Parents Seek Probe in Activist's Death

Seattle Times ^ | 03-19-03 | florangela davila

[MarMema]

Craig and Cindy Corrie spent yesterday in Washington, D.C., demanding lawmakers begin a U.S.-led investigation into the death of their youngest daughter, Rachel.

It's a shift for them to take up a cause, Craig Corrie said. It was Rachel who was always so socially and politically conscious. She was the family's activist.

"We learned from her," said Corrie, an insurance actuary who with his wife raised three children in Olympia.

On Sunday, the world first learned of Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American killed by an Israeli military bulldozer in the Gaza Strip as she sought to stop the demolition of a Palestinian house. Her death was called an accident by Israeli officials, who said they would investigate.

But that isn't enough for her family, said her father, who told lawmakers the investigation should be handled by the FBI or State Department, and not left to the Israeli government.

"We want them to be our eyes and ears since Rachel can't," said Craig Corrie, now forced to think about how his daughter lived and died.

As the youngest, she was precocious, inquisitive and articulate. She was raised in a rural neighborhood outside Olympia called Mud Bay, in a house with chickens, rabbits, a cat and a dog.

She was concerned and compassionate about the world around her, her family said. Some of that came from attending an alternative elementary school the Corries helped found in the 1980s. The school's core curriculum focuses on the environment, social justice and peace.

As a fifth-grader at Options School, she and her classmates held a news conference on the state Capitol steps to call attention to world hunger. As a high-school student, she helped foreign-exchange students learn about America, and even spent six weeks in Russia.

In college, she was working with the homeless, staffing a suicide hotline and, given her affinity for art, she once helped outfit children and adults as doves to march in an annual "Procession of the Species" parade.

"My family always encouraged her to support her own beliefs and to think about her place in the community," said her brother, Chris Corrie, of Falls Church, Va. "Rachel was never into herself. It was just the opposite. In some ways, I think she was almost embarrassed about the things she had. She always felt she could find a better use for money."

Slim and blond, Corrie had a gentle, soft presence, her first-grade teacher, as well as faculty at The Evergreen State College, recalled. She was an avid writer, keeping journals from a young age. "She came with a deep set of convictions about the world and what needed to be changed," said Lin Nelson of the Evergreen faculty.

Spoke to schoolchildren

Before she left for Israel in January, Corrie spoke about her trip at her elementary school and collected the children's letters that she planned to deliver to Palestinian youngsters. She had wanted to start up a pen-pal project, as well a sister-city program.

Options School held an assembly yesterday in her memory.

Corrie also worked at Olympia's Behavioral Health Resources, a counseling center. As a young woman who had grown up in Olympia, friends say she was widely known in town because she had her hand in so many political groups, including one that opposed an Iraq war and another seeking a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"If you were paying attention, you knew who she was," said Peter Dorman, an Evergreen economics teacher.

She was especially drawn toward peace activism, friends added, after Sept. 11, 2001. Then, as the war with Iraq loomed, college faculty members and friends said, Corrie decided to go to Israel.

She felt a war in the Persian Gulf would only escalate the violence directed at the Palestinians. Friends introduced her to the International Solidarity Movement, said Phan Nguyen, a two-time volunteer.

The movement calls itself a Palestinian-led group that uses nonviolent acts to challenge the Israeli government.

In the absence of any international peacekeeping force in Israel and the disputed territories, according to Amnesty International, the movement is "on the ground and reporting back."

"The work that they do, really, no one else is doing," said Amnesty's Marty Rosenbluth. "They will ride in ambulances with Palestinian patients that need to get to the hospital. They'll travel with people who need routine medical care."

A friend of Corrie's from Olympia was headed to Rafah, in the Gaza Strip, Nguyen said. Corrie wanted to follow him there, instead of going to the West Bank, because violence in Gaza is often overlooked in media reports, he added.

For nearly two months, Corrie was stunned by the level of everyday violence and in awe of Palestinians trying to live ordinary lives, which she chronicled in

e-mail to friends and family.

Pictures show her with a bullhorn, standing in front of an Israeli bulldozer intent on razing a Palestinian house. In another, more incendiary photo, she looks angry, wearing a head scarf, holding up a burning paper U.S. flag.

That photo, said her brother Chris, does not adequately explain who his sister really was.

"I think she was so emotionally charged because she was seeing weapons used on children. I think there's a value in not judging someone on one moment but rather on the thoughts they can articulate when they really think about things."

