[Peace-discuss] Arrests in the Illinois offices of Senators Obama and Durbin.

Wed Feb 7 10:59:28 CST 2007

Peace Activists Launch The Occupation Project: A Campaign of Sustained 
Nonviolent Civil Disobedience to End the Iraq War
Tuesday, February 6th, 2007

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/06/1531209
Kathy Kelly joins us hours after being released from jail. She was one of 
ten people arrested in Sen. McCain's office in Washington. Eight more were 
arrested in the Illinois offices of Senators Obama and Durbin. Kelly just 
returned from two months living and working with Iraqi refugees in Amman, 
Jordan. [includes rush transcript]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The White House won an early victory Monday in the Congressional debate over 
the Iraq war. Republicans blocked voting on a non-binding resolution 
expressing disapproval of President Bush’s deployment of at least 21,000 
troops. The measure would have marked the first Congressional effort since 
the invasion to confront President Bush over the war. Joseph Lieberman 
joined with the Republican filibuster. Republicans Susan Collins of Maine 
and Norm Coleman of Minnesota switched sides and voted with the Democrats.
As the Senate debated, a coalition of peace activists launched their own 
effort to oppose the war. Ten people were arrested occupying the offices of 
the staunchly pro-war and likely-presidential hopeful Senator John McCain. 
The activists sang the names of seventy-five servicemembers from McCain’s 
home-state of Arizona who died in Iraq and chanted “We remember you.”

The action is part of a new campaign called The Occupation Project: A 
Campaign of Sustained Nonviolent Civil Disobedience to End the Iraq War. 
It's being led by the group Voices for Creative Nonviolence. Activists have 
promised to occupy offices of lawmakers who refuse to pledge to vote against 
additional war funding for the occupation of Iraq.

Kathy Kelly, Executive Director of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. She is a 
veteran peace activist who's just returned from two months living and 
working with Iraqi refugees in Amman, Jordan. She took part in the 
occupation of Senator McCain's office and was released from jail just hours 
ago.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us 
provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV 
broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
Donate - $25, $50, $100, more...

AMY GOODMAN: My next guest is Executive Director of Voices for Creative 
Nonviolence, Kathy Kelly, a veteran peace activist, just returned from two 
months living and working with Iraqi refugees in Amman, Jordan. She was one 
of those who was arrested in McCain’s office and was released from jail just 
hours ago. Kathy Kelly joins us from Washington, D.C. Welcome, Kathy.

KATHY KELLY: Good morning, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us exactly what happened yesterday and why you 
targeted Senator John McCain.

KATHY KELLY: Well, we came to Washington, D.C. to be with companion groups: 
CODEPINK and Vets for Peace and the Military Families Speak Out, the Iraq 
Veterans Against the War, United for Peace and Justice. There’s a long list, 
really, of people who are wanting to join together in the campaign called 
the Occupation Project. And also in Chicago, four people were arrested in 
Senator Barack Obama's office, four people in Senator Durbin's office. And 
we’re aware of affinity groups that are organizing all around the country 
for this sustained campaign to make sure that the elected representatives 
know that we won't go away on this issue, that we won't be fooled by issues 
that are raised that would continue the spending for three, four, five years 
into the future. We want this funding turned off now.

The United States waged a war of choice, and people in the United States 
don't, by and large, experience the consequences of this war unless they 
themselves have been bereaved because their loved ones were killed over in 
Iraq or come back maimed or sometimes psychologically destabilized. But 
certainly over in Iraq and in neighboring countries, Jordan and Syria, that 
have been burdened by a huge influx of people who have fled from Iraq, these 
people are experiencing consequences, and United States military escalation 
has very little relevance to the security of Iraq today.

AMY GOODMAN: Kathy, you say that you also -- people occupied the offices of 
Barack Obama in Chicago?

KATHY KELLY: Yes, that's true. You know, there is so much to admire in 
Senator Obama's vision and his desire to become a leader on behalf of 
solving problems with common sense in the United States. But we don't see 
any sense to continuing to pour money into the pockets of war profiteers of 
major corporations that have been benefited from this war. You know, 
military analysts have said that they’re not worried about what the 
Democrats will do, because they feel certain that, in terms of the next 
elections, the Democrats aren’t going to want to offend or defy the great 
giant military corporations. I’m thinking about Boeing and Lockheed and 
General Dynamics and Raytheon.

