[Peace-discuss] human shields to Iraq

[Ricky Baldwin]

Volunteer 'Human Shields' to Head for Iraq
Tues. Jan., 21, 2003
By Andrew Cawthorne 

LONDON (Reuters) - A first wave of mainly Western
volunteers will leave London this weekend on a convoy
bound for Iraq to act as "human shields" at key sites
and populous areas in case of a U.S.-led war on
Baghdad.
 
"The potential for white Western body parts flying
around with the Iraqi ones should make them think
again about this imperialist oil war," organizer Ken
Nichols, a former U.S. marine in the 1991 Gulf War
(news - web sites), told Reuters. 

His "We the People" organization will be sending off a
first group of 50 human shields from the London
mayor's City Hall building Saturday, part of a series
of departures organizers say will involve hundreds,
possibly thousands, of volunteers. 

Nichols' planned human shield convoys are one of
several such efforts around the world to mobilize
activists in Iraq as a deterrent against military
strikes on Baghdad. 

In Bucharest, more than 100 Romanian diehard
communists said Tuesday they would travel by bus to
Iraq to act as human shields in case of a U.S. attack.


Members of the tiny Romanian Workers Party, which took
the mantle of ousted dictator Nicolae Ceausescu's
defunct Communist party in 1995, said they would set
off next month to support "the cause of the people." 

The new human shield plans revive memories of the 1991
Gulf War when President Saddam Hussein (news - web
sites) forcibly held thousands of Western hostages
after his invasion of Kuwait. 

Many were put near sensitive sites in a bid to stop
attacks that proved futile, although there are not
thought to have been any casualties among the Western
hostages. 
Baghdad also used Iraqis, alongside some foreign
volunteers, as shields in 1998 against U.S.-British
bombing. 

Nichols' groups intend to drive through Europe and the
Middle East en route to Iraq. The first will travel in
a pair of double-decker buses, led by a car with a
white peace flag on it. 
"We are on the verge of something big," said volunteer
Christiaan Briggs, 26, from New Zealand. He argued
that the stream of human shield volunteers was
symptomatic of radicalizing anti-war opinion around
the world. 

"People know this is wrong. It is just so blatantly
transparent how the U.S. is trying to impose its
hegemony." 

PROPAGANDA ACCUSATIONS 

"We the People" organizers said the self-financing
human shield volunteers had come forward from a range
of Western nations including the United States,
Britain, Ireland, Switzerland, The Netherlands, New
Zealand, Spain and Denmark. 

There were also some volunteers from Muslim nation
Turkey. 

The major rallying point for Muslims, however, is in
Iraq's neighbor Jordan. There, a campaign led by
leftist parties and civic bodies is seeking 100,000
shield volunteers. 
Baghdad has welcomed the plans, but volunteers smart
at suggestions that they are handing a propaganda gift
to Saddam. 

Washington and London are sending troops to the Gulf
and threatening military action against Saddam unless
he admits to possessing weapons of mass destruction
and disarms. 

"It's laughable to say that we are working for Saddam
when it was the UK and the U.S. who gave him his
biological and other weapons in the first place,"
Nichols said. 

"The hypocrisy is mind-blowing. The biggest threat to
world security at this moment is (U.S. President)
George W. Bush." 

Nichols said his involvement in the human shield
program was in part "penance" for his participation in
the Gulf War when a U.S.-led force drove Saddam's
troops out of Kuwait. 
But those forcibly used as human shields by Saddam in
the past are stunned others are volunteering to do it.


"Putting yourself in danger is not going to help at
all," said John Nicol, a British air force flyer shot
down in 1991 and later paraded on Iraqi television. He
was moved around by the Iraqis to various potential
targets and experienced allied bombing nearby. 

"I doubt it would be a deterrent to any attack,"
Nicol, a journalist and military analyst since leaving
the air force, told Reuters. "I am shocked that anyone
would want to put themselves in such a situation."


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