Due to graduate this year

Corrie, who would have graduated this year, hinted about living abroad after graduation, perhaps teaching English.

"People have speculated that if she knew the outcome, would she have gone?" her brother said. "I think she probably would have."

"Before she left," said her dad, "she said she was frightened. I told her, 'You don't have to go. You could change your mind.' She said, 'No, I have to do this. I'm very frightened but I'll be able to do it.' "

[Iwo Jima]

The school's core curriculum focuses on the environment, social justice and peace."

You have correctly cited the key piece of information. Too bad that they didn't teach physics.

[FITZ]

Naive Americans should stay out of foreign conflicts ---I've stood and watched some serious protests in Mexico ---and each time at least one of the protestors would come over and ask that we go back to our hotel or suggest that we return over the border before it shut down. They would politely answer questions but they made it clear the last thing they wanted was any Americans getting themselves involved ---but they did say it was okay to watch from a distance. I wonder why the Palestinians allow these kind to be involved, to me it doesn't reflect well on them.

[Publius6961]

I wonder how her loved ones would feel if they visited here. Or how would we feel in their place.

What a mindless question.
To even remotely imagine myself in their place, I would have to first get a lobotomy.

And yes, I raised three aware, productive and emotionally balanced children.

[Trajan88]

Investigation determined their daughter died of just being plain stupid.

Trajan88

[Iwo Jima]

Hey, Fitz, this is off-topic,but I was surprised to see this about the father:

Corrie, an insurance actuary who with his wife raised three children in Olympia.

I used to work in the insurance industry, and actuaries were about as strait-laced as they come. We had an old joke that an acutary was a guy good with numbers who didn't have the personality to be an accountant.

Don't know what it means (probably nothing),but it just wasn't what I would have ever expected.

[an amused spectator]

In another, more incendiary photo, she looks angry, wearing a head scarf, holding up a burning paper U.S. flag.

I think the "wearing a head scarf" thing was just her expressing her rights as a Muslim-type woman - you know, kind of like a Susan Sarandon of the Palestinian Authority.

(**snicker**)

[dennisw]

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=Joe+was+witness+to+Rachel%27s+tragic+death+late&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=3E790097.2BC56CE2%40gta.igs.net&rnum=1

Mis-captioned Reuters photo transforms accidental death into homicide.

Joe Smith, age 21, came with his college friend Rachel Corrie this past Sunday, March 16th to Gaza to protest against terrorist home demolitions as part of his activity with the International Solidarity Movement.

Both Joe and Rachel had studied at Evergreen College in Olympia, Washington.

Joe was witness to Rachel's tragic death late that afternoon, and described what he saw to my colleague , recounting that "she was sitting on a mound of earth in front of the bulldozer. The earth started to move under her when the bulldozer digs in. You have a couple of options you can roll aside-you have to be very quick to get out of the way. You can fall back, but she leaned forward to try to climb up on top. She got pulled down, and the bulldozer lost sight of her.Then, without lifting the blade, he reversed and she was underneath the blade". Joe Smith did not sound accusatory nor vindictive against the IDF bulldozer driver.

So why did the world have a different impression of what had happened?

Well, a picture is worth a thousand words.

The picture distributed by the Reuters News Agency showed Rachel Corrie standing in front of the Bulldozer with a megaphone. That is the picture that appeared on page three of the New York Times on March 17, 2003

The Reuters caption stated what the picture said that this picture was taken before Rachel Corrie was crushed by this bulldozer, giving the reader the distinct impression that Rachel Corrie had been standing with a megaphone in clear sight of the bulldozer.

That would have made this act some kind of homicide.

The next photo distributed by Reuters showed Rachel lying in front of the bulldozer.

And then I began to notice something.

The lighting of the Gaza sky was different in both pictures of what were supposed to be sequential shots.. The landscape in each picture was different.

I checked with Reuters to find out about the discrepancy of the picture sequence.. The Reuters photo editor said, however, that , these were NOT their pictures. They were sent by the International Solidarity Movement. Indeed, these pictures did appear on the ISM web site at www.palsolidarity,org. The Reuters photo editor assured me, however, that the pix were clearly labeled as ISM pictures. A check with the Reuters web site showed that they were labeled as Reuters pix.

A call back to Joe Smith about the sequence of the pix revealed another unknown fact. Smith said that no one was on the spot with a camera before Rachel Corrie was mauled by the bulldozer, and that the picture of Rachel with the megaphone had been taken many hours earlier..

