http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61990-2003Feb24.html

'Human Shields' Take Stand in Baghdad

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, February 25, 2003; Page A18


BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 24 -- Entering a makeshift dormitory that he intends to
make his home for next several weeks, Ube Evans, a stagehand from Britain,
smiled triumphantly as he snared a cot near a window and a refrigerator. But
it was only after he walked outside to gaze at his surroundings that he
pronounced himself satisfied with the new accommodations.

An enormous electricity generating plant, with four grimy smokestacks
soaring into the sky, was no more than 50 yards away. "This is close
enough," he said with a nod of contentment. "This is just perfect."

Evans and 14 other antiwar protesters from around the world have decided to
hunker down in a conference room at the Baghdad South Power Plant with the
hope that, if the Bush administration launches a war aimed at toppling Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein, their presence will dissuade the U.S. military
from bombing the facility. The activists are among more than 200 foreigners,
including some from the United States, who have arrived here recently with
encouragement from Hussein's government to serve as "human shields" to
protect power plants, water treatment facilities, hospitals and other
installations critical to the civilian population.

Those who have volunteered to put their bodies on the line range from
wide-eyed college students to limping retirees, Norwegians to South
Africans, atheists to head scarf-wearing Muslims, all of whom said they
passionately oppose a U.S. military invasion of Iraq. Many traveled aboard
two double-decker buses from London that lumbered through continental
Europe, Turkey and Syria before pulling up to their staging area here, a
small Baghdad hotel bubbling with the guitar-strumming bonhomie of a hippie
commune and the energy of a political campaign headquarters.

"We're putting the American government on notice," said Ken Nichols O'Keefe,
a former Marine who served in the 1991 Persian Gulf War but has since
renounced his U.S. citizenship and now coordinates the human-shield
campaign. "If they bomb these sites, which have absolutely no military
justification, it won't be collateral damage. It will be murder."

The intended use of human shields in Iraq has evoked grim memories of the
period before the Gulf War. After Hussein's army captured Kuwait in August
1990, Iraqi soldiers rounded up more than 2,000 foreigners, many of them oil
workers, and forced them to live for months in Iraqi military bases and
industrial plants. They were released a month before the war began, after
Hussein was subjected to intense international pressure.

Although antiwar activists have sought to act as shields in other conflicts,
most recently in the West Bank during Israeli attacks, organizers here
called the size and scope of this effort unprecedented. While they
acknowledged that their presence in Iraq probably will not lead the Bush
administration to back down, they said they hope to force the Pentagon to
exclude a host of targets, including the Baghdad South Power Plant, which
the U.S. military bombed in 1991.

"Nobody wants to die, but ultimately that is the price the shield volunteers
are willing to pay," said Joe Letts, the driver of one of the double-decker
buses.

The presence of human shields has been eagerly promoted by Hussein's
government, which views them as a part of a last-chance strategy to improve
its battlefield odds by attempting to force U.S. commanders to alter their
bombing plans in and around Baghdad. Unlike journalists and official
visitors, whose entry visas can take weeks to process, many of the activists
received theirs in under 48 hours -- and in some cases immediately on
arrival at the border. The government also is paying to house them in
several small tourist hotels around Baghdad and is setting up free
international telephone lines and e-mail connections so they can promote
their activities in their home countries.

The government has provided the activists with a list of sites where they
can stay. The organizers spent the past week visiting sites and eliminating
those deemed too close to military installations.

U.S. military officials have insisted they have no plans to target civilian
installations, but they have not specifically commented on whether they
would bomb power plants as they did in 1991. Even though the shields are
volunteers this time, U.S. officials have warned Iraqi officials that their
support for the placement of civilians around possible targets would be
considered a war crime.

"Deploying human shields is not a military strategy," Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld said last week. "It's murder, a violation of the laws of
armed conflict and a crime against humanity."

Human Rights Watch, a New York-based advocacy group, has condemned both
sides for their stance toward the shields. "If Iraq uses people as human
shields, that is a war crime," said Kenneth Roth, the group's executive
director. "But Secretary Rumsfeld only told half the story. . . . If the
United States attacks targets that are shielded by civilians without
demonstrating an overwhelming military necessity to do so, that would be a
war crime too."

Despite the apparent enthusiasm on the part of the Iraqi government, it is
not entirely clear they will allow the shields to stay where they want to
during a war. Some diplomats have speculated that the government could
conclude that the volunteers are too much trouble to have around and force
them to leave the country. The manager of the Baghdad South plant hinted he
might try to shepherd the shields into a bomb shelter on the premises. And
some of the activists have expressed concern that they could be forcibly
relocated to other sites of greater military or political value at the last
minute.

"If that happens, I wouldn't be happy, but there are some things that are
beyond our control," said Evans, the stagehand. "That's a risk we're willing
to take to prevent this war."

The shields are a mix of first-time protesters and veteran activists. One
Briton at the power plant spent weeks in a tunnel under the Manchester
airport to protest runway expansion. One American, Ryan Clancy, an English
teacher from Milwaukee, said he has never attended a street demonstration.

"I was increasingly frustrated with what I was seeing on TV," said Clancy,
26, who said he found out about the shields while watching CNN. On a lark,
he applied to join over the Internet. A few days later, he sold his 50
percent stake in a record store to buy his airline tickets and flew to Italy
to join the bus convoy.

Ordinary Iraqis appear confused by the presence of the shields. When the
buses drove through Baghdad to the power plant, with the activists making
peace signs and waving "No War" banners, they elicited few shouts of
encouragement or honking horns in response.

At the plant, which was hit by six bombs in 1991 and still operates at only
half its prewar capacity, director Ihsan Obeidi said he expected the
presence of the shields to spare the facility from another airstrike. "These
are good people who are helping innocent Iraqi people," he said.

But other workers seemed less optimistic. Sabah Hassan, an engineer in a
blue boiler suit, said that if the bombs start falling, he would not
hesitate to flee. "I will go home," he said. "The foreign volunteers can
stay."



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

_________________________________________________________________
Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online
http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]

To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~