http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/08/158225
Former Christian Peacemaker Teams Hostages Harmeet Singh Sooden and
James Loney Remember Murdered Colleague Tom Fox and Explain Why They
Forgive Their Captors
Friday, December 8th, 2006
In a national broadcast exclusive, we speak with James Loney and Harmeet
Singh Sooden, two of the three Christian Peacemaker Teams held hostage
in Iraq for 118 days. They held a news conference in London today
announcing they "unconditionally" forgive their captors. They have yet
to decide whether to give evidence at the men's trial, which is set for
next year in Iraq. Singh Sooden and Loney discuss their ordeal and
remember their murdered colleague, Tom Fox. [includes rush transcript]
In November of 2005, Loney, Sooden and Kember were kidnapped along with
U.S. peace activist, Tom Fox. Fox, who was also a full-time member of
the CPT team, was working in Baghdad at the time. He was murdered on
March 9th 2006. The remaining three were set free on March 23rd.
Throughout their ordeal, videotape of the prisoners was released
periodically. In December 2005, a video was released of Tom Fox and
Norman Kember, making this plea.
* Tom Fox and Normman Kember, December 7th 2005.
A few days after their release, James Loney made this statement in
London to the media.
* James Loney, March 2006.
In a Democracy Now! national broadcast exclusive, Harmeet Singh Sooden
and James Loney join us from London.
* Harmeet Singh Sooden, one of the three members of the Christian
Peacemaker Teams held hostage in Iraq. They were kidnapped on November
26, 2005 and held for 118 days before being freed by British and
American forces on March 23, 2006.
* James Loney, one of the three members of the Christian Peacemaker
Teams.
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us
provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV
broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
Donate - $25, $50, $100, more...
AMY GOODMAN: In December 7, 2005, a video was released of Tom Fox and
Norman Kember making this plea.
TOM FOX: I'd like to offer my pleas to the people of America, not
to the government of America -- a plea for my release from captivity and
also a plea for a release from captivity of all the people of Iraq. We
are all suffering from the same fate, and that is the occupation of the
American troops and the British troops, which have brought me to this
condition and has brought the Iraqi people to the condition they are in.
So I would ask the people of America to do what they can to free us all
from this captivity.
NORMAN KEMBER: I'm a Christian Peacemaker. I'm a friend of Iraq.
I have been opposed to this war, Mr. Blair's war, since the very
beginning. I ask of him now, and the British government, to do all that
they can to work for my release and the release of the Iraqi people from
oppression.
AMY GOODMAN: Norman Kember and Tom Fox. A few days after their release,
James Loney made this statement in London to the media.
JAMES LONEY: I sometimes entertain myself by imagining this day.
Sometimes I despair of ever seeing it. Always I ache for it. And so,
here we are. For 118 days I disappeared into a black hole, and somehow,
by God's grace, I was spit out again. My head is swirling, and there are
times when I can hardly believe it's true. We had to wear flak jackets
during our helicopter transport from the international zone to the
Baghdad airport, and I had to keep knocking on the body armor I was
wearing to reassure myself that this was all really happening. It was a
terrifying, profound, powerful, transformative and excruciatingly boring
experience. Since my release, my rescue from captivity, I have been in a
constant state of wonder, bewilderment and surprise, as I slowly
discover the magnitude of the effort to secure our lives and freedom.
AMY GOODMAN: James Loney and Harmeet Singh Sooden have just held their
news conference and come into the studio in London for this national
broadcast exclusive. We welcome you both to Democracy Now!
I wanted to start with Harmeet Singh Sooden. Can you talk about why the
three of you, the surviving Christian Peacemaker Team members of the
hostage ordeal in Iraq, came together today in London?
HARMEET SINGH SOODEN: Well, we were recently approached by the
authorities in our respective countries. We were told that they had
captured four of our captors and that a trial would ensue, and they want
us to testify. That's the background.
