Ceylon Mooney, an activist from Voices in the Wilderness, spoke to a crowd of about 30 people Wednesday night at Syracuse University about what he called the “destruction of a civilization” in Iraq.

The Student Peace Action Network and the Muslim Student Association presented the speech, held in Hendricks Chapel’s Noble Room.

A board member at the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center, Mooney said that UN-imposed economic sanctions have caused widespread disease and death among under-medicated Iraqi children. More than 1 million people have died since the sanctions were imposed in 1990 over fear of weapons of mass destruction, he said.

Anthony Donofrio, president of the MSA, said he was impressed with Mooney. Since Mooney was American, Donofrio said, it was easier for U.S. students to relate to him.

“It was a good speech because it really gave an American voice and an American view on the situation overseas,” said Donofrio, a graduate student.

Mooney, who said he has been to Iraq illegally twice since January 2001, risking 12-year jail sentences, had many stories to share.

“What I have to offer today is contact,” he said. “I’m supposed to gift wrap genocide.”

Mooney lined the walls of the Noble Room with pictures of hospitalized Iraqi children he had met and photographed. Many of the children have since died, and UN sanctions that prevent access to medical supplies are to blame, he said.

Many kids that die in Iraq die from diseases that are easily cured, he said. If properly treated, some forms of leukemia can be cured up to 80 percent of the time, Mooney said. In Iraq, however, survival rates for those forms of leukemia are as low as 30 percent.

He said that since the sanctions were imposed, infant mortality has doubled in Iraq.

“It is hard to believe, but I’ve been there twice,” he said. “I’ve seen it.”

Mooney showed a 20-minute clip from “Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq,” a documentary by London Daily Mirror reporter John Pilger. It featured shots from inside Iraqi hospitals, but also included hostile interviews with U.S. and UN diplomats.

The documentary was one of the most powerful parts of Mooney’s speech, said Zac Moore, a member of SPAN.

“It’s difficult to find words after seeing that,” Moore said, stammering. “It’s difficult to see such young people in such pain, especially for such a frivolous reason.”

Dick Keough, a Syracuse resident, attended Mooney’s speech and was also impressed by the video, especially the interviews, he said.

“We’ve learned in recent years that just because people are in government doesn’t mean that they are good people. We have to learn these things for ourselves,” he said. “We have to take personal responsibility for what our government does.”

Mooney was the second speaker from Voices of the Wilderness that MSA has hosted this school year, said Ermin Sinanovic, an MSA officer and graduate student.

Last semester, the group hosted Voices co-founder Kathy Keller.

Mooney’s personal involvement made Wednesday’s speech particularly powerful, Sinanovic said.

“He can say, ‘I knew this person, I spoke to this person, and now they are dead,’ ” Sinanovic said. “People haven’t heard examples like that. It doesn’t seem like so much of a political agenda if people are dying.”

Published on April 16, 2002 at 12:00 pm