10th January 2003

In the ultimate peace protest, Gloucestershire Green Party anti-war campaigner and mother-of-four, Grace Trevitt intends to travel to Iraq and act as a 'human shield'. She hopes to join a delegation of other 'shields' organised by US Gulf War veteran Ken Nichols O'Keefe in an effort  to stop Britain and the US going to war.

It wont be the first time the 45-year old Grace has faced death. In 2001 she had a tumour removed from her lungs in an operation from which she was told she might not recover.

Grace said, "I have faced the fragility of my own existence. I know there is a very real possibility of losing one?s life. But I feel very strongly that to presume going to war is going to create any kind of stability and peace is about as naive as you can get. There are a huge number of people who feel desperately concerned about the vulnerability of ordinary people in Iraq. We want to let the Iraqi people know that we're not all on board with this war and we do care about them. there is no such thing as acceptable collateral damage. We are all citizens and we all matter."

The delegation Grace hopes to join have a visa to enter Iraq and will travel there overland leaving on 24th January.

O'Keefe, was in Stroud last week to speak to Grace and other members of the Stroud Peace Movement. He joined the US marines in 1989 and served in the Gulf War where he says he was exposed to the effects of depleted uranium in Iraq. He is so outraged by the Bush regime that he has renounced his American citizenship, saying that the War on Terror has become a War on Freedom "where the president is now allowed to murder anybody, anywhere without trial or charge and all they have to do is to be labelled a terrorist."

O'Keefe told the group, "This is not about supporting Saddam Hussein, as our governments did in the past. It is about saving the lives of those in our human family. we will be expressing to the Iraqi people the reality that most people in the West do not support this criminal war. And we will bring home to western publics the human cost of war."

O'Keefe says there has already been an overwhelming response, both from people who want to accompany him and from others offering support.

Stroud's Green Party mayor Cllr John Marjoram described Graces' deciscion as "one of the bravest things someone from this town has ever done. I'm very proud of her. It takes alot of courage to face up to a military power with direct non-violent action."

Philip Booth, Gloucestershire Green Party spokesperson said, "The Bush-Blair method of 'bombing for peace', is not the answer. Grace knows that. Most of us know that. It has already involved killing thousands of civilians in Afghanistan and thousands more in Iraq during the last dozen years. Now if we go to war there will be many more deaths. Let us hope the action by Grace Trevitt ,O'Keefe and the many others planning to go to Iraq as 'human shields'  will make Britain and the US think twice before bombing the people of Iraq. There are no moral, political or legal reasons for such a war.

"The inspectors have found no evidence that Saddam means to use weapons of mass destruction and there is no evidence that links Saddam to any international terrorist network. Far from promoting peace, the threat of war and the situation in Korea put us in the gravest global crisis since the end of the cold war.

"War cannot be relied to achieve a change in the ruling regime, but would inevitably result in thousands more deaths, and economic and environmental damage to Iraq, the wider region, and the global economy. It will also damage any broader international cooperation against terrorism, escalate to other countries and possibly lead to the use of weapons of mass destruction. There are alternatives. It is time we took them."

Notes for the editor:
For more information about Human Shield mission to Iraq log on to www.uksociety.org