National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee

War Tax Resistance Speakers Bureau

Kathy Kelly

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Kathy Kelly under arrest

Kathy Kelly, 55, of Chicago, IL, helped initiate the Voices in the Wilderness, a campaign to end the UN/US sanctions against Iraq.

For bringing medicine and toys to Iraq in open violation of the UN/US sanctions, she and other campaign members were notified of a proposed $163,000 penalty for the organization, threatened with 12 years in prison, and eventually fined $20,000, a sum which they’ve refused to pay.

Voices in the Wilderness organized 70 delegations to visit Iraq in the period between 1996 and the beginning of the “Operation Shock and Awe” warfare (March 2003). Kelly has been to Iraq twenty-four times since January 1996, when the campaign began.

In October 2002, Voices in the Wilderness declared their intent to remain in Baghdad, alongside Iraqi civilians, throughout a war they still hoped they could prevent. Kelly and the team stayed in Baghdad throughout the bombardment and invasion, and maintained a household in Baghdad until March, 2004. During 2007, she spent five months in Amman, Jordan, living amongst Iraqis who fled their homes and are seeking resettlement.

During the first two weeks of the Gulf War, she was part of a peace encampment on the Iraq-Saudi border called the Gulf Peace Team. Following evacuation to Amman, Jordan, (February 4, 1991), team members stayed in the region for the next six months to help coordinate medical relief convoys and study teams.

Kelly helped organize and participated in nonviolent direct action teams in Haiti (summer of 1994), Bosnia (August, 1993, December, 1992) and Iraq (Gulf Peace Team, 1991). In April of 2002, she was among the first internationals to visit the Jenin camp, where conventional military forces of the Israeli Defense Force had destroyed over 100 civilian homes, in the Occupied West Bank.

She and three companions from Voices were in Beirut, Lebanon, during the final days of the Israel-Hezbollah war in the summer of 2006 and subsequently reported from southern Lebanon following a ceasefire.

In 1988 she was sentenced to one year in prison for planting corn on nuclear missile silo sites. Kelly served nine months of the sentence in Lexington, KY, maximum security prison.

In the spring of 2004, she served three months at Pekin federal prison for crossing the line as part of an ongoing effort to close an army military combat training school at Fort Benning, GA.

Kelly has taught in Chicago area community colleges and high schools since 1974. From 1980 – 1986 she taught at St. Ignatius College Prep (Chicago, IL). She is active with the Catholic Worker movement and, as a pacifist and war tax refuser, having refused payment of all federal income tax for 25 years.

She currently helps coordinate the Voices for Creative Nonviolence campaign (www.vcnv.org).

Other Lands Have Dreams: from Baghdad to Pekin prison (2005) by Kathy Kelly is available through Counterpunch (www.counterpunch.org) or Voices for Creative Nonviolence, 1249 West Argyle, Chicago, IL 60640 773-878-3815

In a Time of Siege, a Peace Productions DVD about Voices in the Wilderness narrated by Studs Terkel is available from the Voices for Creative Nonviolence office, 1249 West Argyle, Chicago, IL 60640 773-878-3815.

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Articles, essays and interviews printed in:

The Sun, The Chicago Tribune Magazine, America, The National Catholic Reporter, Columbia Journal of International Affairs, The Link, Fellowship of Reconciliation Magazine, Lapis Magazine, The Jordan Times, The Washington Report on the Middle East, The Capitol Times, MERIP Magazine, Satya Magazine, Hope Magazine, Common Dreams website, Counterpunch website, Electroniciraq.net website, Voices In The Wilderness website, Voices for Creative Nonviolence website, and Antiwar.Com website

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