, against
the pain, even; but I know all the same if I cannot feel the pain of human
suffering I am no longer humane, nor of use in bringing comfort to the
victims of human violence.

Mazen was training a successor, Nael, also a friend of mine. I know who I
will look up first in Baghdad when I arrive, to try and bring comfort to a
grieving friend.

Sadly, I have more tales like this one to share that are coming from Iraq.
I will try to pace them for you, lest you become hardened to the realities,
or overwhelmed by their frequency. A letter from one of my friends working
in Baghdad, previously in Palestine, is due tomorrow.

peace

Le Anne



"the West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or
religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence.
Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do."
----------

Samuel P. Huntington

Heading to Iraq!

Hi everyone,

Well, it's official now and the plane tickets are being ordered as I write.
I depart Monday the 18th for two weeks in Toronto to watch the CPT office
there and be the support person for the Grassy Narrows project while the
Canada director is away, then I depart to Iraq on Sept. 2nd. I'll be in
Iraq until Christmas, when I'll travel to Palestine and try to visit as many
of my friends there as possible. That puts me back here in the US around
January 2.

So, I get to do a final week's worth of packing, sewing some last-minute
Iraq-suitable summer clothes (long-sleeved, dressy, and lightweight),
contacting media friends, wrapping up things here and saying good-byes. I'm
glad I'll make it to the family reunion the day before I ship out. I am
glad to be heading to Toronto first--it makes packing easier and Toronto is
a fun city as well as home to several good friends.

I started writing a longer reflection on some of the amazing and inspiring
things I saw happening within churches I visited this summer. While in
Michigan last week, for example, I got to see what a real "mission-minded"
congregation and synod looked like. Wow! So I'm working on that to send to
you all later. A large part of me wants to stay here and get more things
organized, but after three months away, I really miss the field. Next year,
in seminary, some of those big ideas will evolve into reality. I've got a
heck of a long 'wish list' these days...

peace,

Le Anne

A Traveller of Unknown Destinations...

Hi everyone,

Some time ago, I was at a Chinese restaurant with friends and broke open a
fortune cookie. I like fortune cookies (far better than horoscopes or any
other future reading practices); many of you are familiar with all my
favorite fortune cookie-reading games.

This one read, "You will step on the soil of many countries."
Huh. How appropriate!
I've kept it in my checkbook ever since.

Since my second year at Wartburg, I've been joking that my goal is to visit
a new country every year. So far, so good: my passport is full, and I've
trotted most of the globe: Palestine, Israel, Honduras, Greece, Germany,
Jordan, Sweden, Iraq, and now Canada. (Not counting return trips, stops in
airports, and a few hours over the border. Then I have to add four more
countries...)

So, it sounds like the path ahead is changing again, only it will be a while
longer before I can see where it leads. Most likely, it is leading to
Colombia before the end of the year. Before then, I may be in Toronto,
Asubpeeschoseewagong (Grassy Narrows), a combination of both; or Chicago. I
said I'd be willing to go in with the next delegation, spend a few months,
then I really want to get back to the Middle East.

Going to Colombia is not where I expected I'd be anytime soon. My Spanish
isn't great, and I know little about the situation. Meanwhile, my Arabic is
among the best of both teams and I've studied both situations inside and
out. But, there is a real need for people to staff the project there. It's
been extremely difficult for our regular full-time Colombia workers to get
visas--much harder than with Israeli security. I'll get Spanish study on
site. And the delegation is the best introduction to life and war in
Colombia. Colombia is a strange place, where over ten times as many people
are being killed around you than in Palestine, but you encounter the armed
groups far less often. In Palestine, you can't walk more than five minutes
without encountering an Israeli soldier. I imagine it will feel like living
in a shadow world.

It's a little strange knowing I have only ten months left of full-time CPT
work, and counting. I do want to get around to all the different project
sites, but my first love is Palestine, followed closely by Iraq. Then comes
seminary, and half-time work in Chicago. I have no idea what I'll be doing
with that yet, but many ideas. Fortunately, I'll still be able to get out
on project during summers or other school breaks. Hopefully by then, I'll
have enough other CPTers in Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota that I can
gracefully retire from speaking and rest on my laurels, ha ha...(aren't
laurels kind of sharp leafy wreaths, though?)

I am looking forward to organizing Colombia and Grassy Narrows solidarity
evenings when I come back to the States next, though I'll continue to speak
on Palestine and Iraq. (If I haven't learned time management by now, I
never will..) Especially since these places are quickly overshadowed by our
present occupation of Iraq. While I was in DC and Atlanta, I found out more
about the advocacy resources on Colombia offered by the Lutheran Office for
Governmental Affairs (LOGA) and Lutheran World Relief. Both have good
websites with information and action opportunities: http://www.loga.org and
http://www.lwr.org. They also have some resources on Palestine and Iraq.
I'm going to start publicizing these sites when I speak in the future. I
might even do more than just publicize--there might have to be 'action
components' to all future speaking engagements of mine...let me think about
that one....

In DC I just saw an amazing documentary on the Ft. Benning School of the
Americas (SOA)/Western Hemisphere Institute for Security
Cooperation(WHISC)--called "Hidden in Plain Sight." It will be available
for general distribution in January. Although, if you are interested in
hosting a public screening and discussion of this film now, you can do so by
going to http://www.soaw.org, the website for SOA Watch. I mention this
because I participated in one of the mass demonstrations at the SOA while I
was at Wartburg, and because there is a considerable link between
"counterinsurgency training" of Central and South American soldiers on our
soil, and many of the ongoing human rights abuses perpetrated by armies
throughout Central and South America over the past several decades as well
as today. Colombia is high on the list, too. It's food for thought, worth
chewing; hard to stomach. Anyway, I plan to get it and start showing it
around. I thought I knew a lot about the SOA, until I saw this film.

