By Kristina Goetz
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Mary Schoen of Hyde Park visits a photo exhibit Feb. 1 commemorating the deaths of 408 Iraqis at the Ameriya bomb shelter in Baghdad, Iraq. (Associated Press photo) | ZOOM |

In Baghdad's Hotel Al-Fanar, she is a stranger in an arid land most Cincinnatians will never see.

It took a flight to Amman, Jordan, and a 15-hour drive across the desert, but Mary Schoen says she has found the best ammunition against a potential war with Iraq: the stories of ordinary Iraqis and the details of their daily lives.

Schoen, a 48-year-old longtime activist from Hyde Park, has spent the past three weeks in the embattled country with a program called Iraq Peace Team.

It's organized by the Chicago-based Voices in the Wilderness, a group that opposes economic sanctions and military action against Iraq, and that has sent about 60 delegations to the country since 1996 in violation of embargoes.

The idea is for participants to live among the Iraqi people, then return to America and share their experiences of how embargoes against the isolated country affect ordinary people.

In November, the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control fined the group $50,000 for taking in medicine and toys.

But Schoen isn't afraid of fines or breaking the law. She wants Americans to know the people of Iraq like she does.

Most days in Baghdad, she and two dozen fellow peace workers start their days at 7:30 a.m. by gathering in a circle. Outside the simple hotel is a busy street near the Tigris River. Inside, the group reflects on trips they've taken to cities such as Al Basrah and Karbala. They reflect on intimate details of conversations they've had with Iraqis in hospitals, mosques and family living rooms - sometimes over the sound of air raid sirens.

AT A GLANCE

Voices in the Wilderness is a campaign to end economic sanctions and warfare against ordinary Iraqis. Begun after the Persian Gulf War, it has sent about 60 delegations to the country since 1996. The group started with a small number of friends active in protesting the 1991 ar. The Chicago-based group's participants will: Live among the Iraqi people. Be with the Iraqi people during any aggression directed at them, including continued economic sanctions. Use their presence and nonviolent actions to witness, understand and expose the situation of both the civilian population and facilities. Use their experiences to speak from Iraq and through supporters in the United States to people who will listen about the effects of sanctions and war. Source: Nonviolence.org

Tears and stories then begin:

Standing in a Baghdad art gallery, an Iraqi woman tells a visiting Peace Team member: "Hopefully, we can meet again when there is peace."

A cab driver, Mohammed, says he is trained as an engineer but can't find work in his field. Despite his low wages, he won't allow the foreigners to pay their fares.

A father sits next to his daughter's hospital bed, waiting. There is no medicine, and the cancer is spreading.

A mother of four warmly offers another cup of tea.

"When you have a name and a face, it's hard to imagine what it would be like for Baghdad to be bombed again," says Schoen, a Roman Catholic who operates a holistic healing practice. "You can see the bridges that were out, the houses that were bombed in 1991. I am here. I see it.

"If people in the United States could experience what I've experienced in the last few weeks for 48 hours, they would never go to war."

Backlash against peaceniks

But her voice faces a sea of powerful opposition. President Bush has called Saddam Hussein a madman whose weapons of mass destruction pose an international threat. Secretary of State Colin Powell presented new and detailed evidence Wednesday that Saddam is hiding banned weapons from U.N. inspectors and associating with terrorists.

Schoen's visit also doesn't sit well with many Tristate veterans. For some, it conjures images of Jane Fonda singing anti-war songs in Hanoi during the Vietnam War.

"The first thing that pops in my mind is that they should thank the veterans who fought and died for the freedom of speech that allows them to say these things," says Barb Rounds-Kugler, a 62-year-old retired Army Nurse Corps colonel and Vietnam veteran.

"We have starving children here in America who don't have toys, who don't have food," she says. "Why aid the enemy? To me, Iraqis are our enemies - even the children, because they do what their moms and dads tell them to do. Since I've matured in my thinking, as I've gotten older, I find myself almost hoping we become isolationist. Why can't we take care of our own first?"

A spokesman for the U.S. Treasury Department says the Voices group has not made a payment on the fines imposed and that the case has been referred to the U.S. Justice Department for collection.

"For whatever reason, people want to flout embargoes," says Tony Fratto, director of public affairs for the Treasury Department. "The bottom line from our perspective is, for us, we enforce the law - and we will continue to do so aggressively."

Sister Rosie Miller, a Xavier University theology professor, and Sister Alice Gerdeman, executive director of the Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center, helped raise $5,000 for Schoen's travel expenses. Both thought it important for Cincinnati to be represented internationally in this peace movement. Any money left over will help pay for a house for an Iraqi woman with eight children.

"The main issue was to look at the people themselves who primarily will be affected by any political decision and also to bring that information back to us as U.S. citizens," Miller says.

Schoen has been involved in peace efforts for 20 years. The Voices group wants volunteers who have experience living in tense and potentially violent situations.

Schoen was part of group called Witness for Peace in the 1980s in Central America. She spent 1984, '85 and part of '86 in Nicaragua. Witness for Peace, a group similar to Voices, was there to oppose sanctions against the country. She also worked from 1991 to 1996 as coordinator for volunteer services in campus ministry at Xavier.

"I have seen the impacts of war many times," Schoen says. "In Nicaragua, we were in the middle of war. I never see anything good come of it. I am adamantly opposed to it as a person of faith, and that's why I'm here.

"My faith background and calling myself a Christian means I need to stand up for life."

That's why she is already scheduling presentations, the first of which will be Feb. 12 at the Cintas Center at Xavier. She will tell all those who will listen about how the Iraqi minders were more like tour guides, offering introductions and translations. She'll share photos taken during the three hours she roamed Baghdad's central market.

She will describe every color of the mosque she visited, the sounds of uplifted prayers, the welcome she received when she told Iraqis she was American.

Schoen knows she has critics, but that's not going to stop her from telling people what she has experienced. The flight to Jordan, the bus ride across the desert into Baghdad, the nights she sat on her balcony with a view of a mosque and cried.

"Part of the purpose is to make this real for people in the States because it's so easy to block out the people who are going to be hurt in this situation," Schoen says. "I just personally felt compelled to respond."

Schoen is scheduled to fly back to the United States on Saturday.

"It might sound bizarre, but it's almost harder to leave," she says. "The Iraqi people don't have the option of getting on a plane and flying somewhere else. Whatever happens, they're here for it. It's hard to know how to respond. But I've already been setting up a number of public forums and speaking engagements, and I'm just going to not stop talking."

E-mail kgoetz@enquirer.com