I placed a call to Tim Heritage, bureau chief of Reuters, and asked him about Reuters policy in using pictures from political groups that might manipulate the media..

I gave him a heads up about the fact that Reuters had issued the photo of Rachel Corrie standing alongside the bulldozer with a megaphone.

Heritage said that he would look into the matter and asked for a call back. I called back an hour later. Heritage was not available. However, all of the Rachel Corrie/bulldozer pix had been wiped off of the Reuters web site.

Yet the damage was done.

[MarMema]

Bravo and thanks for this post!! Of course. It makes perfect sense.

[Hildy]

Before she left for Israel in January, Corrie spoke about her trip at her elementary school and collected the children's letters that she planned to deliver to Palestinian youngsters. She had wanted to start up a pen-pal project, as well a sister-city program.

I'm sure the parents knew nothing about this. How outrageous.

[Hildy]

Give me a break. She went into a war zone. She got what she deserved.

[Mr_Magoo]

Read post #87 and tell me again how the pics were not messed with.

Troll.

[Hildy]

Brilliant. I think I'll send the same one. Go to the website: www.evergreen.edu. Looks like the kind of school that anyone can get into if you pay the steep tuition.

[Hildy]

I'm not making this up, got it from the Evergreen website. Here are two of the courses offerend this semester:

Affluenza: Unmasking Consumer Culture
8 credits full session
Faculty: Nancy Koppelman, 867-6383
TuTh, 5:30-9:30p, LIB 2118
CRN: 40009

Is consumerism, at least as practiced in the United States, a "disease"? The United States is the richest and most wasteful country in the world. Have Americans always valued consumption? Or did they learn the habit in ways that can be traced historically? If it is a learned habit, can it be unlearned? This program introduces students to the history and fabric of American consumer culture and seeks informed and conscientious ways to think and act beyond it.

America in Dissent
8 credits first session
Faculty: Dan Leahy, 867-6478, leahyd@evergreen.edu
MTuWTh, 9a-1p, LIB 2219
CRN: 40006

This program presents an historical review and contemporary analysis of the U.S. government's use of state programs to stifle dissent in times of civil unrest and post-war reorganizations. We'll cover the post-World War I Red Scare, the construction of "un-Americans" in the post World War II era with HUAC, loyalty oaths and the Smith Act, the use of Conterintelpro within the '60s social movements and the construction of "terrorist" with the passage and implementation of the 2001 Patriot Act.

[Mr_Magoo]

Been there,

needed a long shower!

My hope is that we all FReep congress with those letters. Maybe we can get all funding removed.

[dennisw]

 

Is this the photo? She seems to cast a shadow? While the dozer and boyfriend (white shirt) do not?

.

Sun Mar 16, 6:53 PM ET

Rachel Corrie, 23, from Olympia, Wash., a member of the 'International Solidarity Movement,' uses a loudspeaker as she stands between an Israeli buldozer and a Palestinian physician's house in the southern Gaza Strip (news - web sites) town of Rafah Sunday, March 16, 2003. Corrie died Sunday while trying to stop a bulldozer from tearing down the physician's home. She fell in front of the machine, which ran over her and then backed up, witnesses said.(AP Photo/HO, International Solidarity Movement)

 

Sun Mar 16, 6:33 PM ET

Rachel Corrie, 23, from Olympia, Washington, a member of the 'International Solidarity Movement' stands in front of an Israeli army buldozer in the southern Gaza Strip (news - web sites) town of Rafah Sunday, March 16, 2003. Rachel was run over Sunday by the bulldozer that she was trying to stop from tearing down a building in the Rafah refugee camp, witnesses said.(AP Photo/International Solidarity Movement)

[Hildy]

See post #93.

[doug from upland]

What a shame that her life was wasted. It sounds like she had a kind heart but was just so misguided. Delivering Meals on Wheels to shut-ins is one of the activities of my Kiwanis club. That would have been a much more meaningful activity for her.

[Hildy]

The more I think about this, the more upset I get. If I found out some young idiot came into my child's school and had them do this, I would sue the pants off the school. First, I'd punch out whoever gave permission, then I'd sue.

[Alain2112]

Of course it's horrible: that's what war *is*. The Isrealis face bombings and shootings every day. If they have decided to make themselves safer by bulldozing communists, I say BRING IT ON!

[dennisw]

You can see her photos and solidarity committee here.

http://www.palsolidarity.org/