Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July 2000, pages 59-61

Northern California Chronicle

American Gulf War Veteran and Iraqi Refugee Speak Out Against Iraqi Sanctions

By Elaine Pasquini

Wafaa Bilaal, an Iraqi refugee from Najaf, and Erik Gustafson, an American Gulf war veteran and executive director of the Education for Peace in Iraq Center (EPIC), toured the U.S. in March and April speaking on the need to lift the U.N.-imposed economic sanctions against Iraq.

Addressing a small group at the San Francisco office of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee April 21, Gustafson discussed his humanitarian visit back to Iraq in 1997. He stressed the importance of rebuilding Iraq’s infrastructure and economy, as the country, which at one time had the best hospitals and universities in the region, now lacks basic life-sustaining items, including power generating stations, water purification systems, sufficient food, medicine, and properly functioning hospitals. After 10 years of economic sanctions which prevent even the importation of spare parts to repair the civilian infrastructure, raw sewage is still dumped daily into the waterways, contaminating the residents’ water supply, Gustafson said. Water-borne disease, chronic malnutrition, and other preventable illnesses have caused the deaths, according to recent UNICEF estimates, of 500,000 children under age five.

Gustafson formed EPIC in 1998 in order to work to change U.S. policy toward Iraq, and the organization lobbies Congress toward this end. He believes “the [American] people are against this silent war which has gone on for 10 years. Americans are upset with the U.S. acting as a rogue nation.”

Wafaa Bilaal escaped Iraq shortly after the end of the Gulf war, when the uprising against Saddam Hussain in Kerbala and Najaf failed and many residents fled in fear of reprisals by the Iraqi army. “The war is not over when so many children die each week,” he said. “We are all responsible for saving this generation.” Bilaal believes that, because of the use by coalition forces of depleted uranium, “the battlefield remains a killing field,” citing the rise in child leukemia and a four- to five-fold increase in cancer, particularly in the southern part of Iraq. Prior to the Gulf war, Bilaal studied art at Baghdad University and is presently an artist and writer living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He is active with Peace With Iraq, a grassroots solidarity organization.

The speakers discussed the importance of Americans pressuring the U.S. government to change its position on Iraq and urged the audience to press their congressional representatives to support House Resolution 3825, which would, among other things, change domestic law to expedite the U.S. sale of food and medicine to Iraq under the U.N.’s oil-for-food program which was instituted in 1996.

The speakers’ program was co-sponsored by Global Exchange, Buddhist Peace Fellowship, California Peace Action, Alliance of Medical Professionals in the Middle East, American Friends Service Committee, and Arab Roman Catholic Community. American Muslims for Global Peace and Justice hosted the speakers, with co-sponsors San Jose Peace Center and Peninsula Peace and Justice Center, at DeAnza College in Cupertino, CA, April 22nd.

Voices in the Wilderness Founder Deplores Suffering of Iraqi People

“The Iraqi children are bearing the worst brunt of the sanctions,” said Voices in the Wilderness founder and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Kathy Kelly at St. Raphael Parish, the historic mission located in San Rafael, on May 5. Her presentation, part of a West Coast tour which included four additional Bay Area appearances, was co-sponsored by Pax Christi USA, Bay Area Pax Christi, Archdiocese of San Francisco Office of Public Policy and Social Concerns, and American Friends Service Committee, among other humanitarian organizations.

Kelly and the Chicago-based organization strive to educate the American public with respect to the humanitarian disaster occurring in Iraq. Some 4,000 Iraqi children die every month from chronic malnutrition, cancer and many once-curable childhood diseases. The group urgently stresses the need to lift the economic sanctions imposed by the U.N. four days after Saddam Hussain invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990. Kelly believes the American public is simply unaware of the deplorable conditions in Iraq because Congress and the mainstream media “make it seem like only one person [Saddam Hussain] lives in Iraq.” She pointed out that the sanctions touch the most vulnerable of Iraq’s 22 million people, the sick, elderly, poor, and children.

The group has made 19 visits to Iraq delivering donated medical supplies and toys. Since travel to Iraq without government permission is in violation of U.S. law, the organization has been fined $163,000 for its humanitarian relief efforts. In February 1998 Kelly visited the cancer and malnutrition wards of Baghdad’s Al-Mansour hospital, which she described as “a death row for infants.” Friyal, a seven-month-old malnourished infant, who, Kelly said, “looked like a seven-month-old fetus,” went into cardiac arrest in front of her. The doctor in the ward administered mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but sadly informed the child’s mother that the hospital did not have an oxygen tube small enough in order to save the baby’s life.

Because of the economic sanctions, hospitals suffer from non-functioning elevators, lack of electricity and medicine, including antibiotics which, when available, must be administered in half-doses which are simply ineffective. Kelly stated that the economic sanctions were “the real weapons of mass destruction,” causing children’s deaths in cancer wards every day. Despite the many instances she witnessed of the average Iraqi’s suffering, Kelly continually experienced the “overwhelming hospitality” of the Iraqis she met, both in cities and in the countryside, which is still being bombed by American and British warplanes. She showed the audience examples of the anti-personnel weapons being dropped.

Kelly urged the audience to bring attention to the need to lift the sanctions through contacting their congressional representatives, letters to the editors of newspapers and magazines, nonviolent demonstrations and prayer vigils. While acknowledging that during an election year lifting sanctions was not popular among some candidates, she believes, “We can’t walk away merely because it is not an opportune time.” For more information on Voices in the Wilderness visit their Web site at <www.nonvi olence.org/vitw> or call (773) 784-0865.

