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Dear friends, As you may know, on August 6th, 12 members of Voices in the Wilderness US began a 40 day liquids-only fast against the sanctions on Iraq outside the US Mission to the UN in New York (see press release below for more info). If you would like to send them a message of support you can write to them c/o St Vincent Ferrer Church, 1603 Brooklyn Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11210 Their names are: Cynthia Banas, Vernon, NY Lorie Blanding, Easthampton, MA Felton Davis, New York, NY Joan Gregory, Marlboro, NY Brian Kavanagh, Hartford, CT Kathy Kelly, Chicago, IL Johannes Limberger, Germany Ceylon Mooney, Memphis, TN Joe Morton, Baltimore, MD Mark Paye, Chicago, IL Henry Williamson, Charleston, SC Jerry Zawada, Hammond, I Best wishes, Gabriel voices in the wilderness uk ********************************************* Breaking Ranks: A Fast to End the Siege of Iraq August 6th - September 14th Tel: 646-208-2098 Voices in the Wilderness, a Chicago-based campaign to end the economic sanctions on Iraq, today announces “Breaking Ranks: A Fast to End the Siege of Iraq.” Fast members will gather in New York City August 6th through September 14th. The fast will begin on Monday morning, August 6th, with a Press Conference at 10:00 a.m. at “The Isaiah Wall,” E. 43rd Street and 1st Avenue, across from the UN Building. After the press conference, the fasters will process to 45th St. and 1st Avenue, across from the US Mission to the UN, where they will return to demonstrate and fast every day for forty days. “We are trying to encourage the member states of the UN to ‘break ranks’ with the US in its insistence on endless sanctions for Iraq,” said Kathy Kelly, co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness [VitW] and twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. “The more ‘smart’ they try to make the sanctions, the more adept they are at killing the Iraqi people.” Former Under-Secretary General of the UN, Denis Halliday, will join in the f ast on August 6, and will be available for interviews. Halliday is also a Nobel nominee. August 6th, the fifty-sixth anniversary of the US atomic attack on Hiroshima, Japan, also marks eleven full years of the US-led embargo on Iraq. In 1999, UNICEF estimated that the sanctions had contributed to the deaths of half a million Iraqi children under the age of five. Most of the fasters have been to Iraq, and they will use the time of fasting to tell UN representatives and the general public what they have seen and heard about the effects of the sanctions. Besides fasting, participants will vigil and leaflet across the street from the UN (the corner of 45th Street and First Avenue), perform street theater, attend Arabic lessons, and hold nightly public discussions on the effects of the sanctions. They will seek meetings with UN and US representatives. Additionally, group members will consider breaking the fast if staff from the US Mission to the UN will, on occasion, share with them a meal of cooked lentils and rice, representative of the food distributed to Iraqis through the “oil-for-food” program. In early September, VitW, in conjunction with local activists across the U.S., will organize “Life Under Siege” tent encampments in numerous communities and on college campuses. The encampments, envisioned to last three (or more) days, will attempt to depict living conditions forced upon Iraqis by eleven years of unrelenting economic sanctions. For further information on either the fast or in a “Life Under Siege” encampments, contact: * G. Simon Harak, S. J. Contact on 917-662-5790, Breaking_Ranks@yahoo.com, <mailto:Breaking_Ranks@yahoo.com>, Efax: 801-907-7260 * Voices in the Wilderness, 1460 W. Carmen Avenue, Chicago, IL 60640, 773-784-8065; kkelly@igc.org; -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a discussion list run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq For removal from list, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk Full details of CASI's various lists can be found on the CASI website: http://www.casi.org.uk