For Immediate Release:
September 13, 2005

Contact: Voices for Creative Nonviolence
Jeff Leys: 773-573-5380
Farah Mokhtareizadeh: 856-236-6141

CHICAGO, IL and WASHINGTON DC, September 13–For the next sixteen days, advocates for economic justice in Iraq will fast outside the headquarters of the International Monetary Fund (I.M.F.) in Washington, D.C. With the IMF and World Bank meeting in ten days, fasters with Voices for Creative Nonviolence will call for the cancellation of the $125 billion of debt incurred by Saddam Hussein and now thrust upon the Iraqi people.

From September 27-29, fasters will move on to the United Nations building in New York City while the UN Compensation Commission meets in Geneva. Both the IMF and UNCC meetings are critical because they will determine the United States’ and international demands for Iraq’s repayment of debt and reparations.

The UNCC’s claims for Iraqi debt relate to the invasion and occupation of Kuwait in 1990-91 by Saddam Hussein’s regime. Iraq has paid $19 billion in reparations claims, including over $2 billion since the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime. The UNCC imposed an additional $33 billion in war reparations claims against Iraq which are yet to be paid. Virtually all unpaid claims are owed to oil companies or governments. Virtually all claims of individual people are settled and paid.

Fast participants will present five key demands which must be met for economic justice for Iraqis:

1) the unconditional cancellation of the odious debt incurred by the regime of Saddam Hussein;

2) the unconditional cancellation of war reparations imposed against Iraq by the U.N. Compensation Commission for the invasion and occupation of Kuwait in 1990-91 by the regime of Saddam Hussein;

3) the elimination of all aspects of any economic restructuring plan imposed upon Iraq by the I.M.F., the World Bank, the Paris Club and other international financial interests and government;

4) comprehensive reparations paid to Iraq by the U.S., the U.K., and their allies for the damage inflicted upon Iraq over these past 14 years of military and economic warfare—especially the damage to Iraq’s health care, education, electrical and water systems.;

5) prevention or repeal of the privatization of state owned enterprises and respect for rights of workers as enunciated by international law.

6) a speedy end to the occupation of Iraq by the U.S., the U.K., and their allies.

In announcing the fast, organizers from Voices of Creative Nonviolence state:

“As international social justice activists and citizens of the U.S., we stand united and resolved to seek an end to the ongoing economic exploitation of Iraq. Such exploitation is a form of violence which must be resisted. We as citizens of the U.S. have a special responsibility as it is our country that created and held firm to the economic sanctions regime which devastated Iraq’s health care, education, water and electrical infrastructure.

“It is neither right nor just that the Iraqi people be required to pay in perpetuity for the regime of Saddam Hussein.”

Voices for Creative Nonviolence is a Chicago-based campaign to challenge US military and economic warfare against Iraq and to end the global “war on terror.”

Biographies of Participants

Fast For Economic Justice in Iraq: Washington D.C./New York City

Jeff Leys is an organizer with Voices for Creative Nonviolence. He traveled to Iraq in February 2003 with the Voices in the Wilderness’ Iraq Peace Team project. In November 2003, he returned to Iraq with Christian Peacemaker Teams (a project of the historic peace churches—the Mennonite, Brethren and Religious Society of Friends). Leys joined the Voices office in Chicago in May of 2004.

Prior to joining the Voices office, Leys worked as a labor union representative and organizer. His primary assignment was working with health care workers in Wisconsin.

Leys became active in social justice work in 1980. Over the years he has been engaged in work concerning nuclear weapons, US military intervention in Central America, and homelessness. In 1985 Leys participated in a Plowshares-Disarmament action, damaging Project ELF (a Navy transmitter system in Wisconsin and Michigan, closed in 2004) in opposition to the nuclear first strike policy of the US. He served two years in Wisconsin’s prison system for this act of nonviolent civil disobedience.

Leys earned a BA in history (emphasizing labor history in his studies) from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1991.

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Farah Marie Mokhtareizadeh, a student at the University of Pennsylvania, is a community activist and member of the Camden House, an intentional community working for the economic and ecological human rights for the people of the Waterfront South neighborhood of Camden, New Jersey. Farah is currently a co-coordinator for Voices for Creative Nonviolence, and has just completed one semester teaching second grade at Sacred Heart Catholic School in Camden. She is currently a member of the national Board of Directors for Word and World, an ecumenical seminary dedicated to nurturing faith-based activists in their work for social transformation. Farah has worked with Voices in the Wilderness since 2001, and made two trips to Iraq in 2002; one with the Iraq Peace Team shortly before the second gulf war. She is the 2003 recipient of the Veterans for Peace Gene Boomfield award for Peace and Justice. Having worked closely with organizations dedicated to restorative justice, nonviolence and reconciliation in Israel, Palestine, Ireland, Iraq and the U.S., Farah is grateful to join Voices in the Wilderness in Geneva for a fast in honor of the economic human rights for the people of Iraq.

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A baby boomer, Ed Kinane’s veteran activism led him to hot spots as Nicaragua, El Salvador, Haiti, and Guatemala to serve in the Peace Brigades International. As a Peace Brigade volunteer in the 1980’s, Kinane accompanied threatened human rights workers to protect them from death squads. In the 1990’s Kinane became very involved in the movement to close the School of the Americas or SOA in Fort Benning, Georgia. For his protesting, Kinane was arrested and twice spent time in federal prison. Living in Syracuse, New York, Kinane was involved in the local Syracuse Peace Council, which has been responsible for the organization of the local peace movement. He became interested in going to Iraq after hearing Kathy Kelly, founder of Voices in the Wilderness, speak about the situation in Iraq.

Ed has been a persistent critic of the US Army’s anti-insurgency training school at Ft. Benning, Georgia (the School of the Americas a.k.a. the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation). He has spent 14 months in federal prison for his nonviolent protests against the School.

Ed Kinane, a member of the Iraq Peace team, spent 5 months in Iraq just prior to, during and after the bombardment of Baghdad in 2003. Currently Ed helps edit the Syracuse Peace Council’s “Peace Newsletter.”

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Joel Gulledge works full time with Voices in the Wilderness and helps organize the Wheels of Justice Tour.