100 flowers, 100 names: Remembering the Dead at Shannon airport

national | anti-war / imperialism | news report Friday March 17, 2006 18:00 by Margaret

A personal trip to Shannon airport to remember 100 people who have died as a result of the war

100 flowers, 100 names: Remembering the Dead at Shannon airport

Instead of travelling from Limerick to Dublin for the anti-war march I decided to spend some time doing things that made me feel more effectual - reading the Council of Europe and the Irish government’s report on illegal detention and rendition and deciding how I could follow up on the findings and discrepancies in these, catching up on the state of discussion and action in the Dail, Seanad, and associated committee etc. and visiting the airport to remember the lives that have been lost over the past three years and the role of Ireland and Shannon in the war.
Being opposed to the invasion of Iraq, the use of Shannon airport to facilitate the murder of the Iraqi people, and the illegal detainment and torture of people is not about politics or point scoring between political groups but about the suffering of real people. Sometimes I’ve felt that the real issues get lost at these type of marches and I really wanted to do something to remember those killed in Iraq in the last few years, to remind myself and others of the human lives involved.
So this morning I went to Shannon with 100 flowers, each bearing the name of 100 people who have been killed in Iraq. Each name was hand written from a list of civilians killed in Iraq (from IraqBodyCount.com) and a list of US military causalities. The 100 names and ages I wrote represented a tiny percentage of the true death toll. (Depending on what source you believe it ranged from 1 name represents 300 to 1,000.)
Most of the ground troops that have been in Iraq in the past few years have gone through Shannon airport. This is their last stop before they are set loose in a country where they can’t speak the language, don’t fully understand the culture and end up committing and witnessing horrific atrocities. Those who do make it home cannot but be psychologically scarred for life. And then there’s the Iraqi people who’ve suffered so cruelly for so many years – a modern functioning society that had been ruined by years of sanctions and war, cities where you never feel safe, where death and destruction is all around you, where you can’t protect yourself or your family or keep them safe, where every day might be your last.

(I didn’t have a digital camera so pictures to follow next week)

I laid a flower on each seat in the viewing gallery and in a few locations around the terminal building but I placed most of them in locations around the perimeter fence or the runway.

I thought about how the pain I’ve seen the death of a single family member cause…
And I thought of the parent of the 500,000 children who died as a result of sanctions in Iraq even before the US invasion

I thought of Kathy Kelly being fined $20,000 by a US judge for trying to bring much needed medical supply to Iraq to save the lives of some of these children

I thought about the Depleted Uranium and the legacy that will leave behind in Iraq

I thought about White Phosphorous raining down on Fallujah and the horror of having something burn through your skin and flesh that can’t be put out by water

I thought about the weapons that have passed through my local airport

I thought about the emergency landings of US military planes at Shannon

I thought about the chemical factory beside the runway…

I thought about the bravery of Kelly Dougherty and Jimmy Massey who have stood up and said “What I’ve done is wrong”

I thought about the military conscientious objectors like Kevin Benderman who now sit in US jails

I thought about those with loved ones in Iraqi prisons, held indefinitely without trial, never knowing if they will see them again

I thought about the people held at the Guantanamo camps and what it must do to a person to be treated with such inhumanity for so many years, what it must be like to be taken half way around the world to be locked up indefinitely, to never know if you’ll see your loved ones again, to know that the world lets this happen.

I thought about the long hot days in Iraq without electricity and water.

I thought about what it must have been like to live in Fallujah or Sumarra and have your city bombarded with air missiles

I thought about David Norris trying to get the Seanad to instigate a committee to investigate the presence of CIA planes involved in illegal detainment and transport at Shannon
And I thought about the Fianna Fail Senators who opposed the investigation…

I thought about the hundreds of thousands of young Americans who have sat on the runway at Shannon before going to kill and maim their fellow human beings many of whose only crime is being born in Iraq

I thought about Carmen Trotta, Frida Berrigan and others who walked through Cuba to get to Guantanamo Bay to protest at the treatment of prisoners there

I thought about the St Patrick’s Day Four, who are now in jail for a peaceful protest at a military recruiting station on this day three years ago

I thought of Rachel Corrie who was died three years ago yesterday when a member of the Israeli Defence Force ran her over in a bulldozer as she tried to protect the house of a doctor from being knocked down for no reason

I thought about the notion of what it is to be Irish and how disappointed I am at the way in which money has become more important than people’s lives

I thought about Eoin Dubsky spray painting that plane and seeing the news unfold on Indymedia before anywhere else.

I thought of the many people arrested at Shannon even though they had broken no laws

I thought of the prolonged round of court appearances many endured before charges were dropped.

I thought about how the actions I take won’t change things but I want to make damn sure people know this government does not represent me when it turns Shannon airport into a US military base and allows planes to pass the country that have been known to have been involved in illegal detainment and transport of people.

I thought about the many Priests and Nuns who have spent time in jail in the US for non-violent trespass and protest actions
And I think of the non-response from the Catholic Church in this country and the thousands of mass goers who turn a blind eye…

And I thought about the people who have made it their life’s work to become a voice for the voiceless in this world and who non-violently work to achieve for peace and justice for all

I thought about how lucky I am to have been born in Ireland and not Iraq....

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/names.php

http://icasualties.org/oif/Details.aspx