Geneva Journal #5 From Leisa Faulkner

Dear Friends,

Now that I have learned I can live on only water (salt and vitamins) for eight days, I find myself thinking more often about those who fast without choice, which leads to thinking about those who haven't even the choice to live.

Rida, a transplant from Portugal to Mozambique plans on spending her life working in Africa providing dental care for handicapped children. She is here trying to get some sort of funding.

I asked her if she treats many children with Down Syndrome from the school she services.

"Only one", she sadly said.

I told her of my last trip to Haiti where I visited a home for handicapped children called "Wings of Hope". There I saw only one child with Down Syndrome. Since my youngest son Luke is diagnosed with this, I have spent countless hours in countless classes for kids with special needs. In the United States most of those children classified with special needs have Down Syndrome. In Haiti and in Mozambique these children have seemed to vanish.

In Haiti, the benefactor of the school told me that since this syndrome can be recognized at birth, those children are set out for the dogs, Rida told me simply that they kill them. Who really pay the cost of impoverishment?

The poverty level in Mozambique is slightly improved over Haiti, the average lower class worker being paid about $40 US a month. In Haiti, the average of all workers is $300 US a year. I wonder what is happening to children born with Down Syndrome now in Iraq.

I am blessed to have this opportunity (even without food) to meet the delegates that stay in this hostel. They come from many developing nations with hope of bringing back home to their countries. We gather in the cool of the evening (not until about 10pm) and talk largely of the United States.

We played last night on large bales of hay just rolled that afternoon, five of us from five countries running around the field like children. Then we sat, exhausted and relaxed before bed...we started to make plans for this weekend, some want to train into France (just an hour or two away), many could not go because they lacked visas.

"But you don't need a visa for France, I have been there before." I said thinking I was helping.

"You don't need a visa for France, the rest of us do." Mawakey said. "You see, there are two types of citizens in this world, those from the United States, and then everybody else."

Kia said, "Sure, if they are not nice to you they are afraid that the US will bomb them, like they do anybody who gets in their way."

Enver said he heard two people talking about the capitol of Israel, whether it was Tel Aviv or Jerusalem...he told them neither...it was Washington, DC. "Like the Roman Empire, your country is taking over the world".

I apologized on behalf of all of us who live in the United States. I have learned since coming here that we give less per capita (based on our GDP) for relief of developing countries than any other industrialized country in the world...wow...while I admit I am grateful to come home to constant electricity and safe water, a home I don't share with other families, free schools for my young children, a culture that didn't leave my Luke out for the dogs, more than enough food and a little too many choices in the mall...I am embarrassed that I have to apologize for being a citizen of a country I was raised to love.

With privilege comes responsibility. We cannot help that we were born into privilege, we can choose what we do with it. I know that sometimes it may feel like there are so many choices for kind hearted people who don't want to follow blindly the Bush agenda. Sometimes it may seem like too many things to have to weigh and consider. Really though, I learned when Luke was born, it is much more simple than that.

I was swept away in worry and concern for the dismal life I expected my new son would face, I thought of how his life would be as a different child, a teenager; I even worried what his quality of life would be like at age thirty-five. There were, it seemed so many decisions that needed to be made, and I was overwhelmed. My friend, John came by the hospital, and said,"Leisa, don't worry, there is only one decision you have to make right now...the only one you can ever possibly make, so forget all the rest. The only decision you CAN make is the next one, let the others go."

That I suppose is why I was climbing up on hay bales at twilight, barefoot and wearing a skirt, at the very first offer. I suppose that is why I am here in Switzerland, sun-baked and hungry, standing on the street holding a sign that reads, "A Fast for Economic Justice for Iraq... Day 8" And, I suppose, I wouldn't trade it for anything that I could have bought in the mall.

peace, leisa

Below is a press release that went out yesterday...they were kind enough to quote me, if you want some background on what the heck we are doing here.

For Immediate Release Contact:
June 22, 2005 Jeff Leys:+41-076-5327845
Kathy Kelly:+41-076-4203126
Leisa Faulkner: leisafaulkner [at] hotmail.com

A Call for the Cancellation of All Odious Debt
Issued by Fast for Economic Justice for Iraq

Geneva, Switzerland, June 21. This week the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development is meeting in Geneva to discuss issues of external debt that impoverished countries around the world are forced to pay. The debt crisis in Iraq is a central point of discussion during todays session.
Nine international social justice activists enter the 8th day without food in Geneva, New York and Amman demanding economic justice for Iraq.
They demand that the odious debt incurred by Saddam Husseins government be cancelled outright and without any economic conditions attached to the cancellation.
Fasters contend that most of the debt incurred by Saddam Husseins regime is odious debt. Debt claims against Iraq would be submitted to an international arbitration tribunal which would determine whether the debt is odious whether it was incurred by Saddam Husseins regime to advance his own interests at the expense of the Iraqi people and whether it was incurred without the consent of the Iraqi people. All such odious debt would be cancelled.
The Fast for Economic Justice for Iraq demands that debt cancellation for Iraq be provided without economic conditions attached. Those participating in the fast strongly oppose any of the structural readjustment programs which normally are attached by the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and other international financial institutions. These policies promote austerity measures under which the poorest people suffer the most.
Members of the Paris Club have agreed to forgive eighty percent of Iraqs debt, but only with conditions attached, says Jeff Leys, a member of Voices in the Wilderness who is engaged in the fast. But only the first thirty percent would be forgiven without conditions. The remaining fifty percent requires that Iraq adopt and then fulfil conditions imposed by the International Monetary Fund. Even that first thirty percent could arguably be said to represent only a portion of the interest on the debt which built up after 1991 when the imposition of economic sanctions precluded Iraq from making any debt service payments.
The economic injustice created by the external debt crisis must end. We are calling for unconditional cancellation of Iraqs odious debt to help alleviate the peoples suffering. Iraqs external debt should not be talked about in terms of forgiveness because the Iraqi people had no say in the loans and received no benefits from them. They do not owe and should not have to pay, states Rita Jankowska-Bradley of Jubilee USA Network.
It is unconscionable that the Iraqi people, who have suffered the most at the murderous hand of Saddam Hussein, now as they are beaten and broken be asked to pay off the very loans he made to oppress them and attack others, says Leisa Faulkner, of Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) and founder of Coalition for Democracy in Haiti.
Participants in the Fast for Economic Justice for Iraq maintain a daily vigil, from 9:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., at the Pregny entrance to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.
Those going without food from June 15 to June 30 include: Kathy Kelly, co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness and two time Noble peace prize nominee; Justin Alexander, of Jubilee Iraq (fasting in Amman); Rita Jankowska-Bradley, Board Member of Jubilee USA Network, a founder of Jubilee Missoula, and member of the Montana Peace Seekers Network; Leisa Faulkner, founder of Coalition for Democracy in Haiti, member of Progressive Democrats of America, and organizer with School of the Americas Watch; Cathy Breen, member of the New York City Catholic Worker Community who has travelled to Iraq numerous times and was present in Baghdad when U.S. occupation forces entered the city; Cynthia Banas, who lived in Iraq in solidarity with Iraqis from October 2002 to May 2003, before and during the U.S. led invasion of Iraq and during the initial weeks of the U.S. occupation of Iraq; Farah Marie Mokhtareizadeh, who also was a member of the Iraq Peace Team; Jeff Leys, organizer with Voices in the Wilderness; and Paul Frazier, a member of the Catholic Worker Movement who is fasting outside the U.N. in New York City.