|
At Christmas Mass in Baghdad, worshippers pray for peace
USA Today
December 24, 2002
|
Essays and Articles about and by Coloradoans part of the
2002-2003 Iraq Peace
Team
1/3/03:
Boulder couple working to avoid war with Iraqis -- Sandra Fish, Boulder
Daily Camera
12/28/02:
At
Christmas Mass in Baghdad, worshippers pray for peace -- USA Today
12/27/02:
Dangers
of an invasion of Iraq are real -- Coloradoan Elizabeth Roberts in Iraq,
Rocky Mountain News
12/26/02:
Letter From Baghdad--Elizabeth Roberts* of the Iraq Peace
Team, Denver Post Guest Commentary
12/23/02:
Letter to a Warrior
-- Coloradoan Elias Amidon in Iraq, Iraq Peace Team
12/22/02: How We Spend Our Days:
Letter from the
Road in Iraq -- Coloradoan Elizabeth Roberts, CommonDreams.org
12/13/02: Coloradoan Writes from Iraq:
The Work of Making
Miracles
-- Elizabeth Roberts in Baghdad
12/8/02:
“I just
want us to be friends again,” -- Iraqi man, Interview with Coloradoans in
Iraq, KGNU Radio
11/28/02: AUDIO
Report from Coloradoans in Iraq
Peace Team -- High Country Community Radio Coalition
11/27/02:
A
Coloradoan Writes from Iraq: Flying in the No-Fly Zone -- Elias Amidon,
Iraq Peace Team
11/12/02
Letters From The Road #1--by Elias Amidon (Gulf Peace Team
Delegate from CO), Bagdad, Iraq
11/2/02:
Peace
activists to view life in Iraq: Couple hope to stay 2 months, promote nonviolent
solution -- Katie Kerwin Mccrimmon, Rocky Mountain News
|
BAGHDAD, Iraq — More than 100 Christians and peace
activists gathered at a Catholic church in Iraq's capital for Christmas
Eve Mass Tuesday, offering special prayers that war can be avoided.
"We're here to pray and sing for peace," said
Elias Amidon, 58, a professor of environmental studies from Colorado.
"The world has many diplomatic and nonviolent means to solve its
differences."
With fears building that America will wage war on
Iraq, Amidon and other members of the U.S. and British-based Iraq Peace
Team have traveled to Baghdad to call for a peaceful solution to the
crisis and the lifting of harsh economic sanctions imposed on Iraq since
the 1991 Gulf War.
Officials at tiny St. Rafael's Catholic Church,
where about 120 people attended the service, said the Christian
community in Iraq tries its best to celebrate Christmas.
Iraqi children shared their fears of war.
"Of course I'm afraid, but I'll pray for peace,"
12-year-old Iraqi girl Zeina Shamuel told The Associated Press as
worshippers sang: "The people living in the night, will see the long
awaited light."
Christians represent about 5% of Iraq's 22
million population and live mainly in Baghdad and the north. Iraq is
predominantly Muslim and officially secular.
In a televised Christmas Eve message, Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein said his country was ready to fight a holy war
against the United States.
Saddam said the world was entering a new year
"under unique circumstances ... which have been manufactured by the
forces of evil and darkness in order to create a situation of
instability, chaos and tension."
The Iraqi leader used his address, read out by a
television announcer, to again reject U.S. and British claims that his
regime possesses weapons of mass destruction.
Saddam also said his regime wanted to cooperate
with U.N. weapons inspectors conducting almost daily searches in Iraq to
verify Baghdad no longer possesses chemical, biological or nuclear arms.
"We are confident that the outcome of the (U.N.)
inspection operations will be a big shock to the United States and will
expose all the American lies," Saddam's statement said. |