United Nations International Day of Peace

The Clinton Franciscans commemorated the United Nations International Day of Peace - September 21 - with a 24-hour prayer vigil in the chapel of The Canticle from noon, Saturday, September 20, through noon Sunday, September 21. This is the second year the "Center" has sponsored the Day of Peace observance in Clinton.

The focus of the vigil was a presentation on Saturday afternoon by John Farrell of Chicago, a member of Voices in the Wilderness, who had just returned from a three-week visit to Iraq with Voices founder and director, Kathy Kelly. Since 1996, the organization has worked to end UN economic sanctions, to oppose military warfare against Iraq and to raise awareness of the plight of ordinary Iraqis.

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John Farrell

John Farrell earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls. He taught high school in Valencia, Venezuela, and at Red Cloud High School on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota

Farrell has described himself as "a firm believer in nonviolence as a way of life and as a tactic for positive social change."

"As a former high school teacher," he said, "I believe in the possibility of educating others in nonviolent principles, and as graduate student in theological studies at Loyola University Chicago, I have been learning much about how the principles of nonviolence can be grounded in the ethics of many world religions and philosophies."

About 40 people joined the Sisters and Associates to hear Farrell, a native of nearby Delmar, Iowa, and graduate of Maquoketa Community High School.

Sister Jan Cebula, president of the Sisters of St. Francis and coordinator of the Clinton Franciscan "Center" for Active Nonviolence, introduced Farrell.

It was Farrell's first trip to Iraq, but Voices director Kathy Kelly, a three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, has been there several times. With Saddam Hussein out of power, it was the first time Iraqi people could speak freely, Farrell said. Security, reliable electricity, clean water and adequate medical care are their most pressing needs, he reported.

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In addition to the presentation by John Farrell of Voices in the Wilderness, the Clinton Franciscan observance of the U.N. International Day of Peace included a silent prayer vigil in front of the Clinton County Courthouse.

Doctors and administrators at hospitals they toured said humanitarian groups are leaving the country because it is unsafe. One doctor in Basra said the only reason his hospital wasn't looted during the war was that he and his staff stayed in the hospital around the clock to chase away looters.

Farrell interviewed an Iraqi doctor who treated Army Private Jessica Lynch. The doctor told the Americans that Lynch was very nice to them and he wanted to say hello. They videotaped a message from the doctor and sent it to Lynch.

Many Iraqis are also without telephone service. "MCI came in and set up cell towers throughout Iraq," Farrell said. "They were all set to market cell phones to the Iraqi people, but Paul Bremer stepped in and said no."

Bremer, who leads US efforts to reconstruct Iraq, feared that Iraqi citizens would use the cell phones to organize attacks against US forces. Farrell said Iraqi people he spoke with are frustrated because it is the same reason Hussein gave for not allowing cell technology.

The most tragic story Farrell heard was that of Anwar Al Kawas. He visited the Iraqi woman at her home shortly after she gave birth to a son. On August 7, Anwar, then nine months pregnant, and her 13-year-old daughter, Hadil were the only two family members to survive an accidental shooting by US troops at an intersection in Baghdad. Farrell said it is believed an explosion occurred at an electrical transformer near the intersection. Thinking they were under fire, soldiers opened fire on the Al Kawas car and two other cars. Anwar's husband, a son and two daughters were killed.

Farrell said the family's car, riddled with bullets, was parked in front of the home where he met the widow. Hadil's bloody handprints could still be seen inside the car where she crawled out to escape.

While in Iraq, Farrell and other human rights activists tried to arrange a meeting between Anwar and US military officials to discuss compensation for the accidental deaths. An Irish law firm is now representing the family.

The economic sanctions first imposed against Iraq in 1990 were "the most oppressive in the history of the United Nations," Farrell said. Five hundred thousand Iraqi children died due to these sanctions, based on UNICEF figures. Many of these children lacked basic medicine and vaccines, but Farrell said water-borne illnesses such as diarrhea accounted for about 50% of the deaths. Chlorine was not allowed in Iraq for 13 years.

"Voices dramatized the repressive sanctions and took small amounts of medicine into Iraq to symbolize the desperate need," Farrell said. During the UN sanctions, all American medicines taken to Iraq had to be approved by the Office of Foreign Asset Control.

In June of this year, Voices in the Wilderness was notified of a lawsuit by the US Justice Department to collect $20,000 in fines imposed because of the transport of illegal medicines into Iraq. Farrell said Voices operates on "a shoestring budget out of an apartment" and does not intend to pay the fine. They have filed a counter suit, alleging that the sanctions were the criminal act and violated the Geneva Conventions.

Voices is trying to obtain 20,000 signatures on a petition to send o Attorney General John Ashcroft. The petition can be signed online at www.nonviolence.org/vitw.

Farrell and Kelly distributed Arabic-language copies of a videotape based on a PBS series to Iraqis. The tape, "A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict," tells of successful nonviolent uprisings of the 20th Century.

Farrell told those gathered in Clinton that as a culture, Americans can conserve gasoline and publicly denounce some of the practices the United States is pursuing in Iraq. A society of excess, he said, sends a poor message to other nations.

"Our culture, our country, our way of life, is as much in need of rebuilding as Iraq is," Farrell stated.

To send donations or learn more, contact: Voices in the Wilderness: 5315 N Clark Street Box # 634, Chicago, IL 60640 or www.nonviolence.org/vitw

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John Farrell, center, following his presentation at The Canticle, spoke with vigilers Clinton Franciscan Sister Blanche Quinlan, who is also from Delmar, and Mari Sanders of Fulton,. Ill.

Each hour of the 24-hour vigil included recitation of the following prayer drawn from the "Prayer for World Peace" by Joan Chittister OSB

O God, on the International Day of peace, we come to you asking your guidance to help us become instruments of peace.

We ask that you save us from vengeance in our hearts - from the desire to hurt as we have been hurt, to punish as we have been punished, to terrorize as we have been terrorized.

We ask for the strength to listen rather than judge, to trust rather than fear, to try again and again to make peace even when peace eludes us.

We ask for the vision to be builders of the human community rather than its destroyers.

We ask for the love to bequeath to the children of the world more than our failures.

We ask for the heart to care for all people - for those we call "enemies" as well as for ourselves.

We ask for the depth of soul to constrain our might, to refuse to attack the attackable, to understand that vengeance begets violence, and to bring peace wherever we go.

We ask your blessing upon all those special persons and intentions we hold in our hearts.

O God, you have been merciful, patient and gracious to us. Help us to be merciful, patient, gracious and trusting with all others.

Give us understanding that ends strife, mercy that quenches hatred, and forgiveness that overcomes vengeance.