Christian Peacemaker Teams

Details: On 25 June, 2005 in the village of Al-Shakh Hadid U.S. Marines staged a house raid on the home of Abdul-Hadi Al-Sumaida. His son, Mohammed, who is also the cousin to the current Ambassador from Iraq to the United Nations, Samir Sumaida’ie, let the Marines into the house. They asked him if the family had any weapons and he took them upstairs to show them the rifle owned by the family. Later the rest of the family was forced to go outside. After the Marines left the family discovered the body of Mohammed upstairs with a single bullet wound in the neck.

Action: Below is a sample letter you can use. Write, call or email your senator or representative letting them know you want a full investigation of this matter by the Senate and House Armed Services Committee. Let them know you want the many other cases of killings during house raids documented by human rights organizations in Iraq investigated as well. Let them know that killing innocent people will only fuel the insurgency in Iraq.

Additional Information: Use the following links for more information on this matter.

Iraq envoy accuses US of killing (BBC)
Or Ambassador says Marines killed his kin (San Francisco Chronicle)

By Anita David
Christian Peacemaker Teams

Last Monday, after a brief interview with a family, Greg and I went on a failed quest to obtain information on a disappeared man.

Today, Will and I return to the office of a small human rights organization for our second meeting with the mother and father of the man. The father carries the shopping bag holding copies of documents identifying his son. Will and I ask the parents to try to recreate the order in which they conducted their search. Their list:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 5, 2005

FURTHER INFORMATION:
Scott Blackburn at 773-784-8065
Jeff Leys at cell 773-573-5380 (on July 5th & 6th on site in Washington, D.C.)

PARTICIPANTS INCLUDE:
Kathy Kelly, co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness and 2 time nominee for Nobel Peace Prize
Bill Quigley, Attorney representing Voices in the Wilderness
Bert Sacks, Voices delegate fined by the U.S. government for travelling to Iraq

COURT HEARING:
9:00 A.M., July 6th
U.S. Federal District Court - Courtroom of Judge John Bates
3rd and Constitution NW, Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.-Representatives of Voices in the Wilderness will gather on the steps of the U.S. Federal District Court at 8:30 a.m. and again at 2:00 p.m., before and following a hearing in Judge Bates’s courtroom on July 6th as the U.S. government continues to pursue a 20,000 dollar fine against the organization. Judge Bates has requested additional oral argument. The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control alleges that a 1998 Voices delegation violated economic sanctions law against Iraq when it delivered medical supplies to Iraqis. Voices organized over 70 such delegations as part of this campaign of civil disobedience.

At 2:00 p.m., lawyers for Voices in the Wilderness will offer an update on the case. Voices members will then walk a short distance to the Treasury Department and there hold a rally, carrying signs that call the Treasury Department to accountability for enacting economic sanctions that directly contributed to sickness and death in Iraq over a 15 year period. The group notes that the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control paid almost no attention to U.S. oil companies that violated economic sanctions, and yet was swift to threaten and penalize groups that traveled to Iraq for humanitarian reasons.

Milan Rai of Justice Not Vengeance (JNV) and Gabriel Carlyle of Voices in the Wilderness UK have written the following response to the London atrocities. Voices in the Wilderness (US) echoes this call to anti-war and other groups found in the US. If you or your US group hold a vigil please send a report to us at info@vitw.org.

Today’s horrific events in London demand an active response from the movements for peace and justice.

Justice Not Vengeance and Voices in the Wilderness UK are proposing that anti-war and other groups around the UK hold silent vigils in their town centres at some point over this weekend (in Hastings, a vigil is being held in front of the town hall at 6pm on Friday), on the following themes (please amend as you see fit):

JNV Briefing 77
By Milan Rai
(pdf available from JNV)

EXPLAINING AL QAEDA-THE WRONG ANSWERS

Five days after the 11 September attacks, President Bush said that Osama bin Laden was ‘the prime suspect’. He added, ‘Now, I want to remind the American people that the prime suspect’s organization is in a lot of countries-it’s a widespread organization based upon one thing: terrorizing. They can’t stand freedom; they hate what America stands for.’

Addressing Congress on 20 Sept. 2001, President Bush said, ‘Al Qaeda is to terror what the mafia is to crime. But its goal is not making money; its goal is remaking the world-and imposing its radical beliefs on people everywhere.’ He added, ‘Americans are asking, why do they hate us? They hate what we see right here in this chamber-a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms-our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.’

Prime Minister Blair told the House of Commons on 14 Sept. 2001 that Parliament had been specially recalled because ‘these attacks were not just attacks upon people and buildings; nor even merely upon the USA; these were attacks on the basic democratic values in which we all believe so passionately and on the civilised world’.

EXPLAINING AL QAEDA-THE REAL ANSWERS

The US Government’s official ‘9/11 Commission’ reported that bin Laden’s grievance with the United States ’started in reaction to specific US policies’. Bin Laden and his group ’say that America had attacked Islam… Americans are blamed when Israelis fight with Palestinians, when Russians fight with Chechens, when Indians fight with Kashmiri Muslims, and when the Philippine government fights ethnic Muslims in its southern islands.’ The US is also ‘held responsible for the governments of Muslim countries, derided by al Qaeda as “your agents”.

Such charges, says the Commission, ‘found a ready audience among millions of Arabs and Muslims angry at the United States because of issues ranging from Iraq to Palestine to America’s support for their countries’ repressive rulers.’ (The 9/11 Commission Report, New York: Norton & Co, 2004, p. 51)