Report-14: Iraq Peace Team (IPT) update
Baghdad-Iraq
February 27, 2003
Lisa Ndejuru- Peace Team Member

Presently the Iraq peace team numbers 29 organized into three affinity groups. My affinity group is made up of the people staying at the Al Dar hotel : Kathy Breen, Cliff Kindy, Scott Kerr, Lisa Martins, Peggy Gish and Betty Scholten and myself. We are expecting a CPT (Christian Peacemmaker Team) delegation of 10 to join us this weekend (the CPT delegations here are part of the larger IPT group) and another IPT delegation arriving on the 6th of march. Current participants are from the US, Ireland, Australia, Canada, UK. IPT members are living in three hotels in the center of Baghdad : Al fanar (where the office is) on Abu Nawas street , Al Andaluz, right around the corner and AL Dar near kerrada street, a 10 minute walk away. To send our e-mails we go to the internet center of the Palestine hotel, one block away from the office. Abu Nawas goes right along the Tigris river. The orphanage and the the St Raphaėl hospital are a walking distance away from the Al Dar hotel. The families we visit are no more than a half hour away from us (exept for Ramira who lives a ways out). The Al Mansour hospital, where we go to visit the children in the oncolgy ward is close to a water treatment facility, both are a 15 minute car ride away from the office. The UN headquarters compound is a 20 minute car drive away. The Care international office is the furthest away and difficult to get to if you don¹t know your way around. There are four iraqi drivers Mohamed, Faroukh, Karim and Khalid usually stationed before the Fanar hotel ready to take people where they need to go.

Iraqi traffic is something : people have no problem driving between lanes. Everybody honks all the time. We are starting to make out the different meanings of the honks. Scott is even starting to hear it as music.

Week of feb 10

Every morning 7-9 , vigil in front of the UN quarters our main banners read « inspection yes invasion no »

A week of actions lead up to the february15th march. Every day IPT hangs a banner on a vulnerable civilian infrastructure site « bombing this site is a war crime, geneva convention article 54 ». Each banner remains on site. Every action is part vigil, part media work, the idea always being to draw attention to various aspects of why war is not the answer.

Human shields start arriving in Baghdad. As well asa delegation from Italy called Bridges to Baghdad, who has been working hard on the lifting of the economic sanctions. A group of artists for peace (drummers) from Okinawah Japan also arrive.

Every group has it¹s own agenda and we decide for the march on the 15th to be a common action.

Sat feb 15th

A most beautiful march. It started with a press conference at the andaluz hotel. English, italian, japanese, swedish and arabic. Because of the time difference, Neville Watson IPT member from Australia, was able to tell people in Baghdad the record number of people that had marched in Australia. Jackie (Jacqueline Rowley-IPT affiliate, media) was getting ready to film the march and send on the footage to indymedia, to be available in north America before the marches started there. We walked down Abu Nawas street, along the Tigris river, on to the bridge to the press center. Two hundred and some internationals were walking down the streets with beautiful banners, and colourful japanese drummers all red and yellow. Along the sidewalks people cheered and waved. When we went past the shops a lady came out and threw candy she was crying and wishing us well. Peggy went over and got effusive hugs and kisses. Many tears were shed. It was a beautiful sunny day. When we got to the bridge and fanned out we almost spanned the whole river. International media was present and some IPT members stayed to give interviews while others had to go the visa office for renewal.

Week of feb 17th

When we got to the UN vigil site Tuesday morning we found what we took to be local boyscouts in pressed kakis and green scarves . They were standing in front of the « inspection yes, invasion no » banners holding up a banner of their own that we could not read as it was in arabic. Media was allready there filming and as we took up our habitual place under the banner, Lynn Mc Michael went over to ask the man accompanying them what it said on their sign. He turned to her smiling : « it says, we support our leader ». A majority of the IPT felt unconfortable and we decided to gather our things and quietly go. We left just as dozens ,of troups of youths 14 to 18 in uniform kakis for boys and pink for girls marched across the street to gather under the banners, Iraqi flags fluttering in the wind. The next day early a group of us went to take down our tent and banners, and send a letter signed by all of us to the inspectors encouraging them to keep up the good work.

