Cover
story One
in sorrow
By CLAIRE
SCHAEFFER-DUFFY
When Derrill Bodley looked at the
face of the Afghan mother, he felt an instant connection. Some sorrows, like
some joys, are universal and require no words.
The 56-year-old music professor from California had lost his only
child, his big-hearted daughter, on Sept. 11 when a hijacked United Airlines
Flight 93 crashed over southwest Pennsylvania. The dark-eyed mother before him
had lost her firstborn, a son and the family breadwinner, when a U.S. bomb
crashed through their home in late November. Her house, says Bodley, was
nowhere near a military target. Both victims were 20 years old.
I looked at her eyes, and she looked at mine and I know that
she saw I felt what she was feeling. Grief. Utter grief.
Apart from sharing the cruel fate of burying a child, the lives of
the two parents are dissimilar. She faces financial uncertainty. He does not.
Photos and poignant biographies of his daughter, Deora, have helped Americans
understand the significance of his loss and evoked remarkable generosity from
friend and stranger. Her sons death remains an obscure detail in a
faraway war.
Bodley met the bereaved mother during a recent trip to Kabul,
Afghanistan. From Jan. 16 to 23, he and three other family members of Sept. 11
victims toured the war-torn city, visiting Afghans whose loved ones died as a
result of U.S. bombing. In addition to Bodley, participants in this unusual
pilgrimage of compassion and reconciliation were Rita Lasar, whose brother Abe
Zelmanowitz died in Building One of the World Trade Center; Kelly Campbell,
sister-in-law to Craig Amundson, killed in the Pentagon attack; and Eva Rupp,
stepsister to Deora Bodley.
The victims-to-victims delegation was organized by the San
Francisco-based human rights organization, Global Exchange.
The delegates are now asking the U.S. government to establish a
compensation fund for innocent civilians affected by U.S. bombings. The idea,
they say, was inspired by a similar U.S. government fund, created for Americans
who lost family members in the 9/11 attacks. They want to share the wealth of
compassion they received with their Afghan counterparts. They also want
accountability for the bombing of Afghan civilians.
We owe it to them
The U.S. government should take responsibility for the
direct effect [of bombing] on these peoples lives, said Kelly
Campbell, in a news release announcing the proposal for the compensation fund.
We owe it to them to do what we can to help them rebuild their homes and
give their children health care and an education so they can get on with their
lives.
For the delegates, the arduous journey to Afghanistan was an
expression of their desire for peace and reconstruction rather than war. On
Oct. 7, the day the U.S. air war began, Lasar, a 70-year-old retired
businesswoman from New York, attended a peace rally in Manhattans Union
Square and spoke against retaliation.
Kelly Campbell, 29, a coordinator for environmental campaigns from
Oakland, Calif., traveled on behalf of her sister-in-law, Amber Amundson, widow
of Craig Amundson and the mother of two small children. Craig, a distinguished
military officer, entered military service for the purpose of maintaining peace
rather than waging war, his wife said. Amber Amundson and Craigs brother
Ryan became outspoken critics of military action almost immediately after the
attacks. Ryan said that he and his sister-in-law Amber have decided that
we will do all we can to spread the message of peace. This is what my brother
would have wanted, and it is something he has taught everyone in our
family.
Two days after his daughter died, Bodley, who teaches music at the
University of the Pacific in Stockton, Calif., composed a song in her memory
titled Steps to Peace for Deora, which he later performed at the
White House. Bodley gave President Bush a CD of his composition but said the
president didnt get that message. He thinks the steps to peace are
waging war.
The Kabul trip was the brainchild of Medea Benjamin, founding
director of Global Exchange. Founded in 1988, Global Exchanges stated
mission is the promotion of environmental, political and social justice
around the world. The organization sponsors people-to-people tours to
numerous countries including Colombia, India and Mexico and is now initiating
trips to Afghanistan. Benjamin said she, her 21-year-old daughter Arlen, and
two members of Global Exchange traveled throughout Afghanistan in late November
to assess the impact of the U.S. bombing campaign. We found all these
people had been hurt by U.S. bombs, she said, yet her efforts to report
her findings to the American media were completely ignored.
Frustrated, Benjamin began contacting family members of Sept. 11
victims and inviting them to go to Afghanistan. New Yorker Lasar was among the
first to say yes. For her, Benjamins invitation was an answer to
prayer.
Not in my brothers
name
Once we started our bombing -- which I had hoped would not
start as soon as it did -- I wanted to do something. But I didnt know
what. I knew people somewhere in the world were going to be hurt and killed. I
just didnt want that to happen. Not in my brothers name.
Abe Zelmanowitz, Lasars youngest brother, was on the 27th
floor when the first plane struck. Although he easily could have left the
building, he chose instead to remain with his friend, Ed Bayea, a quadriplegic,
until help arrived for both of them. The friends died together. Zelmanowitz was
55 years old.
In remarks made during the National Cathedral Prayer Service on
Sept. 14, President Bush praised Zelmanowitzs choice saying,
eloquent acts of sacrifices were part of our national
character. His compliment disturbed Lasar, who feared her
brothers death was going to be used to justify the killing of
innocents.
The delegates flew into Kabul from Peshawar, Pakistan, on a United
Nations plane. Several of the delegates said their eight-day stay in the
capital was an overwhelming immersion in destruction. The country has endured
23 years of war, Bodley said, leaving tremendous devastation.