Jews and Palestinians Celebrate Friendship at Third Annual Dinner

More than 85 Jews, Muslims and Christians gathered May 7 at the South City Steakhouse in South San Francisco for the Third Annual Jewish-Palestinian Dinner sponsored by the Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue Group of San Mateo. In addition to dinner, dialogue and dancing, guests witnessed the U.S. premier of the Middle East Peace Quilt, the exquisite creation of quilt squares sewn by 300 Arabs, Jews and others, and assembled by fabric artist Elizabeth Shefrin of Vancouver, Canada. The individual squares symbolize each creator’s hope for peace and co-existence in the Middle East. Following its debut at the dinner, the “quilt,” in actuality 30 separate panels, will be on display at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco for the next two months.

The Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue Group of San Mateo was founded in 1992 as a grass-roots organization with the philosophy that individuals, not just governments, could advance the process of obtaining peace in the Middle East. The San Mateo group, co-founded by Libby and Len Traubman, has met more than 97 times and stresses the importance of building trust and friendships through face-to-face meetings between Jews and Palestinians. The group has spawned similar groups in Danville, Berkeley, and San Francisco, as well as New Mexico and the East Coast. Several Israeli doctors and scholars, working temporarily in the Bay Area, belong to the San Francisco group, and they share their experiences in the dialogue group with their friends and families when they return to Israel.

Guests were seated at eight individual tables, and their discussions ranged from vacation stories to ideas on the future of the co-existence of Israelis and Palestinians. Suggestions included a two-state solution or a single democratic secular nation (Israel) where Palestinians and Israelis would share the same rights and opportunities. “That would solve the question of Jerusalem,” one guest commented. Some Palestinian guests spoke candidly of their recent trips back to their homeland and were bitter about the treatment they received from Israelis, such as harassment by airport security officials and humiliating experiences at checkpoints on the West Bank.

Two special guests at the dinner were Palestinian-Israeli Forsan Hussein, and Jewish-Israeli Michael Bavly, students from Brandeis University in Boston who traveled to San Francisco specifically to attend the dinner. Hussein, one of only two Palestinian students at Brandeis, the only non-sectarian Jewish-sponsored university in the U.S., said, “Talking and listening are the beginnings of peace.” He smilingly added that “the secret of people getting along is food.” In addition to their studies, the two students host a radio show where they feature Arabic and Jewish music.

Almarjanah Ensemble provided classical, traditional and modern Arabic music, and the evening ended with music by the San Francisco Klezmer Experience.

Islamic Scholar Optimistic About Future of Islam in 21st Century

Dr. Ebrahim Moosa, associate professor of religious studies at Stanford University, spoke on “Islam in the 21st Century: Reform and Reinterpretation” at the World Affairs Council in San Francisco on May 11.

“Moderate voices within Islam are persecuted,” Moosa said, referring to the recent riots by Muslim students at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University over the inclusion of A Banquet of Seaweed by Syrian writer Haidar Haidar in a series of works by modern Arabic writers. The Egyptian government has since withdrawn the book from circulation, deferring to the students’ charges that the book is anti-Islam.

Media reporting of certain negative events in the Islamic world, such as riots over Islamic literature, human rights abuses in Afghanistan, and honor killings in Jordan and Pakistan, make some people believe “Islam is a lost cause and there is no chance for a revitalization of Islam,” Moosa complained. “I believe it would be a terrible mistake to believe this.”

He went on to explain that, since Islam’s creation in the 7th century, moderate-thinking scholars have energized the religion with a creative interpretation of the Qur’an. Fourteenth century scholars “dealt with new contingencies,” he emphasized. And in the 19th century, scholars “found a way Islam could deal with a modern changing world.” Moosa warned that people should not view the Qur’an as a “massively egalitarian” book, but that it is open to interpretation with respect to changes in the contemporary era.

In this regard, Moosa enumerated three specific areas of concern for Islamic scholars. With respect to “gender” he is encouraged that women are adding their voices to Qur’anic interpretations of their rights and roles within the family and society in general. A movement is occurring to retrieve stories about women during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad. But Moosa noted a patriarchal society existed at the time the Qur’an was revealed to Mohammed and “more battles must be fought” toward ending patriarchy. He hailed Egypt’s recent change in divorce law enabling women to receive a “no fault” divorce as “creative interpretation of Islamic law.”

The second problem, he believes, is Islam and politics. Currently in Iran Muslims are experimenting with changes, and Iranians, he said, have had “second thoughts about theocracy” since 1997, when moderates were elected and began to turn away from the actions and ideology of the leaders of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

“Sacred cows,” he said, “are being questioned, subtly and not subtly. Re-thinking is taking place, but it takes time.”

With respect to recent changes in Indonesia since the election of pro-democracy President Gus Dur last year, “It is a wait-and-see game,” Moosa said. He believes also that the U.S. government “needs more creative ideas to deal with Afghanistan.”

The third area of concern he termed “Islam and the other.” As a result of the media and Hollywood for decades portraying Muslims as terrorists, the American public is misinformed about Muslims and their culture. However, Moosa noted that interfaith groups are emerging and bridge-building between cultures is taking place.

Moosa is optimistic about the future of Islam. “There are a plethora of views,” instead of only the views of moderates versus hard-liners, he said. “The courageous always have the upper hand.”

Elaine Pasquini is a free-lance writer based in Ignacio, California.