Modesto Bee

May 19, 2003, Monday, ALL EDITION
SECTION: LOCAL NEWS; Pg. B1
BYLINE: BY BLAIR CRADDOCK

A longtime peace activist who stayed in Baghdad during the U.S.-led war on Iraq brought her message to a small but receptive audience at California State University, Stanislaus, on Sunday.

“One of the best ways to prevent a next war is to tell the truth about this war,” said the speaker, Kathy Kelly, co-founder of Chicago-based activist organization Voices in the Wilderness.

For Kelly, the central issue is the impact that both the war and a dozen years of economic sanctions have had on the health of Iraqi children.
“Forty-six percent of the Iraqi population are children,” Kelly said. “They did not commit any crime. They never wanted to harm anyone in the United States.”

Children’s health in Iraq is suffering, Kelly said. She pointed to last week’s announcement by UNICEF that acute malnutrition rates in children under 5 in Baghdad had nearly doubled, from 4 percent to 7.7 percent, since February 2002.

Unsafe water from disrupted or looted water treatment plants may have contributed to the problem, UNICEF reported. Severe diarrhea, malnutrition and death can be caused by contaminated water.

Kelly told an audience of about 15 that she had found ordinary Iraqis relieved that Saddam Hussein’s regime was gone. But she also found hardship, uncertainty and fear that troubles are not over. One Iraqi acquaintance described the situation this way, she said: “You’ve woken up out of a nightmare — and you wonder if you’re going into another nightmare.”

With others from Voices in the Wilderness, Kelly intentionally went to Iraq when it appeared war would break out, and stayed there when it did. The purpose was to remain with Iraqi civilians, comfort them and return to tell their stories, Kelly said. “We weren’t human shields,” said Kelly, who criticized those who took on that role for depending on the Iraqi government to transport and house them.

Kelly said she hopes to see Iraqis achieve a more just society through nonviolence. Arabic-language videos on the civil rights movement and Mahatma Gandhi could be useful tools there, she said.

Voices in the Wilderness was founded in 1996 to draw attention to civilian hardship in Iraq under economic sanctions. Kelly and others notified the U.S. attorney general they would violate the sanctions by flying to Iraq with medical supplies. They made dozens of trips and were fined.

A war-tax resister, Kelly said she hasn’t paid her $10,000 fine. “To bring medical relief should not be a crime,” she said. Kelly was a teacher at Catholic schools in Chicago before becoming a full-time activist. She holds a master’s degree in theology.

Barbara Eniti of Livermore, one of those at the Turlock event, said, “It’s too bad there was not a crowd. We expected at least 50 people.” Kelly also spoke in Modesto at Christ Unity Baptist Church on Saturday, and at Church of the Brethren on Sunday evening.

Bee staff writer Blair Craddock can be reached at 578-2385 or bcraddock@modbee.com.