>Peace activist groups that are traveling to Iraq to act as human shields against U.S. military action are drawing attention from media organizations all over the country.
“A number of groups have been choosing to do this,” said Joseph Elder, a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin. “They call themselves witnesses for peace or witnesses of suffering.”
One of the most visible groups, the Universal Kinship Society, is led by Gulf War veteran and peace activist Ken Nichols O’Keefe. The UKS left London in a convoy to Baghdad in January in an action known as the Truth Justice Peace Human Shield Iraq.
The group says it thinks the United States will not bomb Iraq while citizens of American allies are in Iraq.
Elder said the protestors put themselves in harm’s way to communicate most closely with foreign civilians who would be affected by military action.
“They go so they can report on the attack, should it come, and they feel if they are killed in the process, so be it,” Elder said.
Elder said protest groups took similar trips during the Vietnam War and Sri Lanka’s civil war and that the groups traveling to make themselves human shields were motivated and organized.
Sue Mackley, a member of the anti-economic-sanction group Voices in the Wilderness, said her group and groups like it travel to Baghdad to experience the Iraqi lifestyle first hand.
Mackley said VW currently has about 40 travelers in Iraq.
“Our purpose is not to necessarily protest military action, but to observe and experience what life is like for Iraqis after being under these trade sanctions for 12 years,” Mackley said.
“I think the fact groups are doing this is a reflection of the fact there are a lot of Americans who are very opposed to any action of war on the part of the [United States],” Elder said. “This is fairly unprecedented, at least something on this level. There’s never been anything as large-scale as this.”
Jeremi Suri, a UW history professor, agreed the size of current human-shield movements is unprecedented.
“First of all, it’s easier to get over there now,” Suri said. “In 1969, it was fairly difficult to travel to North Vietnam. But currently there are still a few countries who have air connections with Iraq.”
Suri also said a change in media coverage of war could have inspired the human-shield groups.
“Television has become the biggest part of war-protest phenomenon since Vietnam,” Suri said. “These people are in Baghdad saying, ‘We’re here, you shouldn’t bomb.’ If television cameras weren’t covering the war, we wouldn’t even know the protestors were there.”
Suri said the human-shield efforts would have no effect on U.S. policy makers and that “the truth is (that) many of these people won’t still be there when the attacks start.”
Pope John Paul II has recently sent a delegation from the Vatican to act as peace liaisons in Baghdad. Suri said if the United States decided to attack, officials would probably contact the Vatican and other international diplomats in Baghdad and tell them to evacuate.
Mackley said common VW trips include traveling outside of Baghdad to see the effects of trade sanctions on schools, health-care systems and families.
“We usually have meetings with government officials and researchers for worldwide corporations,” Mackley said. “The point is to do everything we can to get the pulse of the area.”
Mackley was last in Iraq in November and said she encountered sentiment against the Saddam Hussein’s regime, however muffled.
“It is a situation where people are intimidated to speak freely,” Mackley said.
Mackley said the number of VW delegations traveling to Iraq was escalating with the increased U.S. military presence in the Middle East, but not for the purpose of becoming human shields. Mackley said there was no plan set up to evacuate any travelers in the event of an attack.
“Anyone going over with our delegation has to be prepared to stay in the event of a military attack,” Mackley said.