According to his description, the road into Kabul from the airport is littered
with rusted tanks, sandbags encircling landmines and bomb craters 2 to 3 feet
in diameter. Entire districts of the city were in ruins like ghost
museums, he said.
The trips itinerary, planned by Global Exchange, included
visits to a hospital, a school and a tent city sheltering farmers unable to
return to their fields because cluster bombs were everywhere, said Lasar. Most
memorable, however, were the house-to-house visits with families affected by
the U.S. bombing.
For Rupp, 28, a federal employee with the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, the Kabul trip was her first encounter with
traumatized children. During one visit, she met a 6-year-old wearing diapers.
The boy seemed to have regressed to the age of 1-and-a-half to 2 years
old, and he had this expression on his face that was just so strained, so
tense. The trauma he observed -- family members dismembered by
bombs -- was similar to what people in New York would have seen and been
affected by, Rupp said.
The visits evoked conflicting feelings. She met Shakila Amiri, who
was both grief-stricken over the death of her 5-year-old daughter, Nazila,
killed by a U.S. bomb, and relieved at the removal of the Taliban. The
Taliban is not a regime that I would want to support, Rupp said.
They were incredibly repressive, guilty of horrible things. I dont
know if we could have gone about this a different way. But when youre
sitting looking at a person who lost an innocent child, its so hard to
say, Yes, we did the right thing.
The terrible things men do
The circumstances of Nazilas death were described in detail
in the New Zealand Herald, a daily newspaper. The child was killed Oct.
17 while playing in a building 20 yards from her home that was struck by a U.S.
bomb, according to the newspaper. The pilot may have been aiming for an army
base a mile away. Shwata, 3, and Sohrab, 6, were with their sister but managed
to escape harm. Both, however, saw the bulldozer remove their sisters
body and both still suffer nightmares.
Amriri, who spoke with the New Zealand Herald in advance of
the Americans visit, said she wanted to show her visitors photos of her
daughter and try to explain how sad we feel. Maybe they will talk about
the people they lost. It is a long way for them to come and also very kind of
them. We all suffer because of the terrible things men do.
Bodley said, We saw families that had lost several members
to U.S. bombing. Arifah Rahman lost her husband and five of her eight
children to U.S. bombs, according to Lasar. She was as distraught as any
human being I thought I would see.
Lasar, who witnessed the second plane crash into Building Two of
the World Trade Center and subsequently kept her living room blinds drawn
for weeks, said her job now is to get the U.S. government to recognize
the plight of people like Rahman. While in Kabul, she comforted the bereaved
mother and accompanied her to the gates of the American Embassy. The two women
handed a list, bearing the names of Rahmans dead children, to a U.S.
Marine and asked that it be given to U.S. chargé daffaires Ryan
Crocker.
On Jan. 29 and 30, Rupp and Benjamin, who accompanied the family
members to Afghanistan, visited 16 Congressional offices to discuss proposals
for an Afghan compensation fund. Delegates are requesting approximately $20
million from the U.S. government, according to a Global Exchange news release.
That figure is based on estimates of 2,000 claims at an average compensation of
$10,000 per claim.
The Congressional meetings went amazingly well, said
Benjamin. There was this sense that this is the right thing to do.
The conversations included ways to fund the request by adding it on to the
supplemental appropriations for 2002 or the appropriations bill for 2003, she
said. With either process, money would not be available for a year. To expedite
matters, the delegates could take their request directly to President Bush, who
could immediately allocate an amount for an Afghan compensation fund.
Congressman Tony Hall, D-Ohio, expressed interest in facilitating such a
meeting although his senior aide Deborah DeYoung said, I am not sure
were going to be the point people on this one.
Millions, not billions, for
Afghans
In fact, political will for establishing the fund remains to be
seen. In a news release, touting bipartisan support for the project, Global
Exchange said Congresswoman Carrie Meek, D-Fla., and Congressman John Cooksey,
R-La., had told the Kabul delegation they would sponsor a resolution
supporting the creation of an Afghan compensation fund. But aides in both
offices told NCR that their representatives had no such plans.
For Bodley, the discrepancy in funds for American and Afghan
victims is staggering. He calls U.S. contributions to Afghanistan m
money (millions) as opposed to the b money (billions) given
various funds established for the victims of Sept. 11. At the International
Conference for the Reconstruction of Afghanistan held in Tokyo Jan. 21 and 22,
the United States pledged $296 million of a total $1.8 billion pledged by other
countries. The United States amount is one third the amount pledged by
Japan, which had nothing to do with the war, said Bodley.
He is hoping for a grassroots campaign to assist with the
rebuilding of Afghanistan and he has confidence in the generosity of the
American public. This summer, he plans to return to the war-beleaguered
country. If a compensation fund is established, someone would have to document
what happened when the bombs fell. Bodley is willing to take on that job. He
is, in fact, willing to take on almost any job to help repair Afghanistan.
Give me a hammer and saw and Ill hammer and saw all day long,
he said.
In her conversations with family members of Sept. 11 victims,
Lasar said she never heard expressions of anger. I think we have no room
for anger. We are grieving. We are sorrowful. We need to find a way to make
this situation whole again.
Claire Schaeffer-Duffy is a freelance writer living in
Worcester, Mass.
National Catholic Reporter, February 15,
2002
|