Peaceniks fall out on human shield mission (HOLD MUH BEER!)

A PLAN by a group of peace campaigners to travel by bus to Baghdad to offer themselves to Saddam Hussein as human shields has been threatened with collapse by the personal clashes, logistical chaos and the loss of their leader.

One of the group’s three double-deckers has been abandoned in Italy with engine trouble and plans to travel through the Balkans were aborted as “too dangerous”. The head of the delegation, a former American marine, has been deported from Turkey for trying to enter the country with a “world citizen” passport after renouncing his United States citizenship.

The second of the two remaining red buses and an accompanying white taxi limped into Istanbul yesterday after being stranded in blizzards for two days. Several members of the peace convoy spent the day scrabbling around the Turkish city trying to hire four-wheel-drive vehicles or trying to book plane or train tickets to take them on to Baghdad. “There comes a time at which we have to leave the buses behind and move on without them,” said John Rose, an American who spent seven years with the Zapatista rebels in Mexico and has joined the trip in Turkey. “We just have to cut them loose now.”

Yesterday the dwindling group of 40 “peaceniks” was joined by 35 Turkish volunteers. There was also a shock. Organisers told the human shields they must each stump up $1,000 before they could enter Iraq. In addition, they would have to leave their mobile phones at the border, cutting off all communication with home, and be subjected to tests for HIV.

Helen Williams, 34, from Newport, south Wales, said funds were already running dangerously low. “Some people are getting down to their last few pounds,” she said. “The sooner we get to Baghdad where we can live more cheaply, the better.”

Rajia Dhanjani, a 22-year-old hairdresser from south London, said: “I thought it would be hard when we got to Baghdad, but I had no idea the trip would be this awful. I thought the journey would be one long party.”

Last night the group held a crisis meeting at a cafe in Istanbul. The Turks showed themselves determined to impose more efficient organisation on the ramshackle British expedition which arrived almost a week behind schedule.

After three hours of debate, the Turks won through. The convoy will now remain in Istanbul until tomorrow.

“We have to show we are together on this,” said Tolga Temuge, 36, a Turk who quit his job as campaigns director of Greenpeace in the Mediterranean to travel to Iraq.

The British contingent were keen to strike out today for Ankara before heading to Syria en route for Jordan and then Iraq. However, the Turks, shocked at the shambolic antics of the British, pushed for a delayed departure to allow time to regroup.

The two red London buses, the white taxi and two minibuses will now head for Ankara tomorrow. Volunteers are trying to switch their minds from the disarray of recent days to the situations they will face on arrival in Baghdad, assuming they get there.

One of the buses, however, may have to find a new driver soon. Its driver, who identifies himself only as Gary, said the Syrian authorities had told him he would not be permitted to drive his vehicle through their country because his mother works for the Ministry of Defence in Britain.

If Gary’s mother’s job has made his journey difficult, his place in the convoy has been of little help to his mother. “My mum has had a really hard time because of me,” he said. “She works in intelligence and she has been blackballed by the ministry ever since they found out I was on the trip.”

Many participants are concerned they will run short of money and are unhappy at the prospect of a compulsory HIV test on the Iraqi border, about which they were not warned until this weekend.

“We are buying our own hypodermic syringes”, said Williams. “They could just as easily give you HIV with the needles in Iraq.”

Joe Letts, 52, a father of four from Dorset who was a cameraman during the last Gulf war and owner of the two red buses, was relieved finally to arrive in Istanbul last night but is determined his buses will make it to Baghdad.

“It was pretty hairy getting here and there were times I thought we wouldn’t make it. But the buses are running well now and we are definitely taking them all the way,” he said.

The rows started almost as soon as the group left London a fortnight ago, with arguments over which routes to take. A black bus owned by Ken Nichols O’Keefe, 33, a tattooed former US marine and Gulf war veteran, and full of young firebrands, drove through Germany — with a sightseeing stop-off at Dachau concentration camp — to Italy even though the vehicle was too tall for the Alpine tunnels and scraped its roof.

Another bus, one of the lumbering Routemasters owned by Letts, drove through France and waited for Nichols O’Keefe in Milan.

The tension was compounded when a group of Italian peace campaigners in designer clothes joined the Britons, many of whom are elderly activists wearing hippie-style clothes and cooking lentils aboard the buses. Instead of heading towards their objective, the peaceniks took a detour to Rome last Sunday for sightseeing.

Most of them eventually caught a ferry to Greece, but Nichols O’Keefe and a handful of others stayed behind with a stricken bus before flying to join the others. He was promptly detained in Istanbul and deported back to Italy.

