Wheels of Justice

Kathy Kelly, 52, is Co-Coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence (VCNV). Kathy’s work focuses upon ending the war in Iraq, in both its military and economic forms. Long active in peace team efforts, Kathy participated in the Gulf Peace Team (1991); Bosnia (1992-93); and Haiti (1994). In 1996, she co-founded Voices in the Wilderness, a campaign of civil disobedience to challenge U.S.-U.N. economic sanctions imposed against Iraq. Kathy traveled over 20 times to Iraq to build personal relationships and to challenge U.S. policies (over 70 VITW delegations traveled to Iraq from 1996 to 2003). In the summer of 2005, VITW was fined $20,000 for bringing medicine to Iraq without permission of the U.S. government (a fine which VITW refused to pay). Kathy was present in Iraq, living in solidarity with Iraqi citizens, during shock-and-awe at the start of the 2003 U.S. invasion and was present in Baghdad when the first U.S. soldiers reached the center of the city. Kathy in a long time tax resister and served federal prison sentences for nonviolently resisting U.S. nuclear warfare policies in the 1980’s and the School of the America’s in 2004. Kathy is the author of Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison. In 2005 and 2006 Kathy spent time in Amman Jordan meeting Iraqi refugees living there. In June 2006 Kathy traveled to northern Iraq to meet with the NGO, Emerency. In August 2006 Kathy joined other internationals in an effort to bring humanitarian aid to civilians in southern Lebanon.