Montreal man in bid to free hostages
Heads to Baghdad to try to secure their release Canadian activists threatened with death by captors
A Montreal Muslim headed for Baghdad last night in a lastditch bid to save the lives of four Christian peace activists — including two Canadians — facing a death sentence in battlescarred Iraq.
“ The main goal of my trip is to voice very clearly, on the ground in Iraq, in Arabic, the conviction that these people are not spies,” Ehab Lotayef, 47, said before boarding an Air France plane bound for Paris on a one- man peace mission sponsored by the Canadian Islamic Congress. “ There is no reason for any of them to face this outcome.” Among the foreigners now held captive in Iraq are Jim Loney, 41, of Toronto, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, formerly of Montreal, as well as American Tom Fox, 54, and Briton Norman Kember, 74. All four are members of the Christian Peacemakers Teams, an antiwar activist group. Meanwhile, Dan McTeague, parliamentary secretary responsible for Canadians abroad, said he lauds Lotayef’s motives but opposes his actions.
“Goodwill is important,” he said, “ but we ask all Canadians to refrain from going to Iraq until the situation improves. Canadians who go there put themselves at risk.” Loney and his colleagues were seized by gunmen on a Baghdad street on Nov. 26. They have been accused by their kidnappers of spying for foreign forces occupying Iraq. The men’s captors — a shadowy outfit called Swords of the Righteous Brigade — have threatened to kill the four sometime tomorrow, unless Iraqi detainees have by then been freed from prisons administered by Iraqi authorities or the United States. A computer engineer at Montreal’s McGill University, the Egyptian- born Lotayef has spent time in Iraq in the past, including a one- month trip in December 2003, when he reported on the country’s troubles for an international Iraqi solidarity group. Lotayef said yesterday he plans to travel to Baghdad via Amman, Jordan, and hopes to be in the Iraqi capital by late today or early tomorrow. He would not discuss details about his contacts in Iraq, partly for security reasons and partly because the situation in the country is so fluid.
“ Variables in Iraq change by the hour,” he said.
Stewart Vriesinga, a full- time volunteer for the Chicago- based Christian peace group, said yesterday that he and his colleagues at the organization’s office in Toronto were aware of Lotayef’s mission and welcomed it.
“ We’ve had a lot of people from the Muslim community speaking out on our behalf,” he said. “ That’s all good. We’re just here waiting and hoping and praying.” Wahida Valiante, national vice- president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, said the organization is paying the costs of Lotayef’s trip and shares his view that immediate action is necessary to save the hostages.
“ We should do what we can to get them out safe,” she said. “ That’s the bottom line.” The divorced father of two boys, Lotayef said he was under no illusions about the situation that awaits him in Baghdad.
“ I’m neither intending to jump into harm’s way nor do I ignore that there is danger in this trip,” he said. “ It is not a walk in the park.” But Lotayef said he could not stand by while the hostages are in danger of losing their lives.
“ I felt it was a duty that we do something more than issue a press release,” he said. “ I am following the example of the ( Christian Peacemaker Teams) themselves, who put themselves in harm’s way to help a people with whom, in the normal way of thinking, they are not connected.
“ So it is a responsibility for me — religious, human, call it what you will — to help them.”
Established in 1989, the Christian Peacemaker Teams dispatch groups of peace activists to trouble spots around the world to observe and report on events that might otherwise go unrecorded. They are among the very few international aid groups still active in Iraq.
“ These are men who have been working for peace for most of their lives,” Peggy Gish, 63, a member of the organization, said yesterday in Amman, referring to the four hostages. “They are very caring, gentle people. They would never be spies or trying to harm anyone.” McTeague said the Canadian government is doing its best to secure the safe release of the four captives.
“ We want Canadians to understand that we are doing everything we can,” he said. Prime Minister Paul Martin said yesterday the safety of the hostages “ is simply, overwhelmingly the number one priority,” the Star’s Les Whittington reported. “ I am in touch every single day with the people who are on the ground and our people on the ground are in constant contact with the Iraqis, with the Brits, with the Americans. We are doing everything we can,” Martin told reporters.
Yesterday, Christian Peacemaker Teams announced that Loney’s family will hold a press conference today in Sault Ste. Marie to talk about the plight of the Toronto peace activist.
Meanwhile, Al- Jazeera television network aired video footage of the hostages on Friday. In audio released yesterday, Loney says he and his fellow captives were being treated well. “ We’d like to thank the people holding us for that,” he said.