the buses which took Human Shields to Iraq before the invasion. He has recently returned from filming in Baghdad. He spoke to Socialist Resistance at the end of June.
Human shield happened because an awful lot of people could see that Iraq was going to be invaded and were completely against it. They saw our government doing its usual job of rolling over on its back and doing what the Americans told them.
There was an atmosphere of protest and in this particular case it got crystallised by an American ex-marine called Ken O'Keefe, who said he intended to go to Iraq as a human shield and was asking other people to join him. I got in touch with him and we organised a meeting of six people. Out of that came four people who ended up organising the action.
We tapped into the energy and anger that Three weeks after the meeting three buses left Tower Bridge heading for Baghdad!
It was the first time I had been involved in political action which had been connected to the Arab and muslim communities, which was very good. Representatives of different muslim communities turned up to help. One of the valuable things about the antiwar movement is that it has provided that opportunity and I hope it continues.
We dealt with a friendship and solidarity group organising within Iraq. As the buses travelled other groups emerged, so by the time the buses got there, there were over 100 people. The main idea was that the shields would put themselves in places which were potential targets, namely civilians and essential infrastructure, water and power.
Within the human shield group several freelance filmmakers went on the buses to Baghdad and subsequently returned there. We were very lucky to get a guy who runs a production company to go. Now, although the world's media have withdrawn from Iraq, there are still a number of people there.
The truth seems to be coming out much more quickly now of massacres of Iraqis by American troops. What's clear is that the US is provoking a lot of resistance. I think there will be a continuation of this for at least the next year.
There's a flowering of newspapers and a sense of defiance ness to talk on camera about independent media.
NGOs can help, .... • on the streets, with an open- Richard Scrace what's happening. There's more scope for accepted in America
but they can also become a parallel empire and Iraqis should be in the forefront of it. Independent radio and TV is one aspect; the idea that you can't publish anything critical is widely
petition.
A number of shields see their role as dition. being independent witnesses. George Galloway's suggestion of setting up satellite radio is a good one, but obviously not everyone has access to satellite.
Where will the antiwar movement go Are the Taliban on the way back? impunity with regular bombings, shootings and "accidents" for which no one The imperialist plan for the country is a fantasy. It involves registering 10 million voters, drafting a constitution and holding elections by June 2004 in a country where the Prime Minister cannot leave the capital. Afghanistan is a country of which imperialist intervention has made an abattoir. It began this process by funding the Islamists (including Osama Bin Laden) now? Electorally I can only speak for myself In the case of the threat of fascists then we need to put aside the normal rules of comThis can be done in a number of ways. Probably the best idea is for local parties to have some sort of meeting where they say, 'what are we going to do about this?"
A number of things could happen: there's no doubt the fascists represent a threat But I'm a believer in positive campaigning and giving an alternative. That could be negotiated.
1 reckon the greens and the socialists have an awful lot in common; over pensions, housing, asylum. If you looked at the policies there's a degree of crossover, but the difference is in political culture and traWe did an analysis in the Green Party of where the new members were coming from. About three out of ten were Old Labour; the others are new to politics, which is interesting. They're very fresh.