Public Meeting with Caoimhe Butterly - Gaza Eyewitness: Hell on Earth

dublin | rights, freedoms and repression | event notice Tuesday May 26, 2009 15:48 by Kev - IPSC (pers cap) info at ipsc dot ie 01 6770253

Public talk by Caoimhe Butterly : Central Hotel, Exchequer St, Dublin 2 - Thursday 4th June, 7pm.

Now Free Gaza Movement co-ordinator, as part on a nationwide speaking tour, Caoimhe will be speaking at a public meeting.

In 2001 she spent 10 days fasting in front of the offices of the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, in protest at the Irish government's decision to allow US warplanes to refuel at shannon Airport on their way to Afghanistan. She was arrested while trying to block the runway. She was on board the SS Dignity, an 18m yacht carrying three doctors, three tonnes of medical aid and peace activists from Cyprus to embattled Gaza when it was rammed by an Israeli warship, on 30-12-2008, in international waters about 90 nautical miles from the Gaza coast. Speaking from Lebanon to Irish Times reporter, Michael Jansen, she said the Israeli naval vessels had been tailing the Dignity for some time when one, without lights, rammed the yacht three times, damaging the hull on the port side and smashing the wheelhouse. “We had not been expecting this so far out,” she said. “We were not prepared, some of us were not wearing life vests.“They gave no radio warning, we were not asked to identify ourselves. [The attack] was very sudden, very aggressive. “After they rammed us they fired flares, spoke on the radio and threatened to shoot if we did not return to Larnaca. They said we were engaged in terrorist activity. We were afraid the boat would sink,”.

Caoimhe Butterly, who originally travelled to Gaza on the second siege breaking Free Gaza boat has been working closely with partners on the ground in Gaza over the last few months and will be speaking, as an eye witness, about Israeli war crimes and working with paramedics, journalists and farmers under fire in Gaza before, during and after the 2009 war.

During the recent Israeli attack on Gaza, Caoimhe was in densely populated areas when they were shelled with white phosphorous, bombed by F16s and subjected to missile attack from Israeli drone aircraft. The key message that she will be bringing is that people in Gaza want pressure for political change - particularly through the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign. The message is that aid work must be accompanied by campaigning to bring about justice and freedom from occupation. She will be mainly focussed on speaking to people about what she has witnessed in Gaza, and acting as a bridge to bring the messages from Palestinians inside Gaza to the outside world. She has developed close links with a number of developing grassroots projects in Gaza and has ideas about links which groups in Europe and elsewhere may want to develop.