"They sent us a carpenter," began Rev. Hugh Sanborn in his introduction of the speaker for a noon luncheon at the University of Houston A. D. Bruce Religion Center February 10.
He was referring to Michael Bremer, a member of Catholic Workers in Chicago, who spoke to many groups in Houston recently of his trip to Iraq with Voices in the Wilderness.
The students, faculty and staff at the presentation, hosted by Campus Ministries, had expected to hear from Kathy Kelly, founder of Voices. She, however, left the previous day for Iraq as a member of a party of 8 individuals, 5 from the U.S., 3 from Britain, who would "bear witness to what happens in Iraq." If the people are bombed, they will "walk with the ambulances."
Michael came in Kathy's stead. He had spent three weeks in Iraq in December of 1997 to see for himself the situation in that sad country and bear witness to his belief that the sanctions imposed seven year ago should end.
Once again, the peace movement is serving as the conscience of the nation. As with all Voices delegations, he and his friends took medicines, in this case, antibiotics, to the Iraqis.
Michael was an articulate, knowledgeable spokesperson for Voices in the Wilderness. At most of his presentations, he showed the 60-Minutes video of Leslie Stahl in her interview with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. It includes footage of Stahl's visit to hospitals and communities in Iraq about a year and a half ago.
Stahl mentioned that 500,000 children under five years of age had died due to the sanctions. She then asked Albright,
Mike said that the hospitals he saw were much like those in the 60 Minute video: dying children, distraught mothers, doctors in despair for lack of medicines and parts for defunct equipment. He felt that the situation in Iraq had not improved since the Leslie Stahl video was made, in spite of the oil for food agreement allowing Iraq to sell $2 billion of oil twice a year so it will have dollars to buy things from the outside world; it amounts to only 25 cents per person per day for food and medicine. This amounts to $4 billion a year for a country the UN reports needs $30 billion for the people to just survive.
One of his most vivid memories took place in a children's leukemia ward. As Mike and a U.S. cleric entered a room, the man standing beside the bed of a sick child began to rage at them in a frightening manner. The Iraqi doctor with them rushed ahead and explained to the man that these people had come to help Iraqis and were working to end the sanctions. (All of this was in Arabic, of course.)
When Mike told this story at Baylor College of Medicine, a physician in the audience said that that particular type of leukemia had a 65% cure rate in the U.S.
The host physician in Iraq said that before the Gulf War, there were only 4 or 5 cases of childhood leukemia per month. Now there are 20 cases per week. Due to lack of funds, no study has been done to determine the cause, but there is speculation that the spent uranium strewn about the country from U.S. bombs dropped in Iraq during Desert Storm is the culprit.
Ann Bragdon of the Fellowship of Reconciliation had arranged speaking engagements for Kathy at Baylor College of Medicine, U.T. School of Public Health, First Unitarian Universalist Church, University of Saint Thomas, Rice University, Faith Covenant Church in Clear Lake, and the Conrad Sauer Mosque. When Mike spoke at Baylor, an Iraqi physician thanked him warmly.
I want you to know how very much I appreciate what
you are doing, he said. I am afraid the US is determined
to have this war, but thank you, thank you.
Then a young woman who is a medical student and has lived in this country four years told of visiting her family in Iraq over the holidays.
Another Iraqi woman, who does research at Baylor, recognized an Iraqi physician in the video as having been one of her students when, in happier times, she taught at the medical school in Baghdad. He had told Leslie Stahl that the suffering of the Iraqi people due to the sanctions was the fault of the US government, not Saddam Hussein, as the people of the US believed, saying, The people don't get the picture, they just don't get the correct picture.
That young doctor could not have criticized the Iraqi government, she explained. He might be snatched up, he might disappear if he did. Or lose his job.
She, like the student, described the great poverty her family and friends had been reduced to by the destruction of Desert Storm and seven years of sanctions. As she talked, she began to sob.
