Sept. 11 Families Call For Aid to Afghanistan
By Kate Schuler
A group of families of victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks
called on members of Congress today to set up a $20 million fund to aid victims of
the U.S.-led bombing campaign in Afghanistan.
"My brother happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time," said
Colleen Kelly, 39, whose brother died in the World Trade Center Attack. "There
are people in the same situation in Afghanistan -- in the wrong place at the wrong
time. A demonstration of our love and support to those people is one of the most
powerful weapons we have in this country."
Kelly and three other family members of Sept. 11 victims said at a Capitol Hill press
conference that they hope to spur creation of a federal fund like the one set up
for victims of the terrorist attacks. That fund offers compensation to anyone injured
or to the relatives of anyone killed, as long as the recipients waive their right
to sue.
The Pentagon has said civilians were never deliberately targeted during the bombing
in Afghanistan, but has acknowledged that some bombs caused civilian casualities.
The U.S. bombing came in response to the attacks that killed more than 3,100 people
in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania.
The speakers said their appeal was the result of a nine-day trip to Afghanistan taken
by four family members of Sept. 11 victims. The visit was sponsored by Global Exchange,
a San Francisco-based organization active in human rights and globalization protests.
Eva Rupp, 28, whose step-sister Deora Bodley was aboard the United Airlines flight
that crashed in Pennsylvania, said she has mixed emotions about the war in Afghanistan.
"I remain really conflicted because I don't believe the Taliban was a regime
that was legitimate. The people that I talked to were grateful they were gone,"
Rupp said.
"All politics aside the trip was about looking at people who were suffering
and wanting to help them," she said.
Kelly Campbell, a 29-year old environmental activist from Oakland, Calif., recalled
that the bombing of Afghanistan began on the same day as a memorial service for her
brother-in-law, 28-year-old Craig Amundson, who was killed in the Pentagon attack
"I knew that day was someone else's Sept. 11," she said.
Campbell showed a picture of a 25-year-old woman whose house, she said, had been
destroyed by a U.S. bomb. "It killed her mother and seven members of her family.
We met so many families who are suffering," she said.
Family members also talked about the trip as a healing process and as a way of remembering
the lives of their loved ones.
Rupp said she was inspired to make the trip to Afghanistan by the life her step-sister
led. She recalled her step-sister as a "helper" and said Deora, a 20-year-old
junior at Santa Clara University, had planned to be a child psychologist. "She
was someone who wanted to help people who were suffering."
Rupp said that a poem Deora wrote in her childhood journal, which her family found
after her death, cemented her decision to go to Afghanistan. The poem reads "People
ask who, what, when, where, how and why. I ask peace."
© 2002 Washington
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