From: ben sarin@devo.com
Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003
Subject: Iraq Peace Team support reception

I am hosting a fundraising reception for the Iraq Peace Team, with which I am travelling to Iraq on January 15 to show solidarity with the citizens of Iraq against any escalation of war. Our team will also be documenting the horrific long term effects from the sanctions regime and the unbearable living conditions.

It is part of our pledge that if war breaks out, the Iraq Peace Team will remain in Iraq and continue to document civilian life.

In addition to raising funds, I am also collecting at this reception any goods that can be used to help Iraqi citizens, especially children. I am seeking donations of baby formula/powdered milk, iron supplements, childrens' and womens' vitamins, eyedrops, pain relievers, and any other common medical goods.

The reception will include a discussion on the current crisis and a presentation of some of my photographs from Palestine.

The Weary Traveller Restaurant
1201 Williamson St., Madison
Monday, January 13 8pm

If you are unable to attend and would still like to help, the Friends Meeting House at 1704 Roberts Ct. has a drop off.

-Ben Granby
332-3411

I am seeking a contact in your congregation as I am looking for some community support for an endeavor I am undertaking. I am a member of the Iraq Peace Team delegation that is set to leave for Iraq in mid-January to perform a vigil of defiance against a possible war by placing ourselves in harms way. IPT is an offshoot of Voices In The Wilderness, the Chicago-based organization that has made efforts to expose the brutality of the sanctions regime upon innocent Iraqi civilians.

The IPT was formed in direct response to Bush's latest saber-rattling. In addition to placing ourselves in Iraq, we also bring medicine and do our best to send back reports about civilian life to Americans. I have been lent video and audio equipment so that I can better document the situation there and bring it back to Madison. As the only IPT participant from this area, I am hoping to return to Madison and give talks and presentations about the situation in Iraq. Should war break out while I am there, part of the IPT pledge is to stay in Iraq and do our best to document what is happening and show our solidarity with the Iraqi civilians.

I am trying to contact a few Madison congregations that I know to be sympathetic to the cause of peace and justice and who have shown grave anxiety about the threat of a new war. My hope is that I can raise modest support for IPT, as this trip comes at great personal expense. I am also looking for other areas in the Madison community where I can later give talks about the situation there upon my return.

Thanks,
Benjamin Granby
332-3411

Below is the sketch I've written:

I am a 27 year old Madison native who graduated from the UW in 1999, majoring in both political science and history. I have long been invovled in peace activities, having first participated in anti-apartheid demonstrations in the 80s as a child as well as against the first Gulf War in 1991.

But it has primarily been since college where I have taken this mission overseas. Since the Middle East and history have long fascinated me, I first travelled to Lebanon and Syria on a tourism trip. While there in both countries I accidentally stumbled into Palestinian refugee camps and was treated to great stories of pain and longing for lost homes. While I had read much about the subject, I had never been to active on the issue of Palestinian rights. So I next travelled to the Palestinian territories to collect stories from small villagers and farming communities who are neglected by the mainstream news. It was there that I first met the Christian Peacemaker Teams in Hebron and stayed with them for a few days. Their active intervention for conflict resolution was quite inspiring. I also had the fortune of doing the same in the Balkans a little later, where I talked to villagers in towns in Macedonia caught in the crossfire in 2001.

In the village of Tetovo I met a teenager named Ibrahim Zeqiri. He had been standing on his porch as a gun battle between Macedonian soldiers and Albanian rebels broke out in the town of Tetovo. A rocket suddenly flew into Ibrahim's house, sending him flying. His leg was badly torn by shrapnel, and he spent a week in a hospital recovering. What most impressed me about this Albanian boy from a small obscure town was his striking intellect. At age 17, he was studying in Istanbul, had mastered fluent English, Albanian and Macedonian and was able to lecture me for an hour over dinner about ethnic conflict. I became more convinced than ever to dedicate myself to ending such senselessness.

In Spring 2002 I was offered volunteer work at Al Mezan Center for Human Rights in Gaza City, Gaza. I worked on advocacy for human rights as well as encouraged the Center's attempts at democratizing Palestinian culture and improving womens' rights. While taking a short break from Gaza in Bethlehem, I wound up in the city of Jesus' birth the day of Israel's largest invasion. I returned to Bethlehem a month later with members of the International Solidarity Movement to break the seige on the Church of Nativity and to bring food to the people trapped inside. I also saw the results of some of the worst of war in Jenin, where almost an entire refugee camp was reduced to rubble.