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Ellen Barfield - Baltimore's Voice In The Wilderness
Baltimore resident Ellen Barfield, Voices in the Wilderness volunteer, traveled to Baghdad on December 6, to stand in solidarity with Iraqi citizens under the threat of US war.
ELLEN BARFIELD - BALTIMORE'S VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS
Baltimore resident Ellen Barfield asks us to keep the focus on the people of Iraq and the US war hovering over their lives. But it's difficult to ignore her when she is about to risk her life by standing next to those Iraqi civilians, even as bombs may fall. On December 6, at midnight, she left the relative comfort of her home and position as a Baltimore Chronicle columnist, to take a flight from JFK airport in New York. Within a few days she will arrive in Baghdad at the same time US troops, munitions, warplanes and ships are positioning themselves around Iraq preparing for attack.
FROM SOLDIER TO PEACE ACTIVIST
Her journey toward Baghdad spans two decades of spirited discontent with US politics and its ruinous effects on people of foreign countries and the environment. She was shaped in a crucible of struggle that might have crushed the spirit of others, but rather, she became more intent. After leaving the Army in 1981, she settled in Texas, and there began to see the world from a new perspective. Her radical interests were diverse, but she eventually became
involved with a group of people in the anti-nuclear movement.
They had begun to organize against Pantex, a plant installing triggers in nuclear warheads. She and others committed civil disobedience by blockading the gate to the factory. The group was called the Red River Peace Network and included anti-nuclear activists from Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma. They created a permanent presence there by building a "Peace Farm" across the street in a face-off with Pantex. During 1985, she was the manager of the Peace Farm.
Sometimes she was the only person on the farm who was actually involved in the anti-nuclear movement, as some of the people were tenants. In retrospect she says, sometimes she felt like "Mrs. Atlas holding up the world." From Amarillo she moved to many destinations, including Nicaragua where she learned about the "centuries of oppression" that had strangled the people of Central and South America. She concluded that the "absence of war is not enough. Peace without justice is not peace. We need to make sure that everyone has enough."
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE ENDS IN TRAGEDY AND TRAVEL
A turning point came when she became involved with a group in Santa Cruz, California, where weapons were being sent by train from one military base to another and eventually to many sites around the world. There she met Brian Willson, a Vietnam Vet who was involved in vigils and civil disobedience to stop the shipments of weapons. He and fellow anti-nuclear activists stopped the trains by sitting on the tracks.
One day in 1987, the train did not stop and to the horror of those seated on the tracks, instead it speeded up. All but Brian Willson managed to get off the tracks. "Brian's legs were cut off and he had a hole in his head." With a settlement he received for this attack on his life, Brian set up a travel trust fund. That was how Ellen Barfield first visited the Middle East, where she stayed in Israel, Palestine, and then in Iraq for 12 days just after Desert Storm had ended in 1991. At that time and in three other visits, she saw how the war had damaged Iraq and how the sanctions were continuing to devastate the people and environment.
FOCUSING ON IRAQ
In 1998, Ellen Barfield was part of a delegation traveling to Iraq with Voices in the Wilderness. Voices in the Wilderness is a group of people committed to ending sanctions against Iraq and now opposing the specter of war. Voices has made lots of news recently, as it is under attack by the US government.
According to the gov, Voices owes $20,000 in administrative fines for "trading with the enemy" (taking badly needed medicine and supplies to Iraq.) On Thursday, December 5, Ellen and several friends went to the Treasury Building in Washington, DC, to deliver the fine in a package. Ellen reports that the package held Iraqi dinar that would have been worth $20,000 in 1990, but post-sanctions, is worth less than $60.
Prior to sanctions, she explains, people lived well in Iraq. "It was a sophisticated, highly modern country." Though she makes no bones about the tyranny of Sadam Hussein, "all Iraqis had free medicine." Now parts of Iraq are a wasteland, particularly in the South of Iraq around Basra where the bombing was most intensive. People are starving. Many civilians were exposed to the harmful effects of depleted uranium shells and now are dying of leukemia or having babies born without faces.
She says that the Food for Oil program works "well as far as it goes." There is an organization to investigate the distribution and warehousing of food, called the "World Food Program." Contrary to what we hear about the generosity of sanctions, the food is simply not enough. Each person receiving their "food basket" gets a handful of beans, sugar, tea, rice, soap, and lentils. There is no fresh food in this food for oil deal and it can't be grown in a desert. People receive "a pittance of protein."
