Contact: Voices In The Wilderness-(Chicago): 773-784-8065
For Immediate Release

(Chicago)–Voices in the Wilderness (VITW) filed an Answer and Counter Claim in US District Court in Washington DC on Friday September 26, 2003, in response to the fines for bringing medicine and relief to Iraq. A $20,000 penalty was first threatened in December 1998 by the US Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), but was not actually imposed until November 2002, at the height of the Bush Administration’s preparation to invade Iraq. At that time VITW was sponsoring a team of US civilians and other internationals in Baghdad; they remained there from October 2002 through April 2003 as witnesses against war and in sympathy with the ordinary people of Iraq.

Contact: Tom Walsh
(w) 773.784.8065

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Chicago, IL. Friday, September 5, 2003)

Four members of Voices in the Wilderness (Cathy Breen-NY, John Farrell- IL, Kathy Kelly-IL, and Ed Kinane-NY) traveled to Basra, Iraq this week to assess the quality of life after 13 years of sanctions, war and ongoing military occupation. The quality of life they found for 1.5 million Iraqis who call Basra home was far from normal.

They visited with families befriended over the last eight years and found most people hopeless and shell shocked. They visited hospitals in Basra and found them overwhelmed and critically short of supplies. They also had the opportunity to interview doctors who treated Army Private Jessica Lynch before her rescue on April 1, 2003.

"What we found was a population with a lot of personal trauma with no were to get help, no doctors to treat them nor security personnel to improve the situation in the streets. It is worse in Basra today that at anytime since the Gulf war…which is a pretty amazing realization considering the death and destruction this city has seen over the last 13 years." - John Farrell

Contact: Tom Walsh: 773-784-8065
For Immediate Release

(Chicago, IL. Tuesday, August 12th….) On July 29th 2003 Voices in the Wilderness (ViTW) was presented with a summons by the United States Department of Justice, charging ViTW $20,000 in penalties, plus interest and late fees, for bringing medicine and school supplies to Iraq. ViTW has been given 20 days to respond or “judgment by default will be taken against you for the relief demanded in the complaint”.

Since 1996 ViTW has been a campaign to end the US/UN sanctions on Iraq, calling their effect on the Iraqi people inhumane, immoral and unjust. ViTW does not intend to pay these fines. We do not believe that we have acted illegally by bringing desperately needed relief to the Iraqi people. Rather, our response to this summons will be an extension of our effort to draw attention to the devastating condition of life in Iraq and to the direct role that US/UN imposed sanctions and US bombing campaigns have had on ordinary Iraqi families and the civilian infrastructure.

Contact: Danny Muller
773.784.8065
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Chicago, June 23, 2003…) At 10:30 a.m. this Tuesday, June 24th a group from Chicago’s Irish community who are becoming increasingly concerned with the fate of the five members of the Dublin based “Pit Stop Ploughshares” will attempt to meet with Katrina Doyle of the Irish Consulate located at 400 North Michigan Avenue. The group believes very
strongly that the five members of the Pit Stop Ploughshares should be celebrated, not imprisoned, for their efforts to stop flights carrying weapons of mass destruction that use Shannon Airport as a Pit Stop on their way to the Middle East.

In the early hours of Monday, February 3rd five members of the pacifist Catholic Worker Movement cut their way into Shannon Airport, Ireland. The peace activists poured human blood on the runway that has been
servicing U.S. military flights, troops and munitions deployments to U.S. military bases in Kuwait and Qatar. They constructed a shrine on the runway to Iraqi children killed and threatened by U.S./British bombardment and sanctions.

The “Pit Stop Ploughshares” � Deirdre Clancy, Nuin Dunlop, Karen Fallon, Damien Moran & Ciaron O’Reilly have been charged with a $2 million (U.S.) fine and possible terms of 10-years imprisonment for “criminal damage.”

Contact: Ceylon Mooney, Stephanie Schaudel
773.784.8065
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Experiences of Iraq Peace Team members living in Iraq during the months leading up to "Operation: Shock and Awe" and throughout the US bombing, invasion and current occupation confirm the simple adage: "Where you stand determines what you see."

On May 10, 2003, in the desperately poor Al Tharwa district in Baghdad, three generations of one family spoke with Caiohme Butterly, an Iraq Peace Team delegate, about the uncertainty and apprehension they now face: "It is like waking up from an operation," said Dr. Karim. "There is pain, and fear, and apprehension dulled a little by the anesthetic, but still there. It is pure, and complete confusion, we feel we are dreaming, waking up from one nightmare, the previous regime, perhaps to descend into another."

His mother agrees, "Oil is our curse. It brought us nothing but tragedy under Saddam. It will bring us nothing under the Americans. They should not have subjected us to another war."