AMY GOODMAN: And what is your response?
HARMEET SINGH SOODEN: Well, our current position is that we don't have
enough information to make a decision, and we're hoping that that
information will be provided for us and/or we can obtain that
information from, you know, other sources.
AMY GOODMAN: James Loney, you and Harmeet, as well as Norman Kember, are
calling for forgiveness for your captors. Talk further about your ordeal
-- we watched you right after you were released just now -- and what it
is you want to accomplish right now.
JAMES LONEY: Well, it was a grim 118 days. We suffered from the deprival
of our freedom, and we were given very little food. We were in a
constant state of fear and anxiety about what was going to happen to us.
But, yes, it was an awful experience, but we really desire that we want
good to come out of this. And we are very, very concerned that the death
penalty is on the table for these men. They could face execution, and
that would be the worst possible outcome for us.
We -- you know, Bishop Tutu has this phrase, you know: there's no future
without forgiveness. And for us, forgiveness opens up possibilities. It
opens up the future, that something different can happen than what
happened in the past. And what happened in the past was -- it was awful.
And Tom was killed in that. And we want something different. We don't
want more people to be killed. We want the possibility of restoration
and a justice that is about healing the relationships that have been broken.
AMY GOODMAN: James, can you talk about why you were in Iraq and how you
came to know Norman Kember and Harmeet and Tom Fox, who was killed by
his kidnappers?
JAMES LONEY: So, Tom Fox was a member of the CPT team working in Iraq,
and I work for CPT and was leading a delegation that included Harmeet
and Norman. We met up in Amman. And our purpose in going there was to
learn about the realities of the occupation of Iraqi life from regular
Iraqis, because this is a point of view that the mainstream media has
not really been representing. And this is a war that's been based on
lies from the very beginning. So we wanted to go there and to learn for
ourselves, see for ourselves, and to bring those stories back and to be
part of the ongoing work of the Iraq team, which at that time was
documenting torture in the Interior Ministry.
AMY GOODMAN: And how were you taken? How were you kidnapped?
JAMES LONEY: We were -- it was right after a meeting. There was -- a car
basically was waiting for us. And when we pulled out, it stopped in
front of us, and four men stormed the vehicle, and they had guns, and
they pulled our translator and driver out of the vehicle. And that was
it. We were kidnapped.
AMY GOODMAN: Harmeet Singh Sooden, could you take it from there? Where
were you taken then?
HARMEET SINGH SOODEN: We were driven for about 20 minutes to half an
hour. We were taken to the, what we call the first house. We were sort
of driven around the same spot twice, at least. I wasn't really paying
attention to our surroundings, and more the people who had abducted us.
We were brought in, and the man who became our handler or manager was
there. We were basically -- they took our stuff. We were handcuffed,
blindfolded, and basically moved into a room. And that's how it remained
for about a week, until Tom Fox and Norman were separated from us. We
actually feared the worst for a while, but a week later, we were
reunited with them in the second house. And that's when the long haul
began basically.
AMY GOODMAN: In that second house, is that where you were held for more
than a hundred days?
HARMEET SINGH SOODEN: That's correct. That's approximately correct, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: When was your last moment with Tom Fox?
HARMEET SINGH SOODEN: It was February the 12th. We thought we were all
going back to the first house to be released, and they took Tom first. I
believe I was the last of the three to speak to him. I just said, "See
you soon," and gave him a hug, and he left.
AMY GOODMAN: What can you tell us about Tom and about your experience in
captivity with him, Harmeet?
HARMEET SINGH SOODEN: I was -- I think I was the person handcuffed to
him the longest, every night and on most days. He was committed to
nonviolence. If there was a possibility of escape, he said he would not
use any form of violence to escape. We would hear car bombs or
explosions in the distance, and he would pray for the victims, and even
the perpetrators. That should give you a good idea of what kind of
person he was.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, you're calling, Harmeet, for forgiveness. You're
calling for the greatest leniency for the men who will be tried. Do you
know who has been arrested at this point?
