January 5, 2003

By JONAS KOVER
Observer-Dispatch

As Cynthia Banas travels about Iraq, she finds that it is "incomprehensible ... that the people are so friendly to Americans, knowing that almost any day they could be bombed."

Banas, 73, a retired librarian from Vernon and an anti-war advocate, is in Iraq as part of the 22-member Iraq Peace Team, which plans to stay in the country as long as possible.

Sponsored by Voices in the Wilderness -- a joint United States/United Kingdom campaign to end sanctions -- but paying their own way, the team is protesting war against Iraq and will remain in Baghdad to give moral support to the civilians if there is a war.

The group has had peace vigils and visited U.N. officials, Iraqi families, schools, hospitals and cancer centers, she said.

A music lover, Banas recently attended a classical concert in the Al Rabatt Theatre, where she met Achmed, a 47-year-old man who spent 15 years in the Iraqi army.

"He said he does not want another war. He said everything was destroyed in the first Gulf War: The water supply, the waste treatment plants, the electric grid, the communications system, the bridges, everything."

Currently, Achmed told her that "he is trying to put aside some water, some food, some oil."

Hardships are seen in daily living, she said: "Kids can't go to school because they don't have any clothes to wear. ... Many are on the streets shining shoes, trying to make a little money to bring home to their families.

"There is nothing (the Iraqis) can do to get ready for a war," she said. "Economic sanctions have even crippled Baghdad's once world-renowned symphony.

"The lack of financial resources and equipment has made it difficult to maintain their instruments and impossible to travel abroad."

The team brought the orchestra needed items, such as strings and reeds, donated by musicians in Central New York, the Finger Lakes region and the Vancouver Opera Orchestra, she said.

Last month, the peace group was at the Baghdad School of Music and Ballet where the teacher was asked to transcribe the hymn "This is My Song" into Arabic.

The song traditionally is sung at the Utica Unitarian Universalist Church on United Nations Day, Banas said.

"The students learned it, and the next time we visited they sang it for us in Arabic and we sang it for them in English," she said.

Banas said she is "doing OK" despite worries about the situation.

"Sometimes I get homesick, but Iraqis have received us warmly and with such graciousness," she said. "The staff of young men at the hotel are a joy; they attempt to teach me a few words in Arabic and I attempt to teach them a few words of English in return."