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'Human shield' for Iraq to discuss war

Cougar News Services

A member of the peace activism group Human Shields will use his experience in Iraq to provide insight into the possible repercussions of the subsiding war in a presentation at UH today.

Benjamin Joffe-Walt, who was born and raised in Philadelphia, traveled to Iraq just before hostilities reached their peak in mid-March. As a "human shield," Joffe-Walt put himself in harmis way in an effort to protect Iraqi civilians and infrastructure, such as roads, hospitals and schools. In his presentation today, Joffe-Walt will describe the condition in which he found Iraq and the effects the war had on the country during his encampment there.

Joffe-Walt, who teaches history at a high school in Toronto, Canada, went to Iraq illegally, as the United States barred American citizens from traveling to the besieged country under the threat of 12 years in prison or up to $1 million in fines, a Campus Greens press release said.

Human Shields, founded by a U.S. Marine veteran of the Gulf War, is an international anti-war group that placed foreign civilians among Iraqi civilian populations, hoping to stave off strikes against Iraqi civilians. The idea is that military commanders wonit want to strike an area in which they might harm, for example, a handful of American "shields."

"What would happen if several thousand Western citizens migrated to Iraq to stand side by side with the Iraqi people? The world's most powerful nation could be stopped in its imperialist tracks if thousands of Westerners might be killed by its oil/power lust war," the Human Shields Web site (http://www.humanshields.org) says. 

Joffe-Walt will give his presentation today at 7 p.m. in the University Centeris Mediterranean Room. He will present again Wednesday at 6 p.m. at Rice Universityis Duncan Hall. The presentation includes multimedia and question-and-answer sessions with the audience.

The visits are being sponsored by the Houston Area Campus Greens organization, Rice Students for Progressive Activism, Rice Muslim Students Association and the Houston chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
 

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