MESSAGE
| DATE | 2003-02-21 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [hangout] More Volunteers needed
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February 21, 2003
Human Shields, No Résumé Needed
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
BAGHDAD, Feb. 20 — A rather jaunty sign advertising the grimmest of
tasks was pinned up on a small notice board labeled "Human Shields" in
the airy lobby of the Andalus Hotel Apartments here this morning.
It sought three additional volunteers to join the 13 already committed
to living at the Baghdad South Power Plant to try to prevent its being
bombed in the event of war. "There is no more important place for a
shield to be," the notice read.
Volunteers from half a dozen nations expect to move into a large,
collective dormitory room on Sunday at the power plant, a site they said
was suggested to them by the Iraqi government. Since arriving earlier
this month they have been touring hospitals, water treatment plants and
other installations critical to the civilian population.
"They have shown us a number of sites and one of them was this power
station," said Godfrey Meynell, a 68-year-old antiwar activist from
Britain. "I have been pushing for this site because it seems to me that
if the electricity is cut, then water treatment suffers, hospitals
suffer. Of course America appears to have become so immoral now that
there are few chances of it making it the slightest bit of difference."
Like much of the current confrontation with Iraq, the issue of human
shields carries an echo from the Persian Gulf war of 1991. After its
1990 invasion of Kuwait, the Iraqis rounded up hundreds of oil workers,
bankers and other expatriates, forcing them to live for months at scores
of sites including Iraqi military bases and industrial plants. They were
eventually released, before the war.
The United States has warned repeatedly that even though the shields
this time are volunteers, their use would still be considered a war
crime. "Deploying human shields is not a military strategy, it's murder,
a violation of the laws of armed conflict and a crime against humanity,
and it will be treated as such," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
said on Wednesday.
The participants took exception. "That is ridiculous," said Ken Nichols
O'Keefe, a 33-year-old gulf war Marine veteran who initiated the idea.
"They are not using me. I am here voluntarily. What is Saddam Hussein
supposed to say? `No, they can't do it'? "
Earlier this month, Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said the foreign
volunteers were welcome. "They should come and set themselves up around
places that we need to survive, to aid civil defense," he said.
The Iraqi government is paying to house the volunteers in a smattering
of small hotels around downtown Baghdad and setting up free
international telephone lines and special Internet access so they can
lobby the folks back home.
Western diplomats are unsure, though, that the Iraqi government, once
besieged, will want the public relations headache the shields will
undoubtedly carry, and some of the volunteers themselves have their
doubts.
"We fear they will keep us together and then push us out at the last
minute," Mr. Meynell said.
Others have become aware of the sinister side of what some say they
naïvely interpreted as a kind of extraordinary war protest. "I think the
Iraqi government is potentially putting us in a dangerous position,"
said a young Australian who said he had decided to leave.
The shields stress that they came to protect civilians and not to
support the Iraqi government, but the Iraqis inevitably blur such
distinctions.
One American peace advocate recalled a typical march where the
Westerners were chanting antiwar slogans and were suddenly joined by
dozens of Iraqis hoisting pictures of Mr. Hussein. "It changed the
spirit of the march," said a recent college graduate who is one of the
volunteers. "That wasn't what we expected."
The number of human shields remains fluid. The count listed on the
group's bulletin board today jumped from about 97 to 132 with new
arrivals, but about 60 showed up at a group meeting. Eighteen are
believed to be Americans. Organizers brashly predict that the numbers
will catapult to the thousands.
But other peace delegations object to the fact that they are all often
lumped together as shields. "I am certainly not here to become a
martyr," said Beate Malkus, a 33-year old German actress.
One Italian confessed that she really just wanted to come here as a
peace advocate, but found that volunteering as a shield seemed to speed
the visa process.
Besides the shields, there has been an endless tide of peace advocates
showing up from around the world.
The whole human shield effort oozes a spirit somewhere between a
socialist collective and one of those communal college dormitories.
One announcement on the bulletin board proclaimed a drive to donate
blood. It pointed out that taking part would be one easy way to get the
certificate peculiar to Iraq that requires all foreigners to prove they
do not have AIDS. The certificate is presented on departure.
--
Ruben Safir
NYLXS
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