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Here's a gem:

Americans Resist US Fines and Continue Travel to Iraq

January 20, 2003

Contacts:
On Site DC: Kathy Kelly (917)217-6809
Stephanie Schaudel (917)567-5048
Chicago: Danny Muller (773)784-8065

"Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon, which cuts without wounding and ennobles those who wield it. It's a sword that heals."
--Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Washington, DC-- Voices in the Wilderness campaign members who have refused payment of $50,000 in fines for their previous travel to Iraq will hold a press conference at the National Press Club, West Room, Tuesday January 21st, at 9:30 a.m., to announce future delegations and assert continued readiness to challenge both economic sanctions and US led
warfare against Iraq. Returned delegates will offer testimony, photographs, and information, based on their recent travel to Iraq as members of the Iraq Peace Team.

Voices in the Wilderness (VitW), a campaign to end economic sanctions and military warfare against ordinary Iraqis, has, since 1996, sent over sixty delegations to Iraq, breaking economic sanctions through incurring travel related expenses from transporting medical supplies. In November, 2002, the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed penalties on VitW and select members, with a total of $50,000 in fines.

Voices in the Wilderness has responded by refusing payment, and instead raising funds for an increase in delegations and aid. In January 2003, Voices in the Wilderness was nominated, for the third time, for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Presently, over a thousand Americans have contributed to the campaign by publicly declaring their commitment to break sanctions and find peaceful resolutions to US disputes with Iraq.

At the press conference, Voices in the Wilderness will present:

a full list of over 200 delegates from 34 states who have traveled to Iraq and are available for interviews
samples of medicines and toys they are accused of having brought to Iraq
correspondence between Voices in the Wilderness and the US Treasury Department

Future delegations organized by Voices in the Wilderness will depart from the US on January 26th, February 3rd, and February 8th, 2003. to participate in the Iraq Peace Team.

Voices in the Wilderness members call for an end to the embargo which is a completely unjustified form of collective punishment that has cost the lives of over a million Iraqi citizens in the last twelve years and denied the people their fundamental human rights to housing, employment, education, and healthcare. They declare their support for nonviolent, diplomatic alternatives to war against Iraq (such as the US is presently employing in the case of North Korea), including the implementation of a previous UN resolution proposing the negotiated removal of Weapons of Mass Destruction from all countries in the Middle East-not just Iraq. They concur with Mr. Denis Halliday, former UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, who believes that now the only hope for avoiding war, in which so much innocent blood would be shed, is "for the American peoplthemselves to demonstrate that they will not tolerate, they will not support, they will not give their lives nor their money, for military aggressionagainst the people of Iraq."

Voices in the Wilderness has increased delegations with the Iraq Peace Team and has asserted continued readiness to challenge both economic sanctions and US led warfare against Iraq. With Treasury Dept. fines of $50,000 levied against VitW, Voices has refused payment and is raising money and medicine toward humanitarian and peacemaking efforts in Iraq.

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In response to the threat of military action against Iraq, we have initiated the Iraq Peace Team. For reports from our team on the ground, frequently updated news & analysis, and action ideas, please visit iraqpeaceteam.org.

You can join their mailing lists!