HARMEET SINGH SOODEN: Well, we've been told four people have been
arrested. We've been given their names. Unfortunately, that means very
little at this point. We need more information before we can make any
sort of decision about testifying or not testifying. That's the current
position we're in.
AMY GOODMAN: What is the information you're looking for?
HARMEET SINGH SOODEN: Well, there are a few specific things. One would
be the trial date. The other would be the location, the process itself.
Just things of that nature.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us about your captors? Who were they? What
particular group, or were they with a particular group?
HARMEET SINGH SOODEN: Well, we don't have much information on that. But
in terms of who they were, what we saw, we had given them nicknames.
There was "Uncle." He claimed to be a former POW guard in the Iran-Iraq
War. He was quite confident and sort of treated us like his crops. He
said he was also a farmer.
There was another younger man in his mid-twenties. We called him
"Junior." He was very volatile, appeared to be traumatized. He said that
his family, some siblings and his fiancée, were killed in Fallujah when
his house was bombed.
And there was another person we called "Nephew." He was quite unsure of
himself, as if he hadn't done this before. And he said his house was
destroyed in Fallujah, as well, and he was a father of five. He hadn't
told his family what he was doing, and he didn't know who his, I guess,
his chief was or who the leaders of his group were.
AMY GOODMAN: And did they tell you --
HARMEET SINGH SOODEN: Then there was a manager, of course.
AMY GOODMAN: And the manager, what?
HARMEET SINGH SOODEN: We called him "Medicine Man." He was very slick, a
very good, I guess, talker, and he did his job well, I guess, from that
point of view. He was always well-dressed. He seemed to be highly
educated. And there was another man whose face we couldn't see. He was
quite -- spoke English reasonably well and seemed to understand the
Western viewpoint, in terms of the occupation. He understood the plight.
For example, he told us once he was in an operation where he killed an
American soldier who was probably 20 or 21 years old, and he commented
on his beautiful face. And he asked -- well, he retorted, "Why did he
have to die for an education?"
AMY GOODMAN: And did they deal with Tom Fox, the only American in your
group -- you and James are Canadian, Norman Kember is British --
differently than the three of you, before he was killed?
HARMEET SINGH SOODEN: Junior definitely treated Tom with more disdain. I
do recall one incident, which is sort of blanked out in my -- well, I
remember the surrounding situation, of course. Norman and Jim have
filled me in. Medicine Man basically pointed his gun at him and said,
"You're the devil. And if you try to escape, we will kill you." And I,
at the time, thought that this was just a tactic to control us and keep
us in line, basically. I'm not sure why they thought Tom was the
mastermind of escape, because, in fact, he was most opposed to escape
through violent means, anyway.
AMY GOODMAN: Why do you think they killed Tom Fox?
HARMEET SINGH SOODEN: I do not know why someone had to be killed, but
obviously an American national would be the most likely in this
situation to be killed if someone had to be killed.
AMY GOODMAN: And when did you learn that Tom was killed?
HARMEET SINGH SOODEN: Tom's body, I believe, was found on March the 9th
-- on March the 7th. Since the separation, since he was separated from
us, we would keep asking how he was, and we were told he was okay. But
two days before his body was found, we were told that they were going to
announce that he has been killed to the world, but that would just be a
ruse to try and -- there were some secret negotiations apparently going
on for a prisoner exchange in the US. That was the story that was put
forward.
Two days later, we were -- at that point we were allowed an hour or two
of TV a night. And it was on a news channel, an Arabic news channel, and
we saw Tom, a clip of Tom with a camera zooming in on him and then a
shot of a street. And it's at that point we suspected that perhaps he
had actually been killed. And this was March the 11th. We only knew for
sure when we were released.
AMY GOODMAN: James Loney, you're calling for forgiveness for your
captors. Do you believe that they should be tried? Do you believe that
they should be punished in any way, if found guilty?