The young medical student was sitting behind me. At some point, she, too, began to cry. Yes, yes, she said, softly. I study and study and work, and work, trying to forget what is happening, but it's always there. It was a very emotional moment, and the depth of the tragedy that is taking place and will be made so much worse by any bombing was made clear to the listeners. The program at Baylor was sponsored by Physicians for Social Responsibility.
That evening, Mike took his video and talk show to the University of Saint Thomas. An Iraqi woman in the audience said that she had been in Baghdad about the time of Stahl's visit. There was talk of the 'oil for food' program [which was instituted soon after Stahl's trip. People were so excited. They were saying, The first thing I am going to eat will be a ___! And, I can't wait to taste a ___! And then, it amounted to nothing, nothing.
Mike explained that the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization reports that the Iraqis need $30 billion a year just to survive. The "oil for food" program allows the selling of $2.1 billion of oil twice a year, and nearly 50% comes off the top for reparations and other things. It amounts to only 25 cents per person per day for food and medicines. UNICEF verifies that 1,211,285 children, Iraq's future, died due to the sanctions between August 199 and August 1997. And a November 1997 report by the Food and Agricultural Organization says 960,000 Iraqi children are malnurished, many of whom are stunted mentally and physically.
Our largest crowd, some fifty or sixty listeners, was at Rice University where Mike was a guest of the Amnesty International chapter. In the days that followed his talk, the students set up tables to engage fellow students in conversation about Iraq. They used the Leslie Stahl video, supplied them by Fellowship of Reconciliation ~ Houston, and handed out the eight-page packet on Iraq which FOR made available at each presentation. In just three days, they collected 600 signatures on a petition calling for the end of sanctions and no bombing of Iraq! They also collected money from the signers and placed a full-page, $400 ad in The Thresher of 2-21-98! This, on what one student described as a campus of very apathetic young people.
Wherever we went, there was discussion about whether or not Saddam was a threat to anyone, why was he complaining, was the US provoking him and if so, why. The belief was, in most cases, that Saddam is not a danger to the US or to his neighbors; that the US could be interested in oil for US companies, not for the use of the nation of Iraq; that Clinton is trying to divert attention from the Lewinsky accusations; or he wants to go down in history as a strong, resolute president.
Many believed that the US provoked Saddam by stacking the inspection team with ex-CIA operators and a Gulf War veteran with a background in intelligence. It was mentioned that the Iraqis see no end to the inspections and the sanctions and had to say no more, especially since it has been apparent for some time that the US will not be satisfied, nor will the sanctions and inspections end, as long as Saddam is in power. The conclusion was, at every presentation eccept, perhaps, the First Unitarian Universalist Church, that nothing justifies the use of the sanctions or any bombing.
Bremer's tour in Houston provoked the kind of debate that is needed on a local and national scale, in the Senate and House of Representatives, and instead of the lynching mentality that pervades TV and governmental presentations.
With phone calls and e-mails, Fellowship of Reconciliation ~ Houston alerted Pacifica Radio's Democracy Now programmers to Kathy Kelly and Voices in the Wilderness. They interviewed Kathy before she left for Iraq, and she or a member of her Voices witness is heard each week day in a live report from Iraq. Incidentally, a group of Italians have gone to Iraq to provide a white presence to say no to a bombing in Iraq. [Democracy Now is heard weekdays at 90.1 FM at 9 am; it repeats at 4 pm. Listen to know what's really happening around the world about Iraq.]
There is a photograph of a protester at an FOR demonstration many years ago which describes the sentiments, I believe, of Mike, the Iraqis and others who heard him, the signatories of the Rice petition, and all of us who demonstrate, in words and deeds, our opposition to the unjustified violence being visited by our government on Iraq. The large sign she carries reads:
For more on Bremer's visit to Iraq, see the article Veteran of Iraqi Inspections Speaks Off the Record in this issue of HPN.