Friends and Fellow Activists:
As many of you are no doubt aware, according to UN statistics more than
500,000 Iraqi children have died as a result of the US/UN embargo. In
response to this crisis a Chicago-based peace group, Voices in the
Wilderness, has been campaigning against the embargo, particularly
attempting to bring media attention to the plight of Iraqi children,
the shortage of food and medicine, and the lack of safe drinking
water. VITW has organized three delegations to Iraq, in violation of
the US ban on travel to Iraq and also in violation of the US ban on
the delivery of medicine to Iraq. I have been asked to join the fourth
delegation, which flies to Amman next Monday, December 9. We will be
taking medicine that has been requested by humanitarian organizations
in Basra and attempting to draw publicity to the ongoing human
crisis. So far we are having some success; a CNN crew accompanied the
third delegation which left November 25.
So, as an impoverished graduate student, I ask your assistance. If any
of you could help with a contribution, we would greatly appreciate
it. Sorry for the short notice, but our delegation was up in the air
until the last minute -- our visas just arrived this past week. Thank
you for your consideration and any assistance you can give.
Please make checks to "Voices in the Wilderness" (or "VITW") and send
to:
Robert Naiman
1821 W. Cullerton
Chicago Il 60608-2716
Contributions will be most useful if they arrive in Chicago by
December 7.
Below I include a note and press release from our project organizer,
Kathy Kelly. Please feel free to forward this appeal. We are, of course,
totally in the open in terms of our deliberate violation of US law --
we will be faxing US Attorney General Janet Reno before our departure.
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From: Kathleen Kelly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: VITW delegations to Iraq
Dear Friends,
Below is a press release which tells about the November 25
departure of a third delegation from the Voices in the
Wilderness project.
On December 9, four more people will leave Chicago for Iraq,
again in deliberate violation of the U.S./UN sanctions.
They are: Bob Bossie, SCJ, Chicago; Bob Naiman, Chicago;
Chuck Quilty, Rock Island, IL; and Brad Simpson, Chicago.
Bob Naiman and Brad Simpson are graduate students in Urban Planning
and Political Science, respectively. They would be quite grateful for any
assistance our supporters might give them to pay for their
airfare. As ever, contributions toward organizing expenses
and purchase of medicines are very welcome, along with 1)
names of new signers who want to join with the 156 signers
of the letter to Janet Reno declaring public violation of
the sanctions and 2) medicines for shipment to Iraq.
Thanks for your interest and support. Sincerely, Kathy
Kelly
for Voices in the Wilderness, 1460 West Carmen Avenue,
Chicago, IL 60640
For Immediate Release Chicago Contact: Kathy
Kelly
November 27, 1996 773-784-8065
Rev. Robert Bossie,
SCJ
312-641-5151
DELEGATION GOES TO IRAQ IN OPEN VIOLATION OF US/UN SANCTIONS
Chicago--While many Americans prepare Thanksgiving feasts, a
delegation which left Chicago on November 25 will head for
Iraq, bringing emergency medical relief supplies to starving
children and families.
Richard J. McDowell of Akron, OH, Bert Sacks of Seattle, WA
and Joe and Jean Gump, of Kalamazoo, MI, plan to arrive in
Baghdad on Thanksgiving Day. In an October 28, 1996
statement, Carol Bellamy, the executive director of UNICEF,
said "with no end to sanctions in sight, about 4500 children
are dying each month, in Iraq, of hunger and disease." When
told that an agreement has been reached regarding U.N.
Resolution 986, which allows for a partial lifting of the
sanctions, Joe Gump called the measure "too little and too
late. We're campaigning for a complete end to these
sanctions."
The delegation plans to travel from Baghdad to Basra, Iraq's
third largest city, located on the Kuwait-Iraq border.
Basrans are severely afflicted by hunger, an acute lack of
medicine to treat outbreaks of infectious diseases, and the
absence of safe drinking water. U.S./ UN imposed sanctions
directly cause the suffering and death of hundreds of
thousands of Iraqi children and adults.
The delegation will fast and vigil in Baghdad, in front of
the U.S. interests section of Baghdad, urging an end to the
sanctions which have already caused the deaths of 600,000
children. On December 11, they will hold a press conference
in front of the U.S. Embassy in Amman, Jordan where they
will present U.S. officials with samples of water, from
Basra, asking if the officials would want to give this
water to their children.
The national campaign, Voices in the Wilderness, has
collected signatures from around the country of people who
wish to publicly violate the U.S./UN sanctions against Iraq.
This is the third delegation to travel to Iraq in 1996.
Delegation members risk 12 years in prison and over a
million dollars in fines by delivering medicine to Iraq.
Jean Gump, who like her husband Joe has already spent
several years in prison for nonviolent disarmament efforts,
regards the sanctions as an economic warfare against Iraq.
"The sanctions are immoral," she says. "We believe that one
of the most powerful protests that we can make against the
sanctions is to publicly break them by taking urgently
needed medical supplies to Iraq."
___________________________________
Robert Naiman
1821 W. Cullerton
Chicago Il 60608-2716
(h) 312-421-1776 (answering machine broken)
Urban Planning and Policy (M/C 348)
1007 W. Harrison Room 1180
Chicago, Il 60607-7137
(o) 312-996-2126 (here there is voice mail)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://icarus.uic.edu/~rnaima1/