But we are insisting that if the US people, who themselves have given 
mandates to elected leaders that they don't want to see this war continue, 
that they can see through the ruse of continuing to sustain corporate 
military growth at the expense of so many people's lives, including lives in 
the United States. If we continue to express this directly and clearly 
through nonviolent civil disobedience, we believe that elected leaders with 
conscience will pay attention.

AMY GOODMAN: Just practically, in Washington, once you’re arrested in a 
senator's office, like you were in John McCain's office, how do you get back 
in and go to other people's offices and get arrested?

KATHY KELLY: Well, you know, in some ways we might almost call this the 
“peaceful assembly project.” Congress shall make no law that abridges the 
right of people to assemble peacefully for the redress of grievance. We have 
a grievance. And the people who have suffered from this war have a terrible, 
terrible, almost unbearable grievance. So certainly, people are allowed to 
go into those offices to sit down -- they pay for those offices to exist -- 
and to dramatically present to the elected representatives our grievance by 
virtue of just listing the names. We’d have to be there for months and 
months to list all of the grievances that have happened because of this war. 
There’s no security official that can stop you of entering the office of 
your elected representative.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Kathy Kelly. She just got arrested in the 
offices of Senator John McCain of Arizona, part of the Occupation Project. 
She has actually just come back from Amman, Jordan. Kathy, who has been 
twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, has been to Iraq many times. 
Kathy, can you talk about your work in Jordan?

KATHY KELLY: Much of the work in Jordan is simply listening, trying to 
understand better what the cares and concerns are of people who have meant 
us no harm but who are completely trapped in Jordan and in Syria. I think 
the Human Rights Watch report that was issued toward the end of 2006, 
entitled "The Silent Treatment," did a great deal to stir up the waters and 
raise concerns for people, but there hasn't been any significant change in 
the situations of well over 750,000 Iraqis who have entered Amman, Jordan 
and other major cities in Jordan and 850,000 in Syria. These are 
conservative estimates.

And these are people who simply, many of them, have no recourse, have no 
means to continue to sustain their families. And they’re caught in a 
terrible Catch-22. The United States had insisted that Iraq issue well over 
one million S-series passports, and then just weeks ago declared all of 
those passports invalid for travel into the United States. Now, the UK has 
followed suit, and Jordan is now saying that those passports aren’t valid. 
There’s a concern that there were forgeries and no doubt there were. Now, 
everyone is supposed to get a G passport. If an Iraqi leaves Jordan, they 
can't get back into Jordan. They’re also told they can only stay for three 
months in Jordan, unless they’ve achieved permanent residency. These are 
people with no legal rights, no healthcare, no right to send their children 
to school, and many of them are running out of food, running out of ability 
to pay any kind of rent. And they’re living under miserable circumstances. 
I’ve seen it in numerous families.

And yet, rightfully, every nongovernmental organization concerned for Iraq 
will tell you, look, the major, major problem -- and the UNHCR also says 
this -- is that of internally displaced people within Iraq, and it’s become 
a humanitarian crisis to the extent that people are dying of hunger. It’s 
cold in that part of the world right now. And people don't have fuel. They 
don't have blankets. They’ve moved in with communities that are trying to 
sustain them, who didn't have enough potable water or food in the first 
place.

There should be massive convoys of relief pouring into Iraq. And, you know, 
the amount of money that the United States has devoted to humanitarian 
relief not controlled by the US military is 0.01% of what the United States 
spends on war in Iraq. One man, Rafiq Tschannen, the head of the 
International Organization for Migration, said very ironically to me, “You 
know, if they just moved it up to 1% of that sum, it could even make a 
difference for US security,” because the people who are joining these 
militias are often young people who can't find a job. Iraq now has 50% to 
75% unemployment. The only way to even get a pittance, a meager pittance of 
food and relief for one's family, is to join up with these militias. So it 
would have an impact on the security.