He has angered other peaceniks by planning to meet Saddam on his arrival in Baghdad. At least five have returned home rather than deal with him and a Welsh couple have set out to reach the Iraqi capital on their own.

“People have got so fed up with him that they have dropped out,” said Letts. Nichols O’Keefe was dubbed “the messiah” and “Gandhi” by his less-than-enthusiastic fellow travellers. He had warned them any breakdowns “would be the work of the CIA”.

He is being held this weekend in an Italian jail and is facing deportation to the United States. His mother, Pat, who is continuing on the journey to Baghdad, said: “That would be the very worst outcome. It would be a disaster for him.”

Temuge, who is emerging as one of the new leaders of the group, said he thought the deportation was a political action on the part of the Turkish government. But volunteers were yesterday becoming increasingly disillusioned about the trip, its organisers and their chances of ever reaching Iraq.

Grace Trevett, a mother of four from Stroud, Gloucestershire, said: “There has been no democracy at all. Ken just tells people they have to like it or they can f*** off. If they can’t respect us, how are they going to respect the Iraqi people?” A soothing role has been played by Godfrey Meynell, 68, an Old Etonian former high sheriff of Derbyshire and son of a Victoria Cross holder. His wise air is helped by the copy of Plato and His Dialogues by G Lowes Dickinson which he reads in the bus. He admitted, however: “There is a real difference in spirit between the groups.

“Of course we are aware we may get used as propaganda or worse by Saddam Hussein. That is why we are very clear about our mission now so that it can’t be misinterpreted.”

The group will hope their experience is more fortunate than Meynell’s previous experience of a similar peace convoy. In 1956, he drove a van packed with corned beef to aid Hungarians rising up against the Soviets. The vehicle was stopped at the border.

From www.humanshields.org:

VERY IMPORTANT UPDATE!

If you want to join the action, you must do one the following:

Option 1

1. Fill in the forms on our main website (click "Enter Site" above) and send them to us as soon as possible so we can include you on our group visa. 2. Pay £300 and have a place on a 3 month open-return flight from London to Amman in Jordan. PLEASE NOTE: THERE ARE VERY LIMITED SPACES ON THESE FLIGHTS (Next flight leaves London on 17th February for Amman) 3. Continue from Amman, Jordan overland via bus to Baghdad.

Option 2

1. Contact the local or national Iraqi embassy in your country and give them your name, birth date, nationality, passport number and expiry date. 2. Tell them you require a visa for Iraq traveling as a human shield (for as long as possible) 3. Make your own way to reach Amman in Jordan by the 16th February, 2003 to meet the bus transports to Iraq. We are arranging an office in Amman to co-ordinate the transports into Iraq. We also plan to have a representative at the airport in Amman.

Option 3

1. Fill in the forms on our site (as option 1) above. 2. Get to Istanbul, Turkey for Friday, February 7th at the latest to join the bus convoy which left from London. Please note: There are also very limited spaces on this convoy.

IF YOU WANT TO BE A HUMAN SHIELD, JUST GO!!!

You don't need us to be a human shield, follow option 2 but make your own way into Iraq where possible. We can obviously advise to an extent but we are already very busy with the demand for transport.

They forgot... Option 4

Get a life.

From the Sunday Telegraph:

