24-hour vigil in Denver decries war

Hussein a U.S. ruse, Islamic leader says

By Karen Rouse

Denver Post Staff Writer

Sunday, December 01, 2002 - The Bush administration is using Saddam Hussein to distract Americans from the slumping economy, poverty and its failure to catch Osama bin Laden, the spiritual leader of a local mosque told peace activists Saturday morning.

President Bush declared Hussein “an evil man - just in time for the November election,” Ibrahim Kazerooni, imam of the Islamic Center of Ahl-Al-Beit, told about 50 people gathered at Civic Center. It left the public asking why, Kazerooni said.

Then Americans were subjected to a public relations machine that said war on Iraq is necessary to free the Iraqi people and protect the world from weapons of mass destruction, he said.

The imam was among several speakers to participate in a 24-hour peace vigil to voice opposition to a possible war with Iraq.

The overnight event, organized by Rocky Mountain Buddhist Peace Fellowship, drew about 150 people between Friday and Saturday. About a dozen braved frigid temperatures and slept in the park Friday night as part of the protest.

Greg Cicciu was among them.

“It was cold. It was quiet. It was a lot of communion, a lot of sharing,” Cicciu said. He participated “to show our commitment that peace is not a part-time thing.”

“I haven’t heard that if the war takes place, the sanctions would be lifted,” Cicciu said. With war, he said, “there will be a lot more deaths of Iraqi people.”

Saturday’s events, which included meditation, selected readings and a yoga session, ended at noon.

“We don’t believe President Bush or (Vice President Dick) Cheney will say, ‘Oh, these people in Denver did a peace rally. We’re not going to have a war,’ ” organizer Nancy Peters said.

But she said she wants “the city and the country and the world to know there are people in the Denver area that are so committed.”

Pat McCormick, a 67-year-old activist, said a war would be about oil and domination rather than freeing people from a dictator. “It shows our racism and sense of superiority,” McCormick said. “We always destroy in order to dominate."

McCormick, who was arrested in a farm worker protest in 1973 and again in a 1983 protest at the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons site west of Denver, said the solution is dialogue, “to talk with those whom you consider your enemy.”

"If we continue to eliminate those with whom we have enmity, there are bound to be repercussions.”

Peters agreed, saying a U.S.-led war attack on Iraq would result in further terror against Americans.

“That will happen because we are attacking … another Muslim nation,” she said. “It’s just going to inflame people in those parts of the world to join the terrorists.”

Kazerooni, an Iraqi native, estimated that as many as 160 Iraqi families live in the Denver area.

He said America’s approach in Iraq - “if you don’t like the regime, you just walk in and change it” - frightens other nations.

War has never created stability in a country, Kazerooni said. Rather, he said, change must come from the people within. “History has shown us that any stable regime has been from passive resistance - without war,” he said.

The city prohibited them from sleeping in the park.

Anti-war demonstrators used duct tape to hang posters on trees. Candles rested on a table, along with buddhist symbols and quotes from famous peace activists like Mohandes Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

The economic sanctions imposed on Iraq following the 1990 invasion of Kuwait have been criticized as being more harmful to Iraqi civilians that to Saddam Hussein.

Despite opposition and anti-war demonstrations throughout the U.S. and the world, Kazerooni said he believes the administration has already decided to attack Iraq.

Still, he challenged peace rally onlookers to question the government’s push toward war. “We owe it to future generations not to just accept anything,” he said.

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