Pa. college seniors arrive in Baghdad
Two 22-year-olds, who are part of a peace mission, drove 15 hours, through U.S. troops.
By James M. O'Neill
Inquirer Staff Writer
Two Eastern University seniors, waging a peace mission to Iraq's civilians, made a perilous 15-hour journey yesterday from Jordan across the Iraqi desert, passing through the invading American military's front lines, and arriving before dark in Baghdad - just before U.S. forces began another nighttime aerial bombardment.
Jonathan and Leah Wilson-Hartgrove, both 22, who attend the university in St. Davids, made the trip in a two-car caravan with eight other members of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), armed only with white towels they were instructed to wave out their car window.
The group, which had been stuck in Amman, Jordan, for nearly a week trying to secure Iraqi visas, got approval late Monday, and left for Baghdad at 2 a.m. yesterday, Iraqi time.
Members phoned CPT officials in Chicago, saying that 100 miles west of Baghdad they encountered the American front lines. U.S. troops sent them onto another road, where they came upon American forces firing on an Iraqi vehicle. They said the vehicle was on fire and passengers were being held at gunpoint.
The peacemaking teams' vehicles were able to proceed through the American checkpoint waving white flags.
In Baghdad, the group met at the Al-Daar Hotel with five other Christian Peacemakers who have been in the city for several months. The group plans to offer help at Baghdad hospitals and orphanages, which face staffing shortages as employees have difficulty making it to work in the city under siege.
The team members are also manning a tent outside a Baghdad water-treatment plant, to highlight the need for U.S. forces to avoid damaging facilities vital to civilians' survival.
The Christian Peacemaker Teams project, which has sent teams trained in nonviolent conflict resolution to such hot spots as Haiti and Hebron since 1988, is an initiative of the peace churches - Mennonite, Church of the Brethren, and Quakers - with support from Catholic and Protestant denominations.
In Jordan, Jonathan, who is from North Carolina, sent e-mail to friends: "Somewhere in the modern era Christians drew a distinction between what they believed and what they did," he wrote. "For the love of God and neighbor, we're trying to say that what the U.S. is doing in the name of 'liberty' and 'justice' is an aberration of the Christian tradition."
Once they got the OK to enter Iraq, team members packed two vehicles. Leah, in e-mail to family and friends, described preparations:
"We have walkie-talkies, and each person has a large white towel to wave if need be (we have been instructed that if we hear an airplane, we must jump out of the car and wave our towels). We are also taping white garbage bags to the roof of our cars and to one window, possibly with a cross made of black duct-tape on them. We are taking a one paragraph explanation of our team, in English and in Arabic. We have plenty of food and water."
She said the cost of hiring Iraqi drivers for the trip had jumped in the last week from $250 to $1,250.
Her mother, Marti Wilson of California, said that when she got word the group had obtained visas, fear swept over her. Then she got her daughter's e-mail.
"The strength of her words made me realize that she's doing what she's supposed to be doing," Wilson said. "At that point you don't ask questions. You just pray."
In the e-mail, Leah wrote that she was afraid, that she had lost her appetite, and that her stomach was in knots. "But we are more afraid of what this world will become (and who we will become) if we do not remain faithful to the call of God.
"We are not naive," Leah wrote. "There is little possibility that our presence will stop the war. However, we believe that our being there makes a big difference in Iraqis' lives, in our lives, and in the lives of people in the U.S... . We will offer a presence of peace to those in Iraq who are facing tremendous danger and who are terribly afraid |