The IPT war preparedness committee was hard at work despite post-march high spirits. Members are Lynn, Mary (Mary Riseley), Cliff, Bettejo (Bettejo Passalaqua), Neville,Scott and myself. From time to time Mike (Michael Ferner) a medic in vietnam now part of veterans for peace (A while back I had written about another vietnam-vet-medic namely Ted Sexauer, well Ted went back home to the states and now Mike is with us) sits in and shares his insight.

Many issues have been nailed down : Decission making in emergency situation; conflict resolution within the group; affinity groups for emotional support and the buddy system to make sure at least one other person is aware of one¹s whereabouts at all times. We have ready Individual Crash kits to survive in any emergency situation at least a week even separated from the group. Also, radio equipment to connect the the hotels where we live should the phone system fail. Inventory for food health and sanitation are completed in all three hotels. Emergency shelter and generator are operational. There are two satellite phones. We have also discussed what we could do should conflict break out. Different scenarios are being worked out. Some of us really want to stay with the families they have gotten quite cloe to. Otherswould prefer tostay in shelters, still others, would like to continue their work either in the hospital or the orphanage. Still others are thinking of accompanying the workers manning the different infrastructure sites like the watertreatment or electrical facilities. Others would be volunteers for Care International.

It is of course difficult tomake any kind of plans as we absolutely do not know what the stuation wouldd be. We are considering several of the possible scenarios ie not being able to move about, civil unrest,house arrest, being taken out of the country and scenarios within those several different scenarios.

We have had workshops and roleplays to consider various possibilities.

Besides the war preparedness committee, There is team responsible for the office, one for media, one for action planning, one for liaison with other groups, and one for e-mail and daily news.

Ongoing also is orientation as members of the IPT come and go (In the weeks covered by this update the following people have left : Elias Amidon and Elizabeth Roberts, Brett Earheart, Anna Bachman, Benjamin Granby, Joel Preston Smith, Virgine Lawinger, Lorna Tychostup, Mana Joe Green, Michelle Riddell, Ken Sehested, Bernadette, Dan Visalli, ? (the group was very big and I am forgetting some I was fortunate to meet some really lovely people) , a whole CPT delegation has come and gone. Others have come in, their stay varying from ten days to indefinitely.

As I mentioned before we are presently 29, awaiting a 10 people delegation this weekend and another march 6th.

Some IPT members visited the school of fine arts and ballet (I sent some pictures of the teacher explaining the advantages of shelters in the event of US air raids)

Family visits, hospital arts and crafts, orphanage visits continue all through the week and the weekend

W/o 24

A Japanese delegation for peace (different from the drummers who have come and gone) and the Peaceboat delegation have arrived in Baghdad to take part in the symposiom organised by the non-aligned student¹s union. Many different groups are working here now. There are initiatives at every possible level. Sadly it is impossible to do our work and keep track of all the many different actions going on. The human shields have started moving into different indfrastructure sites. There are over a hundred and fifty in Baghdad now and there are more coming in every day.

IPT PEACE TENT ACTION : Nineteen members of the peace team travel to the Iraq-Kuweit border to set up a four day peace tent in the desert. They will set up the tent as close to the gathered US troops as they can and send a letter to the soldiers asking them to use their minds their hearts and their conscience and object to killing innocent iraqi civilians. The peace team is also asking all of their support people and all the citizens in their respective countries to up the ante and take a risk for peace as the US and UK governemnt seem deaf to the millions of people that marched on the15th and hellbent on continuing their march on war. This action is a call for massive non violent civil disobedience. It¹s a call for everyone to do all in their power to throw a wrench in the machinery of war, clogg up the corridors of power and make it impossible to be ignored.

Some of the team members remained in baghdad to follow up with Care international; man and woman the phones and keep up, family and hospital and orphanage visits.

The Peace tent group is returning tonight (Thursday ) to Baghdad. They have managed to hand over their letter to the US troups with the help of iraqi officials and un officials.

Our next action is awaiting final permissions and we are workimg out logistical details. I will keep you posted.

Much love from Baghdad

Lisa