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Afri's Féile
Bríde 2003
Up to two hundred
people attended Afri's
11th Annual Féile
Bríde Conference
in Kildare this year.
The theme was Paths to
Peacemaking and the focus,
appropriately was on the
critical situation in
Iraq. One of the speakers,
Kathy Kelly, is a founder
member of the Voices in
the Wilderness organisation,
which was set up to end
the US/UN sanctions against
Iraq. She has been to
Iraq numerous times and
was threatened with twelve
years in prison and a
million dollar fine for
breaking sanctions by
bringing food and medical
supplies into Iraq.
Kathy flew back to Iraq
after the conference and
remains there as part
of a peace team which
consists of people who
choose to live among the
Iraqi people during any
aggression directed at
them. They are using their
presence to communicate
the effects of war on
ordinary people. One of
the issues of major concern
to Kathy and the peace
team is the effect that
the cutting off of water
supplies, which will result
from the mass bombing,
will have. As Kathy describes
in a recent article: 'People
panic as they wonder how
they will find drinking
water. How will they be
able to cook stored rations
without water? How will
they get medical care
for the injured? Once
the electricity goes down,
how will they manage without
fridges, lights and communications?
'Explosions, fires, shrapnel,
destroyed buildings, maimed
bodies, unburied corpses…
Baghdad's residents have
tasted all this before
- but now comes anticipation
of yet another agony:
a squeeze that can cause
chaos and panic to flow
like lava.'
Other speakers at the
Conference were new Afri
chairperson Iain Atack,
Ciaron O'Reilly of the
Dublin Catholic Worker
and Sr. Stanislaus Kennedy.
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