So we aren’t saying in the Occupation Project, “Leave Iraq to fend for 
itself,” not by any means, but take this obscene bloated military budget and 
direct that money toward paying just reparations and toward reconstruction 
not under the control of the United States military. The United States 
military has almost no relevance toward security in Iraq and actually 
jeopardizes much of the reconstruction work, as little as there is going on 
at all.

AMY GOODMAN: Kathy Kelly, I wanted to turn for a moment to a brief report we 
have from Jordan from Democracy Now! producer Jen Utz, who has been in Amman 
covering the plight of Iraqi refugees. She filed this report.

JEN UTZ: Ashraf Al Taie is a freelance journalist who worked as an 
interpreter for NBC in Iraq. He was kidnapped twice and was both mentally 
and physically tortured. He told me he’s certain that if he returns to Iraq 
he will be killed.

ASHRAF AL TAIE: I’m under threat, because I worked with Americans, because I 
had, in a way, connection with the Americans and the coalition forces. I 
used to go out on embeds. Many people saw me out with the US Army, shooting 
them on the streets.

JEN UTZ: Ashraf has been in Amman since June, and his tourist visa is about 
to expire.

ASHRAF AL TAIE: Well, after my visa runs out, so I’m just going to hide in 
my apartment and wait something to happen, because I can’t really -- I can't 
go out in the streets, because if the police stop me and ask me for passport 
and they’re going to see that I’m not -- I’m illegally in the town, they’re 
going to just deport me. And also, not only that, they’re going to stamp on 
your passport that you are not allowed to enter Jordan for five years. And 
they’re just going to throw me and my family on the border.

JEN UTZ: Ashraf says he also worries about his financial situation.

ASHRAF AL TAIE: I have been with no job for almost a year. And I’m married, 
so just spending the little money that I got from Iraq, working in Iraq -- 
wasn't that great money. Probably I can survive for another two or three or 
four months. I have to find a job. It’s very hard to get a job in here, and 
I don't think my problem will be solved in the next four months.

JEN UTZ: The United Nations High Commission for Refugees is urgently 
appealing for $60 million to help meet the needs for the most vulnerable 
Iraqi refugees. Right now, Ashraf Al Taie has food. He has health. But soon, 
he will run out of money. Soon, food and health may become a priority for 
Ashraf, just as it has for so many thousands of other desperate Iraqi 
refugees.

ASHRAF AL TAIE: I think the United States and British government are the 
main reasons behind all the problems in Iraq, and they should help the Iraqi 
people, especially those who helped working with coalition forces or worked 
with Americans and helped them in Iraq.

JEN UTZ: From Amman, Jordan, this is Jen Utz for Democracy Now!

AMY GOODMAN: We thank Jen for that piece. Kathy Kelly, your final comment 
and your plans, as you have returned from Jordan now and are in Washington, 
D.C.?

KATHY KELLY: Well, I certainly look forward to rejoining my friends in 
Chicago for a sustained campaign at the offices of Barack Obama and Senator 
Richard Durbin. And I am hopeful that people all across the United States 
who worked so hard to prevent this war in 2003 during these very weeks of 
buildup toward that war in 2003. People came closer than ever before to 
stopping a war before it started. We’re full tilt into that war, but our 
accountability, our responsibility hasn't lessened at all. And I hope that 
our major priority will be the poorest, the most precarious situations in 
Iraq. Those are people who meant us no harm and to whom we have a grave 
responsibility to end the war.

AMY GOODMAN: Kathy Kelly, I want to thank you for being with us, founder of 
Voices in the Wilderness, also one of the founders now of the Occupation 
Project, an eight-week long campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience to end 
funding for the Iraq war.

www.democracynow.org

NOTICE: George W. Bush has issued Executive Orders allowing the National Security Agency to read this message and all other e-mail you receive or send---without warning, warrant or notice. Bush has ordered this to be done without any legislative or judicial oversight. You have no recourse nor protection save to call for the impeachment of President Bush and other government officials who are involved in this illegal and unconstitutional activity. from: Information Clearing House

---------------------------------
Finding fabulous fares is fun.
Let Yahoo! FareChase search your favorite travel sites to find flight and hotel bargains.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/private/peace-discuss/attachments/20070207/246809f0/attachment-0001.htm