The Gazette (Montreal, Quebec)

April 4, 2003 Friday Final Edition
SECTION: News; Pg. A7
BYLINE: IRWIN BLOCK

Some Voices in the Wilderness have been silenced, for now.

On Tuesday, Montrealers Lisa Ndejuru, Zehira Houfani and 10 others who went to Iraq with the Iraq Peace Team felt it was time to leave.

The road trip from Baghdad to Amman, Jordan, in three vans was uneventful, and author Houfani is on her way back to Montreal. But Ndejuru, who studies religion at the Universite du Quebec a Montreal, is staying behind as a volunteer in the Iraq Peace Team, part of the Voices in the Wilderness initiative that began in 1996 to publicize the effect of economic sanctions on ordinary people. “We want to see what we can do from here to support the team still there, to get the story out,” Ndejuru said from her hotel in Amman.

Exactly how the pacifist group can continue its work, and when it can return to Iraq, are open questions.

But with an invasion looming, it became increasingly clear that staying in Baghdad to witness and report as advocates of non-violence was no longer possible for the group of about 30 activists, Ndejuru said. The decision to leave was a combination of prudence and the increasing difficulty of linking up with the outside world, she said.

“Communications were down. No more telephone, no more Internet, so our presence … was not as efficient.”

If this were temporary, many would have stayed behind. But the assessment was that things would only get worse.

Ndejuru said she is not defending Saddam, but finds the argument for regime change “laughable” when many of Iraq’s neighbouring countries are run by people who are “the same, if not worse.” While she did not encounter any panic on Tuesday as the vans were leaving, Ndejuru is convinced the bloodshed to come will not increase popular support for the war.

iblock@thegazette.canwest.com