Diary of a human shield
February 9, 2003
Sunday, January 26: Paris
Ken O'Keefe, the founder of the Human Shields movement, decides to split the convoy to maximise publicity. He takes his black bus, packed with the younger and more robust shields, via Amsterdam and Germany (with a stop at Dachau concentration camp). Joe Letts, whose two red vintage double-deckers are his pride and joy, takes an alternative route through France and over the Italian border.
Wednesday, January 29: St Remo
Despite the lumbering pace of the 1967 Routemasters, most of the group has already developed an attachment to the tall, proud vehicles. In their prime the buses reached speeds of 70mph as they shuttled from Heathrow to London. Today, they manage a respectable 55mph.
Inside the buses, stuffed with rucksacks, sleeping bags and the debris of snacks, everyone tries to carry on as normal despite the cold, cramped conditions. Some sleep in their seats while others play cards and write journals. Godfrey Meynell, the oldest of the group whose ages span 18 to 68, reads a faded copy of Plato And His Dialogues by G Lowes Dickinson.
Thursday, January 30: Milan
The London buses look incongruous as they converge in the centre of Milan bearing their destination plates, London to Baghdad. As the folding doors open, the assortment of weary-looking characters - the young in fashionable combat trousers, fleeces and trainers, the older in waterproofs and sturdy boots - pour into the piazza outside the Castello Sforzesco. Although reunited, the inevitable problems of ferrying 75 shields from 10 different countries are showing. The most pressing decision is the route.
O'Keefe is keen to continue through the Balkans. Letts is reluctant, citing the pot-holed roads and dicey security situations. "I am not sure how three buses plastered with anti-war slogans regarding Iraq will be greeted," he observes. A meeting is convened: maps are unfurled, coffee is fetched and arguments are marshalled. Minutes later, O'Keefe and Letts emerge wreathed in smiles. Peace, thankfully, has been restored to the peace buses.
Monday, February 3: Rome
There is no doubt that the two leading characters compliment each other. While O'Keefe, a heavily tattooed Gulf War veteran, has the aggressive passion that lends itself to rabble-rousing, Letts, a 52-year-old former television camera man, has a softer, more pragmatic approach.
Unfortunately, the convoy is forced to split again. O'Keefe's vehicle splutters its last by a Greyhound station on the outskirts of Rome. He stays behind with a small group that includes his mother Pat, Rajia Dajani, a pretty and bubbly 22-year-old from London, and Katerina Soederholm, a 29-year-old Norwegian, the most glamorous of the group.
Tuesday, February 4: Naples, Bari and on to Greece via ferry
Two Brazilians, whose democratic zeal jars with the occasionally militaristic leadership style of O'Keefe, a young Briton and an American student film-maker who have run out of money, decide that it is time to head off home.
Spirits are temporarily dampened. Emotional farewells are said in the Naples youth hostel car park and tears are shed. "When we asked for a democratic vote Ken said that we were either with him or against him," says Flavio Ravara, swinging his rucksack on to his back. "To me, that is the language of George Bush."
More bad news arrives from the black bus in Rome: two 18-year-olds have also left. Letts, however, is not deterred: "With a group like this, where background, experience and agenda are so vastly different, I would have been surprised if we hadn't suffered hiccups."
Wednesday, February 5: Thessalonica, Greece
With Mount Olympus as a backdrop, Godfrey Meynell is delivering a speech to a cameraman. In his wind-cheater, walking boots and olive corduroys, he might as easily be preparing for a hike across the English countryside as for a mission to save lives in a war zone.
"I saw action in Aden between 1959 and 1966 so I can't claim to be a complete pacifist," he tells them. But he adds that he had also been involved in peace efforts. "While at Cambridge in 1956, I went off to aid the Hungarian Rebellion in a van packed with corned beef. Unfortunately the border was closed when we got there."
Mr Meynell, who served in the colonial office and was later High Sheriff of Derbyshire, keeps spirits high on the buses by reciting poetry, singing in Latin and recounting tales of life at Eton. "You know I am a monarchist, he says happily. "Left-wing language doesn't come easily to me. Scratch me and you'll find a confused Tory squire underneath.
"I suppose I am kicking against my roots, but it is very important to me to be with the Iraqi civilians in their time of fear and danger. My presence will no doubt make very little difference, but if it offers comfort, even in the smallest amount, then it will have been worth it."
Thursday, February 6: Kesan, Turkey
As the convoy crosses the Turkish border, we are met with a frenzied reception: reporters, photographers and television cameramen swarm over the buses.
Sue Darling, a 60-year-old former diplomat from Surrey, quickly adapts her skills to present an articulate argument for the campaign to the waiting press. Later, dressed in the red jacket that she usually wears for mucking out her stables, she warmly thanks Mustafa Urek, the mayor of Kesan, as he presents her with a bouquet and delivers a long supportive speech in Turkish.
News arrives that a further 50 shields are to join the campaign in Istanbul. Morale is visibly lifted.
Fri and Sat, February 7 and 8: Istanbul
After a rollercoaster two weeks, the mission suffers a further setback. O'Keefe, who had burned his passport in a symbolic bid to revoke his citizenship, is refused entry to Turkey on the grounds that his "World Citizen" documents are not recognised.
It is decided that the campaign should press ahead to Syria and Iraq regardless, in the hope that our leader might still join us en route.
Sometimes the journey has been uncomfortable - on the crossing from Italy, when the ferry creaked menacingly against the rough sea; along the precarious mountains roads of Greece; through the driving snow in northern Turkey - but the Human Shields movement has achieved a milestone.
A more sombre mood, however, is now palpable. In one week we will be at our final destination: Baghdad.

These people are barmy.

Regards, Ivan

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