"Kathy Kelly Speaks on Iraq" -eyewitness report from the war Monday May 12th, 2003

Kathy Kelly in Iraq

Monday evening May 12, 2003 about 800 people gathered in St. Joan of Arc’s Gym to hear Kathy Kelly speak and take questions for two hours about her eyewitness experiences in Iraq. The number of people attending was all the more amazing considering the NHL (Wild v. Anaheim) playoff and a Twins game were going on at the same time!

Deb Harley started the evening off at 7:00 by singing “Last Night I had the Strangest Dream” and a song of her own composition written during the war in Sarajevo. Then, Father George Wertin welcomed “everyone wherever you are on your journey” and read the St. Joan’s Peace Statement. Marie Braun, parishioner, coordinator of the event, and a member of the Women Against Military Madness (WAMM)/Peacemaker Group introduced Kathy Kelly. Kathy Kelly:

• is a co-founder of the Chicago-based Voices in the Wilderness.
• has visited Iraq 21 times.
• was sentenced to 10 years in prison (she served 9 months in a maximum security facility) for planting corn at missile silos
• has refused to pay Federal Income Tax for 18 years
• was nominated for the Nobel Peace Price in 2001 and 2003.

Kathy Kelly spoke very bitterly of the phrase “shock and awe” used to characterize the U.S. operation in Iraq. She was shocked and awed while bombs fell all around her. She was in Baghdad while the U.S. bombs fell. To use a sacred word: awesome, to describe a war is terrible. She is glad that Baghdad fell quickly. If people and soldiers in Baghdad fought back it would have been a bloodbath.

Kelly spoke about the Iraqi people still trying to go about their daily lives despite bombs falling around them 24/7 for weeks. People still went to market. Children still played. But, a lot of children played pretend war games. She spoke about a child pretending a flashlight was a gun. She believes the children were trying to cope with the violence around them by preparing for it to happen to them. A group of children played the board game Risk (a war game) and did not want to end the game because they said they might not be around to finish it tomorrow. A 3-year old child gnashes her teeth in reaction to the sound of the bombs.

Hospitals were overwhelmed. The one hospital in Baghdad that was open had three doctors working around the clock to try and help/save the injured and dying. The U.S. military did nothing to protect the hospitals or the people but they sent several tanks to the Ministry of Oil to protect the maps and the records in that building.

Kelly said that she has very little sense of the Iraqis being jubilant at their liberation. Many Iraqis believe the U.S. now owns their country. She does not know where the Iraqis shown on camera during the toppling of the Saddam statue came from or how they got to the square since the square was surrounded by concertina wire and few Iraqis were moving around before the event. A U.S. Army bulldozer helped bring the statute down.

However, it is true that most Iraqis are happy that Saddam is no longer in power. There is no question he was a despot. But, most Iraqis are nervous about the U.S. occupation and uncertain and afraid of their future. The U.S. should not forget that it backed Saddam for years and helped him obtain and keep power.

The results of the war will be felt in Iraq for a long time to come. Depleted uranium from the bombs, cholera and malnutrition are very real threats.

It is difficult to get accurate information on what is really happening in Iraq. The media when the government of Iraq was in power had difficulty getting un-censored stories out and a lot of the media practice self-censorship. Kelly feels there are only a handful of reporters honestly reporting what is going on in Iraq. Most of them are British. She mentioned Robert Fisk of The Independent as being an especially reliable news source. The numbers of people getting their news on Iraq from FOX and CNN dismays Kelly.

Kelly wants the sanctions against Iraq lifted. She never advocates the use of sanctions. Sanctions always end up hurting the average citizen-not the people in power.

Kelly advocates non-violence but she says she would never impose her belief in non-violence to a people living under oppression but our responsibility is to non-violence.

Janice LaDuke was baptized at St. Joan of Arc but her parents left St. Joan's in the early 70's and went to a "less radical" Catholic church instead. She's very glad to have found her way back to St. Joan's in 1994!! Janice is a librarian by profession and has been working in the library of a healthcare consulting firm since 1997. In her spare time, she enjoys listening to all kinds of music and working on her home near Como Lake in St. Paul. Janice is also Echo Thoren's assistant every Sunday at the 11:00 a.m. service.

One of the last to approach the microphone during the Q&A portion was a group of three Iraqi women who waited patiently for over 45-minutes for their turn at the mic. They said: “We don’t hate the U.S. We hate the politics-not the people”.

For further information:

• www.electroniciraq.net- an online news project begun in February of 2003 by Voices in the Wilderness and Electronic Intifada (www.electronicintifada.net)
• www.nonviolence.org/vitw Voices in the Wilderness website