Starving for Peace

Fast break: After a month subsisting on
juice, Ed Kinane is home awaiting a July 7 court date in Washington,
D.C., site of his latest war protest. MICHAEL DAVIS PHOTO

For Kinane, the personal sacrifice is an
example set for what he sees as an apathetic public. “There is a
desperate need to wake this country up,” he said. “Few people are
making personal sacrifices for this war, which is a shame since so much
damage has been done. They’re squandering our national treasure,
soiling our name around the world. Americans are losing life and limb,
being maimed in spirit and physically. Tens, if not hundreds, of
thousands of Iraqis are dying and have been victims through this whole
thing from Saddam to the occupation.”

Kinane’s personal sacrifice was a 41-day
fast sponsored by Voices for Creative Non-Violence (formerly called
Voices in the Wilderness) coupled with daily vigils held near the
Capitol, the White House and the Pentagon. He also joined nearly every
other anti-war action happening in the D.C. area and got arrested twice
during his stay, once for climbing barriers to get on Pentagon grounds
in pursuit of a meeting with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and
again for sneaking into and disrupting a House Appropriations Committee
meeting.

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Kinane was not arrested when he
teamed with the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition for a
“ghost walk” through a congressional office building wearing an orange
jumpsuit, hood and mouth gag that read “torture.” He entered the
building wearing normal clothing while a colleague carried a backpack
containing the outfit. He then changed in a restroom and was met by the
guide who had to walk him through the halls since the mask obscured his
vision. Kinane said several others from TASSC did the same in different
office buildings and no arrests were made, although several were
stopped.

Kinane himself was never even stopped,
which he chalks up to the guards turning a blind eye. “{TASSC} had a
press conference beforehand so, of course, security was tipped off, but
they knew we had the ear of the press and, of course, they knew I was
there,” he explained.

Neither did police snatch him while he
protested outside the Capitol complex with Banas and a core group of
about five other fasting members of VCNV, since they had a permit to be
there. “We had a permit to be on a particular block at the edge of the
Capitol building complex but we sort of preferred not to have a
permit,” he added. “That first day we kind of took over our turf on the
other side of the street. There were three separate contingents of cops
coming over to tell us we were being inappropriate. We just had to
stand our ground and say ‘First Amendment.’ We have our right to
assemble, to express ourselves, so buzz off. And they backed off so we
won that early battle.”

The group continued to hold daily vigils
from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. on their “turf” and joined other groups such
as Catholic Workers and Quakers in similar vigils. Kinane said they
chose that particular spot because it was “where we hoped to influence
the most congresspeople. At that spot we would see plenty of them.” The
juice-only fast, which Kinane said is much easier than the water-only
fast some embarked upon, began Feb. 15, the third anniversary of a
major international protest against the war, and it ended March 19, the
third anniversary of the start of the Iraq war. 

On March 20, Kinane and Banas joined
hundreds more war protesters who walked to the Pentagon to request a
meeting with Rumsfeld. Pentagon police were waiting for the group, and
Kinane was one of 51 arrested climbing over and under barricades to get
onto Pentagon grounds. He has a July 7 date in federal court in
Virginia, but expects the judge may dismiss the charges since he
realizes the protesters may push for costly trials instead of pleading
guilty.

Kinane and a few others decided to
extend their fast to March 28 since Kinane and activist Mike Ferner had
an arraignment in Washington, D.C., Superior Court that date for their
actions in a House Appropriations Committee session. Ferner, a Vietnam
veteran from Toledo, Ohio, wanted to make a statement in front of
representatives about the cost of the war and, with the help of his
congresswoman, he gained admittance to the supposedly public meeting.
Kinane slipped in later during a dinner break. 

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As Rep. Jim Walsh (R-Onondaga) began
discussing an amendment to a bill about veterans’ medical care, Ferner
stood up and began shouting about the lives lost in the war and reading
the names of Iraqi and American dead. Kinane said he stood to unfurl a
banner that read “Stop the Killing” but security immediately grabbed
him. The judge let both go with time already served.

Kinane said it’s hard to judge how
effective the actions were but he hopes they raised awareness among
passers-by and Congress. Besides a 20-pound weight loss, Kinane quit
his fast with a sense that even if U.S. troops come home, not all
wrongs will be righted. “A theme for me is that even if the troops come
home, we still owe the Iraqi people so much,” he noted. “And even if
they pull troops, the air war may continue which people don’t realize
takes the most lives over there. Because of sanctions and the invasion
and now the occupation, we owe them so much.”

—Justin Park