Jeff Leys
Jeff Leys, 40, traveled to Iraq with the Iraq Peace Team project organized by Voices in the Wilderness. He spent the month of February 2003 in Iraq with ordinary Iraqi civilians, saying, “It seemed to me that we need to have people over there who can experience what the Iraqi people are experiencing and then bring their voices back to the United States.” He returned to Iraq in November of 2003 with a delegation from Christian Peacemaker Teams, an effort of the historic peace churches, to witness the aftermath of this war and return to the United States. Having stood with the occupied and the war-torn, Jeff offers nothing less than an honest, realistic perspective on the current occupation and war.
Leys has long been involved in social justice work, dating back to his years in high school when he was active in opposing the renewal of registration for the draft in 1980 and the US war in Central America. His peacemaking efforts are a three-decade vocation in nonviolent witness and direct actions. Active around the ELF campaign in the mid-80’s, he and others disarmed ELF (Extra Low Frequency) transmitters, which send low frequency signals to coordinate a nuclear first-strike and missile attacks, in 1985. From ‘88-‘92, when American Indians in northern Wisconsin began to exercise their treaty rights regarding hunting and fishing, Leys and members of the Witness for Nonviolence campaign, maintained a nonviolent presence at the docks. They also interpositioned themselves between American Indians and armed agitators who threatened Native fishermen with violence for exercising their treaty rights.
Until recently, he worked as a union representative for SEIU District 1199 Wisconsin representing health care workers. He left that position to work full time with Voices in the Wilderness and to build opposition to the ongoing war against Iraq and the export/expansion of U.S. global militarism. Jeff Leys joined the Wheels of Justice tour shortly after serving a prison sentence for an action at ELF. He is currently coordinating the “Life Under Occupation†project for Voices in The Wilderness.
This is Jeff Leys’s second Wheels tour.