According to Barfield, "Hussein is a tyrant," but even if he had enormous wealth, "let's say, 23 billion dollars, then the 23 million people in Iraq would have $1,000 a piece." This amount, she states, is hardly enough to rebuild the sewage systems, water treatment plants, schools, hospitals, electrical plants or other infrastructure crushed by the US bombing during Desert Storm. "It would be admirable if Hussein gave up his personal wealth, but I don't see Clinton and Bush giving up their personal wealth to help starving people in America."
AMERICAN'S COMFORT THWARTS OUTRAGE
When asked why there are not more Americans active in the anti-war movement, Barfield is philosophical. Part of it's the propaganda Americans are fed by a "corporate controlled media." But if they wanted to know the truth, she contends, Americans could go on line and there are plenty of sources of information, such as Indymedia, that tell a very different story. Part of the apathy and ignorance she feels, comes from "the level of comfort," to which Americans have become accustomed. Most of the rest of the world's people live under harsh conditions, with a lack of food, little drinkable water, prevalence of disease, and vast unemployment. According to Barfield, US citizens can buy low priced gasoline, huge vehicles and large homes seen almost as necessities and become invested in their "things." It's hard for them to question the unsustainability of that kind of inequality and injustice.
RETURNING TO IRAQ
Ellen Barfield is on her way to Iraq for the third time. She will feel welcomed there by the Iraqi people, a people you begin to feel may be another of Ellen Barfield's families. A people who will, in cultural tradition, "give you their last cup of tea." She will be staying with fellow Voices in the Wilderness volunteers, testing water to see if it is safe, and visiting with Iraqi women and children who may soon be engulfed in war.
Barfield plans to return in six weeks. Or maybe not. "People say to me, 'I'll be praying for you,' or 'I'll be thinking of you.' But, I don't want them to be thinking about me. I want them to be thinking about ordinary Iraqis and I want them to work to stop the war. If I die, I die. At least I won't have been starving for 12 years and watching my children die."
See also the article by Ellen Barfield published in The Baltimore Chronicle: baltimore.indymedia.org/newswire/display/2467/index.php
Baltimore resident Ellen Barfield asks us to keep the focus on the people of Iraq and the US war hovering over their lives. But it's difficult to ignore her when she is about to risk her life by standing next to those Iraqi civilians, even as bombs may fall. On December 6, at midnight, she left the relative comfort of her home and position as a Baltimore Chronicle columnist, to take a flight from JFK airport in New York. Within a few days she will arrive in Baghdad at the same time US troops, munitions, warplanes and ships are positioning themselves around Iraq preparing for attack.
FROM SOLDIER TO PEACE ACTIVIST
Her journey toward Baghdad spans two decades of spirited discontent with US politics and its ruinous effects on people of foreign countries and the environment. She was shaped in a crucible of struggle that might have crushed the spirit of others, but rather, she became more intent. After leaving the Army in 1981, she settled in Texas, and there began to see the world from a new perspective. Her radical interests were diverse, but she eventually became
involved with a group of people in the anti-nuclear movement.
They had begun to organize against Pantex, a plant installing triggers in nuclear warheads. She and others committed civil disobedience by blockading the gate to the factory. The group was called the Red River Peace Network and included anti-nuclear activists from Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma. They created a permanent presence there by building a "Peace Farm" across the street in a face-off with Pantex. During 1985, she was the manager of the Peace Farm.
Sometimes she was the only person on the farm who was actually involved in the anti-nuclear movement, as some of the people were tenants. In retrospect she says, sometimes she felt like "Mrs. Atlas holding up the world." From Amarillo she moved to many destinations, including Nicaragua where she learned about the "centuries of oppression" that had strangled the people of Central and South America. She concluded that the "absence of war is not enough. Peace without justice is not peace. We need to make sure that everyone has enough."
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE ENDS IN TRAGEDY AND TRAVEL
A turning point came when she became involved with a group in Santa Cruz, California, where weapons were being sent by train from one military base to another and eventually to many sites around the world. There she met Brian Willson, a Vietnam Vet who was involved in vigils and civil disobedience to stop the shipments of weapons. He and fellow anti-nuclear activists stopped the trains by sitting on the tracks.