Please do me a favor: If you know of a Spanish department at a college near
you, or more particularly a Spanish instructor who is favorable to promoting
human rights work, please let me know. I am working on a recruiting
brochure for Spanish-speaking CPT workers. We need them. I'll try to visit
or at least send some info over with an impassioned cover letter.

I do hope that I can get to Grassy Narrows. I hope that several of you who
are interested in CPT work would consider going on a delegation up there
over the next few months. Cost is only $250 US, plus your transit of choice
to Winnipeg. (You can fly from Minneapolis for $250, or bus from Mason City
for $120) For a project close to home that recognizes the continuing
struggle of First Nations people on our continent (what's happening in
Grassy is pretty similar to what's happening with Nations closer to Iowa)
and lower violence level than Hebron or Colombia, it's worth a look. And I
may be up there when you get there. I feel like I at least need to
experience it so I can come back and talk about it.

Well, in this next week I have our regional group meeting, followed by a
likely trek to Iowa City and West Branch to fill-in as a speaker for the
Iowa Friends Yearly Meeting. My teammate Marian Solomon fell and broke her
hip and has been in surgery. Uff-da. I'm happy to do it, but need to be on
a plane the next day to Michigan. Perhaps three days after, I need to be in
Milwaukee, but that's still up in the air too.

I guess I've been stepping on the soil of many states and provinces, too...

peace,

Le Anne

home again, home again

Hi everyone,

Well, after being a recluse here for about two weeks, I thought I'd better
write and let everyone know I am back in Mason City. My lack of speed in
writing probably has a lot to do with my lack of energy following the tough
spring. It is good to hear that even major US media is questioning the
trumped-up case for the war; it is still difficult to gently combat peoples'
stereotypes and prejudices about Iraqis and Arabs in general. It has also
been nice to come home and have thunderstorms almost every night, but not
too many rainy days. People here are commenting on our 'Camelot' weather,
and I can't get the theme song out of my head...

It was a tough spring, and I have felt as though I've come home from the
war. Many of you commented on the reflection I sent from my time over
there. It turns out that under the stress, I dropped a size in a little
less than a month, without really trying. I had been thinking while over
there that my clothes had just stretched out (a consequence of hand-washing
and drip-drying) which usually is fixed by running all my stuff through an
electric dryer when coming home. But no, everything's still pretty baggy. I
had a similar sudden drop last year during the invasions. Being surrounded
by so much disaster makes it difficult to think about eating, or really
anything at all. I wouldn't really complain about the downsizing itself,
but still, I cannot recommend this particular means of diet for others.
First of all, I don't think any of us have surplus friends to lose in
horrible circumstances. I recommend sticking to a a Nordic Trak.

On the topic of clothing, usually I wear out clothes in about three months
of project work, but was pretty impressed that my latest pair of jeans had
survived quite well. Yet oddly enough, after warming an office chair in the
Toronto CPT office for about a week, the seat wore through!
Hmmm...fortunately a yard sale (in downtown Toronto!) replacement pair saved
the day.

I have some pretty interesting speaking engagements coming up over the
summer--it is really my 'Lutheran Summer.' Beginning July 13th, I'll be in
Atlanta talking about CPT work and overseas peace work for the Multicultural
Youth Leadership Event, then up to Washington, DC by the next weekend to
represent CPT at the US Campaign to End the Occupation conference. [As part
of that trip, our Hebron project coordinator has asked me to meet with
members and staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. So far I have
a tentative date with the staff of the head of the Middle East Subcommittee.
Wish me luck. I'm glad I'm getting a workshop in on lobbying before I
go!] Then I'm home for a bit and over to Michigan where I'm speaking as
part of the Lutheran World Federation Post-Assembly Visitation program.
Finally, I should be running a display table at Churchwide in Milwaukee if
all goes according to plan. I'm looking forward to all, but I think with
the travel I should not take on any more speaking closer to home.

Towards the end of summer I may perhaps spend a short stint up at Grassy
Narrows, Ontario, with our newest project. The Anishnaabek indigenous
people there are trying to maintain their right to hunt and fish on their
traditional lands (as guaranteed by treaty), while the government is selling
off the trees on their land to logging companies which are destroying the
environment. So there is a nonviolent blockade of the logging trucks that
our team is accompanying. You can find out more about this by looking at
our website, http://www.cpt.org under 'CPT in Canada.' After Ontario, or
perhaps sooner, I will be heading east again into Iraq to shore up our
little team there. They are looking forward to my Arabic, I hear. It will
be a while, I think, before I am returning to Palestine. But I think also
it will be a much-needed break and change of pace.

In work closer to home, though, I'm also working to get a CPT regional
group started here in the upper Midwest. As of the latest training, I
discovered we have 2-3 more CPTers from Minnesota and Wisconsin, for at
least a dozen CPT-related people within a 3 hour drive of my house.
Regional groups are formed by trained CPTers and people who support CPT, and
gather regularly to share reports from the field, 'bond' (over food, no
less), practice violence reduction skills, and occasionally organize public
witness actions (like vigils against the war, etc). The group meetings are
really good places for people who are interested in getting more involved
with CPT to find out more. I am throwing this 'plug' right into the middle
of my letter because I do believe there are a few eager CPT supporters who
get my letter and might want to come to a meeting if I organize it for later
this summer. If you are one of those types, or know one of those types,
send me an enthusiastic reply...

I was going to write quite a bit more about my time in Canada, but that will
have to wait for another time. I should have gotten this letter out days
ago!

peace,

Le Anne