Peacemaker journies to Baghdad

Catholic New Times, April 20, 2003 by James Douglass

Tuesday, March 25, 2003

We have been driving for thirteen hours--it nine-member Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) delegation on our way to Baghdad. We are an hour and a half short of Baghdad. We've been piercing a sandstorm for several hours.

We encounter a bombed out bridge and are forced to make a detour through a town where American forces are reportedly fighting Iraqis. They aren't there.

The customs building was recently bombed. When we return to the Baghdad highway, we see the burnt skeletons of trucks and a bus beside the road. We pause for a couple of minutes to look at the cratered remains of a rest stop hit by U.S. missiles three days ago.

Just past a burning car on the highway, we encounter for the first time U.S. soldiers on a desert hill about forty yards to our right. Some of the soldiers are aiming their guns at surrendering Iraqi troops, others are training their weapons on us. Four armored personnel carriers turn their barrels toward us. Our two vans come to a halt.

We put black and white duct tape crosses on the doors and tops of the vehicles. Our Muslim drivers readily agreed to putting the crosses on the cars. The crosses likely save our lives.

Minutes later, we hit an Iraqi military checkpoint. We stop. Mohammed our driver and his brother show the soldiers a description of CPT translated into Arabic. The Iraqis allow us to proceed.

We are driving between the lines of battle. I remember the psalm we sang together at Sunday's Mass in Amman: "Have no fear for I am with you, I will be your shield. Go now and leave your homeland for I will give you a home."

We have no other shield but Yahweh for this journey to Baghdad. We are little more than one hour from Baghdad. Our goal is to enter the city before nightfall, and make it to the Al Dar Hotel before the night's missile attacks begin.

We are stopped at another Iraqi checkpoint. Alongside us is a vehicle whose left and right rear windows were shot out minutes ago by the Americans on the hill. The driver is a young Iraqi man; an older gentleman sits beside him in the passenger seat. Bullets hit the windows a foot behind the driver and the older man.

As we forge ahead, Mohammed and his brother race their vehicles parallel to each other. We wave our white towels at one another in the hope that we're home free to Baghdad. Mohammed shakes his head at having left his Iraqi brothers behind. On both sides of the road, black smoke billows around us from the flames of burning petrol pipes.

Mohammed turns up the taped music. We fly on into Baghdad, clapping our hands to Iraqi rock music. Mohammed is now grinning happily. He and his brother have made it home to Baghdad.

And so have we CPTers. Completing a circle, we've come home to Iraq from our homes in the USA, Canada, Ireland, and Britain. We've returned to the homeland where our father Abraham began the circle: "Go now and leave your homeland, For I will give you a home."

On the previous night in Amman, Jordan, we wrote a paragraph explaining why we were hoping to make it into Baghdad. Now that we're here, we'll try to live by it:

"Our Christian faith calls us to Baghdad. We want to be with the Iraqi people under our bombs because we know God loves them and weeps for them. Bombs cannot liberate them from violence. We believe in Jesus' way of liberation, through the nonviolent cross of God's love. The cross calls us to give life rather than take it. If our soldiers are willing to risk their lives to wage violence, then we as Christians should be willing to risk our lives to wage peace and reconciliation."

James Douglass, 64, is a Canadian born theologian and writer. He has written numerous books on peace including, The Nonviolent Coming of God, Lightning East to West and The Nonviolent Cross. He is currently part of a nine-member peace delegation organized by Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) that travelled by road from Amman, Jordan to Baghdad on March 25.