JAMES LONEY: I, myself, have no desire for punishment. That means
nothing to me. That won't restore or repair anything. Iraqi society has
an interest in this matter and has an interest in law and order and
security for citizens there. The concern is, is that there is the death
penalty. There is a real lack of transparency. Time magazine reported,
you know, unofficially 90 executions, the names of the people and the
details of their crimes are not available. There is a lack of
transparency around this.
And I am concerned that -- about that aspect of it, but also that the
death penalty is part of this spiral of violence, you know, of actions
and reactions to violence that lead ultimately to self-destruction. That
is the logic of violence. And we went to Iraq to speak about peace and
to speak about a different way of being in the world, and we -- I
believe that forgiveness gives us this opportunity to imagine a
different kind of future.
Now, I know we are -- there are -- you know, we're working with reality.
You know, we don't have the kinds of institutions and systems in place
that might facilitate a restorative justice kind of outcome. But
nevertheless, it is important that at least there be some basic level of
clemency, I feel, in this situation. I think that there is a legitimate
-- punishment, in and of itself, for me has no legitimacy, but if there
is a need to protect society by withholding someone's liberty for a
period of time, in the interest of protecting society and in the
interest of perhaps facilitating some kind of rehabilitation or
restoration, that would have some legitimacy or some purpose. But
punishment, in and of itself, for me, does not.
AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to James Loney and Harmeet Singh Sooden, two
of the three members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams who spoke out
today in a news conference in London, calling for forgiveness for their
captors. Men have been arrested in Iraq. The trial, it is not clear when
it will be held. They are making their decision about whether to testify
at the trial. Harmeet, one of the things that's not known, as well,
about the Christian Peacemakers Team is that really it was your group
that was the first document abuse at Abu Ghraib. Were you personally
involved with that?
HARMEET SINGH SOODEN: Actually, I wasn't. I was only a short-term
delegate, which means I just volunteered, so I'm not a member of CPT. So
I was only supposed to be volunteering for two weeks.
AMY GOODMAN: And in terms of your captors, were they part of a group --
Shia, Sunni, a political group, insurgent, from out -- well, you
explained that they were Iraqi?
HARMEET SINGH SOODEN: Well, they -- it's difficult to be sure, but they
appeared to be Sunni. They appeared to belong to some sort of group, at
least for that duration. But we're bordering on speculation.
AMY GOODMAN: How have you recovered, after being held for 118 days, but
now having gone on now, this period, many months after you were freed?
HARMEET SINGH SOODEN: Well, I mean, I'm a university student, so I went
back to university a few months after being released. Obviously, this
experience is -- it's still at the forefront of my mind, and I still in
some ways feel captive, emotionally at least.
AMY GOODMAN: In what way?
HARMEET SINGH SOODEN: I feel -- at times I feel I have an obligation to
continue this sort of work, although that's not really -- it's a very
personal question. I would rather not answer it. Sorry.
AMY GOODMAN: And now, you will leave London, and you and James will
return to Canada?
HARMEET SINGH SOODEN: I actually live in New Zealand, so I'm a resident
in New Zealand, so I'll be returning there. Jim will go back to Toronto.
AMY GOODMAN: And when will your decision be made about whether you will
testify?
HARMEET SINGH SOODEN: That all depends on what new information comes to
light. And we're hoping the authorities will provide that as soon as
possible.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you very much for being with us,
Harmeet Singh Sooden, James Loney, two of the three Christian
Peacemakers who survived their kidnapping ordeal, speaking to us from
London, where they've just held a news conference.
+++
--------------------------
Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL
PROTECTED]
--------------------------
Brooks Isoldi, editor
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.intellnet.org
Post message: [email protected]
Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
*** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has
not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of
The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT
YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of
intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods,
techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other
intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes
only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material
as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use
this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,'
you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
