The Human Shield Movement

Remarkably all this was achieved. Buses were procured and painted, a website was set-up and human shield volunteers started to come forward. There were press conferences and delegations to Downing Street and interviews with every major news network in the world. 

As the buses crossed Europe picking-up more shields en route, efforts were made to capitalize on the publicity and ensure that the human shield project was broadened. An office was set up in Amman and two more groups of shields flew from London to Iraq via Jordan. The week after the convoy’s departure there were over 60,000 hits on the human shield website and over 1,000 enquiries about becoming shields. Human shield organizations sprouted around the world in France, Italy, Spain, Slovenia, America, Australia, India, South Africa, Mexico, Argentina, New Zealand, Korea, and Japan. 

The convoy encountered numerous difficulties; mechanical and logistical problems were compounded by stormy clashes of personality. Despite the difficulties, the convoy rolled into Baghdad to a tumultuous welcome. Once there, however, further tensions arose, this time with their Iraqi hosts. Sites for the shields deployment had not been determined prior to the shields’ arrival and it soon became apparent that sites would be selected by Iraqi government officials wary of infiltration by Western spies. After two weeks of heated discussion, the shields were given a list of seven sites and an ultimatum to “start shielding or start leaving.” The sites were all civilian infrastructure facilities including water treatment facilities, power stations and food silos, and were fully in keeping with the expressed objective of the shield group. 

The need to work closely with the Iraqi government was not something many of shield volunteers felt comfortable with. Some felt that the list delivered by the officials compromised their autonomy. Others felt that they would rather be deployed in schools, hospitals, and orphanages. These shield volunteers left Iraq. The rest took up residence at the sites, a list of which was sent to the Joint Chiefs of Staff together with a request that they recognize that targeting these sites would be in violation of Article 54 Protocol Additional to the Geneva Convention. There was no response to the letters and in the early hours of March 18, the Al Durah power station, home to 23 shield volun- teers, was hit by a bomb. 

At its peak the total of shield volunteers in Baghdad numbered about 500, but the realization that the thousands needed to have a chance of stopping a blitz on Baghdad had not materialized, combined with the failure of the United Nations to forestall war, meant that bombing was imminent. Many of the shields chose to stay; many others chose to leave. Still others, like O’Keefe, were ordered out by the Iraqi government. In an ironic and tragic twist, 21-year-old human shield, Tom Hurndall, left Baghdad for reasons of safety. He went to Palestine where he was shot in the head by an Israeli sniper while working with the International Solidarity Movement.  

As war drew nearer, the British media started to become more critical. The list of sites where the shields were to be deployed were frequently described as “military installations” and, while stories of shields leaving Iraq were widely reported, the fact that a substantial number remained and that new shields were joining them daily, was ignored. On March 3, BBC news ran a story on the double-decker buses leaving Baghdad, “filled with last disillusioned human shields.” In reality, there were total of 4 people on the buses and over 150 shields still in Baghdad. Approached with a story about shield volunteers taking up residence in a food storage facility, one journalist responded: “Human shields? We’re bored of them. Call me when one of them gets killed.” 

Fortunately none of the 80 shields who stayed in Baghdad throughout the war were killed or injured. None of the sites where they were residing were destroyed. They were afforded freedom of movement by the government and treated with great warmth by the Iraqi people, but largely ignored by the media. This impression that all the shields had fled not only undermined the effectiveness of the action, but also led to ridicule. Rather than being portrayed as brave and selfless, the shields were instead caricatured as naïve and cowardly peaceniks. 

What, if anything, went wrong with the human shield action to Iraq? The media can be blamed for the perception that the movement had failed, but cannot be held responsible for actual failures. The ability of the human shield movement to prevent war relies on numbers. The shield volunteers were under no illusions. They knew that it would take more than a few hundred Western human shields to stop a war. However, they felt that the longer war was averted and the borders remained open, the number of shield volunteers would grow. With numbers would come greater safety and more people would be emboldened to join. A critical mass might thereby be reached. 

If there were thousands rather than hundreds of human shields then the generals would be forced to factor a new type of collateral damage into their calculations. The reason this did not happen had much less to do with the paucity of the idea than it did to do with the lack of time in which to organize and mobilize. 

Although the human shields failed to prevent the bombing of Baghdad, evidence suggests that they were successful in shielding the sites at which they were deployed. All the sites where the shields were deployed were bomb- ed early in the first Gulf War. This time, only one of the sites was mildly damaged. On the day after human shields left, the telecommunications center in Baghdad was bombed. In Basra where there were no human shields, water and power were hit in the first days of the war. Coincidence or an indication that the human shields had some effect? 

The speed and ferocity with which the human shields were condemned by the governments of Britain and the U.S. and by the right-wing media is another indicator of the impact of the movement. On the day after the departure of the convoy, White House Chief of Staff, Andrew Card, released a statement condemning the action and “Fox News” reported that U.S. leaders were considering prosecuting U.S. human shields for war crimes. 

In May, Faith Fippinger and Ryan Clancy returned from Baghdad to find letters from the U.S. Treasury Department informing them that they are liable to fines of between $10,000 and $1,000,000 or 12 years in prison for violating U.S. sanctions. The sanctions, which have now been partially lifted, prohibited American citizens from engaging in “virtually all direct or indirect commercial, financial or trade transactions with Iraq.” It is highly unlikely, however, that the tiny purchases made by Clancy and Fippinger are the type of “trade” that the sanctions were intended to prevent. The fines  are not the routine enforcement of regulations, but a politically motivated effort to punish dissent. Last July, in a similarly punative action, the U.S. government sued Voices in the Wilderness, a Chicago group that has delivered medicine to Iraq since 1996 in violation of the regulations, which allow humanitarian aid, but only by those granted a license. 

Human shields are not a new concept, but the scale and impact of the recent movement was unprecedented. Combining the idealism and solidarity of the International Brigades with the principles of non-violent direct action, the human shield movement is the latest in a long tradition of protest. The impact of the human shields on this conflict may be questioned, but their significance in the history of protest can not. Whether a one-time act of defiance or the birth of a wider movement remains to be seen, but we should never doubt the power of thoughtful, committed citizens to change the world: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. 

Stefan Simanowitz co-founded and coordinated the Human Shield Action to Iraq. For more information, contact simanowitz@ fsmail.net.