Friday, December 26, 2003
Her path to peace is in harm's way
Orange County activist Radhika
Sainath, 25, goes to West Bank danger spots in the name of
nonviolence.
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FROM THE FRONT LINES OF HER CAUSE: Peace activist
Radhika Sainath, 25, of Newport Beach recently returned
from the West Bank. She is awaiting word on the
status of her lawsuit against the Israeli government
for false imprisonment.
EUGENE GARCIA, THE ORANGE
COUNTY REGISTER
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By DENNIS FOLEY
The Orange County Register
Radhika Sainath knows she isn't bulletproof.
But she says she's had cocked and loaded
M-16 rifles pointed at her head.
She isn't impervious to tear gas.
But she says she has experienced its
choking effects dozens of times.
She was raised comfortably in Newport
Beach.
But she has been jailed and interrogated
more than once in Israel.
All, she says, in pursuit of peace.
Sainath, 25, recently returned from Israel,
where for most of the past year she has worked as a volunteer
for the International Solidarity Movement amid the war-zone
conditions of the West Bank, contested by Israel and Palestinians.
She believes it is her responsibility
– inspired by stories from her parents of Mohandas Gandhi's
nonviolent movement to achieve independence in their home
country, India – to go where violence is a daily threat
to demonstrate the power of nonviolence.
That's why she's been working in the
West Bank villages, organizing demonstrations and hoping her
presence will lessen the chances that civilians are harmed
as Israelis and Palestinians clash.
Radhika
Sainath, 25 |
Home:
Newport Beach
Education: Corona del Mar High School graduate in 1996;
University of California, San Diego, graduate in 2000;
as part of international studies program, spent a year
in Madrid, Spain
Activities: Organized textile workers in East Coast factories
and Los Angeles garment district for a union; spent time
in Mexico observing 2000 election and in Chiapas to watch
for human-rights abuses of indigenous villagers; volunteered
last year with the International Solidarity Movement in
the West Bank. |
"I think it's really important that people
do their part to change the world," she said last week via
cell phone from Tel Aviv. "If people just sit in their living
rooms or on the beach and don't pay attention to what's happening
in the world around them and how the government and their
tax dollars are affecting people on the outside, they have
responsibilities for what the government is doing."
SINCERE BUT MISGUIDED?
The Israeli government calls volunteers
like Sainath sincere in their beliefs, but misguided.
"They have good intentions. They believe
they are fighting for a good cause. But they are being cynically
used by a Palestinian-led organization," said Zvi Vapni, Israel's
deputy consul general in the Los Angeles Consulate.
"It's really a shame when their lives
are endangered. We are sorry for their families."
Some volunteers have been killed by placing
themselves between Israeli forces and Palestinians.
Earlier this year, U.S. citizen Rachel
Corrie was buried by an Israeli bulldozer as she got between
it and a home that Israelis were knocking down because they
believed it was being used by those they consider terrorists,
such as suicide bombers.
Corrie's death was "an unfortunate accident,"
said Justin Levi, director of media relations for the Consulate
General of Israel in Los Angeles.
"They were told not to be there. They
were told it was unsafe," he said.
As Israelis literally build walls around
Palestinian villages, Sainath said she believes the risks
of serving the cause of nonviolence as a means to independence
are worth it.
GETTING PEOPLE INVOLVED
"My experiences have solidified my belief
in nonviolence as a powerful tool against injustice," she
said. She has been among scores of volunteers who have put
themselves in harm's way on Israel's West Bank and Gaza territory
amid the suicide bombings, military reprisals and daily events
that can erupt into violence.
Volunteers have been called human shields,
but Sainath prefers to say she "accompanies" Palestinian civilians
in the hopes she can protect their rights.
Like the students and teachers she accompanied
home from school when curfews had been imposed. Or the Palestinian
farmers she accompanied to harvest olives in their fields,
which had been declared off-limits by authorities.
"She was a very good organizer, very
good with people and very level-headed," said Flo Razowsky,
a volunteer from Chicago who worked for months as Sainath's
partner in the area around Tulkarem, a city of about 80,000.
"There's not anyone who wouldn't get
nervous with tanks around and constant gunfire, but she thought
it was important to stay calm. She helped people to not be
afraid. And she worked very hard to get women involved, because
the women are strong but not heard very often. And, hopefully,
their presence at demonstrations lessens the violence."
Sainath believes the volunteers have
been able to reduce violence by their presence.
"As an American, you often are treated
so much better here," she said. "I can often go through checkpoints
without as much difficulty. I've seen a wide range of attitudes
from individual Israeli soldiers.
"Some say, 'Oh, you're from California.
That's cool.' Other times, they get angry and think we are
here to make trouble. Some ask if we are Muslims. Others say
what a good job (the United States) did in Iraq."
The Israeli government, she believes,
doesn't want its image to be one of harming peace demonstrators.
ARRESTED THREE TIMES
Still, she was arrested three times in
Israel – twice, Vapni said, for "interfering."
The third time was Dec. 4, when she was
picked up by Israeli immigration police in Tel Aviv.
The events that led to her most recent
arrest began in November 2002, one month after she went to
the northern West Bank.
She was seized by Israeli soldiers after
a demonstration against a security fence being built near
the village of Jayyous. She says she was detained for more
than four days without being informed of charges against her
and without being allowed to contact her attorney.
She sued for false imprisonment, which
led her to re-enter the country last month for court proceedings.
She said she figured she would not have
been let into the country again, so she changed the spelling
of her name to get an entry visa.
After her court testimony, she took a
bus with friends to a restaurant. She was arrested as she
got off the bus.
She was confined to a friend's Tel Aviv
apartment until she left eight days later. APPLYING
TO COLUMBIA "She had been arrested twice before.
She had been expelled. She was on a list. She came back under
a different name. We are being very generous to allow her
to leave again," Vapni said. While banned from Israel and
awaiting word from her lawyer on her civil suit against the
government - she asked for about $12,000 in damages for emotional
distress - she's looking ahead.
She plans to continue human-rights work
and to apply to Columbia University, perhaps to study international
law, she said.
For a little while, she will enjoy her
visit home. Her parents, who declined an interview request,
respect her decisions to be in the front lines, despite concern
for her safety, she said.
"It's really nice to be back in a place
that is not under occupation," she said over chai tea at the
Fashion Island Starbucks. "It's nice to be able to drive to
Fashion Island without being stopped by soldiers."
CONTACT US: (714) 285-2862 or dfoley@ocregister.com
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