Peace activists arrested at US mission to UN

New York police arrested four women activists outside the United States mission to the United Nations on Mar. 6 as they tried to deliver a petition signed by 72,000 people calling for immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops from Iraq. The arrests took place after the US diplomatic mission reportedly refused to meet with a delegation of Iraqi women who are currently on a rare speaking tour of the Unites States. Among those arrested were Gold Star Families for Peace mother Cindy Sheehan, who lost her son, a US soldier, in the Iraq war; Medea Benjamin, co-director of Global Exchange, a human rights organization, and the women's peace group CODEPINK; Rev. Patricia Ackerman; and activist Missy Beattie, also of Gold Star Families for Peace. Sheehan and Benjamin had just concluded a news conference outside UN headquarters, where they were joined by an Iraqi women's delegation calling for an end to the US occupation of their country. The five-woman delegation was invited by Global Exchange and CODEPINK with the aim of educating US citizens about the horrors of war and the suffering it has caused for millions of ordinary Iraqis. Witnesses said Sheehan and others wanted the US mission to send one of its representatives to meet with the delegation of Iraqi women. They refused to leave the premises without delivering the signatures, which led to the arrests, activists said. "I am outraged that the US Mission could not send someone down to meet with a delegation of women whose lives and families were shattered by this destructive and immoral war," Ann Wright, a former US army colonel and diplomat, told IPS. Wright, who marched alongside Sheehan and the Iraqi women, said she was physically assaulted by security officers during the arrests. Earlier, addressing a news conference inside the UN compound, peace activists from both countries urged the Security Council to call for the withdrawal of US forces and all other foreign troops from Iraq. The Iraqi delegation and women leaders from the US blamed the Pentagon for provoking much of the violence in Iraq and demanded the replacement of US troops with a UN peacekeeping force. But they emphasized that the peacekeeping troops must not be drawn from any country that took part in the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Benjamin told reporters that two Iraqi women who were supposed to be part of the delegation whose husbands and children were killed, reportedly at the hands of the US military, were denied visa requests on the grounds that they have no family members to return to in Iraq. She said the State Department recently informed her that the two–Anwar Kadhim Jawad and Vivian Salim Mati–had "failed to overcome the presumption of intending to emigrate." Despite the arrests on Mar. 6, activists from Global Exchange and CODEPINK say they are determined to go ahead with their plans to deliver 100,000 signatures to the White House on Mar. 8 and US embassies around the world.