One day in 1987, the train did not stop and to the horror of those seated on the tracks, instead it speeded up. All but Brian Willson managed to get off the tracks. "Brian's legs were cut off and he had a hole in his head." With a settlement he received for this attack on his life, Brian set up a travel trust fund. That was how Ellen Barfield first visited the Middle East, where she stayed in Israel, Palestine, and then in Iraq for 12 days just after Desert Storm had ended in 1991. At that time and in three other visits, she saw how the war had damaged Iraq and how the sanctions were continuing to devastate the people and environment.
FOCUSING ON IRAQ
In 1998, Ellen Barfield was part of a delegation traveling to Iraq with Voices in the Wilderness. Voices in the Wilderness is a group of people committed to ending sanctions against Iraq and now opposing the specter of war. Voices has made lots of news recently, as it is under attack by the US government.
According to the gov, Voices owes $20,000 in administrative fines for "trading with the enemy" (taking badly needed medicine and supplies to Iraq.) On Thursday, December 5, Ellen and several friends went to the Treasury Building in Washington, DC, to deliver the fine in a package. Ellen reports that the package held Iraqi dinar that would have been worth $20,000 in 1990, but post-sanctions, is worth less than $60.
Prior to sanctions, she explains, people lived well in Iraq. "It was a sophisticated, highly modern country." Though she makes no bones about the tyranny of Sadam Hussein, "all Iraqis had free medicine." Now parts of Iraq are a wasteland, particularly in the South of Iraq around Basra where the bombing was most intensive. People are starving. Many civilians were exposed to the harmful effects of depleted uranium shells and now are dying of leukemia or having babies born without faces.
She says that the Food for Oil program works "well as far as it goes." There is an organization to investigate the distribution and warehousing of food, called the "World Food Program." Contrary to what we hear about the generosity of sanctions, the food is simply not enough. Each person receiving their "food basket" gets a handful of beans, sugar, tea, rice, soap, and lentils. There is no fresh food in this food for oil deal and it can't be grown in a desert. People receive "a pittance of protein."
According to Barfield, "Hussein is a tyrant," but even if he had enormous wealth, "let's say, 23 billion dollars, then the 23 million people in Iraq would have $1,000 a piece." This amount, she states, is hardly enough to rebuild the sewage systems, water treatment plants, schools, hospitals, electrical plants or other infrastructure crushed by the US bombing during Desert Storm. "It would be admirable if Hussein gave up his personal wealth, but I don't see Clinton and Bush giving up their personal wealth to help starving people in America."
AMERICAN'S COMFORT THWARTS OUTRAGE
When asked why there are not more Americans active in the anti-war movement, Barfield is philosophical. Part of it's the propaganda Americans are fed by a "corporate controlled media." But if they wanted to know the truth, she contends, Americans could go on line and there are plenty of sources of information, such as Indymedia, that tell a very different story. Part of the apathy and ignorance she feels, comes from "the level of comfort," to which Americans have become accustomed. Most of the rest of the world's people live under harsh conditions, with a lack of food, little drinkable water, prevalence of disease, and vast unemployment. According to Barfield, US citizens can buy low priced gasoline, huge vehicles and large homes seen almost as necessities and become invested in their "things." It's hard for them to question the unsustainability of that kind of inequality and injustice.
RETURNING TO IRAQ
Ellen Barfield is on her way to Iraq for the third time. She will feel welcomed there by the Iraqi people, a people you begin to feel may be another of Ellen Barfield's families. A people who will, in cultural tradition, "give you their last cup of tea." She will be staying with fellow Voices in the Wilderness volunteers, testing water to see if it is safe, and visiting with Iraqi women and children who may soon be engulfed in war.
Barfield plans to return in six weeks. Or maybe not. "People say to me, 'I'll be praying for you,' or 'I'll be thinking of you.' But, I don't want them to be thinking about me. I want them to be thinking about ordinary Iraqis and I want them to work to stop the war. If I die, I die. At least I won't have been starving for 12 years and watching my children die."
See also the article by Ellen Barfield published in The Baltimore Chronicle: baltimore.indymedia.org/newswire/display/2467/index.php
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