Volunteering as a Human Shield: Peace In Action

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March 18, 2025
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March 18, 2025
Part 2 —
March 25, 2025
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Week of Mar 16, 2025
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(29-minute)
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Week of Mar 16, 2025
Part 2 —
Week of Mar 23, 2025
National Airdate:
(59-minute)
Week of Mar 16, 2025
Half-hour Program
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Hour Program

On this edition of Peace Talks Radio, we hear from people who chose to physically stand in the way of war. Volunteering to serve as a “human shield” is an intense act of self-sacrifice. But those who have done it say it ‘s saved many lives. Producer Andrew Stelzer speaks with WIlliam Powers, who journeyed to Chiapas, Mexico where the Zapatista movement had issued a call out for international volunteers to protect them from state violence; and to Donna Mulhearn, who made a last minute decision to travel to Baghdad just as the country was preparing to be bombed.

Guests

My middle name is Daniel after Daniel Berrigan. He was a famous Jesuit priest who was arrested so many times and his brother Phillip Berrigan, they would protest nuclear weapons. It was just another example in my family tradition of liberal Catholics and peace activists of getting involved in a nonviolent form of resistance. It goes back to Gandhi and those types of ways of, you know, using nonviolent tools to stop conflict.

William Powers
Award-winning author, speaker, professor, and peace activist
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 We chose five types of sites that we would put human shields on and those sites were all crucial to the life of Iraqis during war. For example, water treatment plants, power stations, communication centers, etc. We deployed to various sites in the weeks leading up to the invasion. Then we wrote to the Pentagon and let them know exactly where we were and the coordinates of where we were. We said to them, if you bomb these sites, you will kill us.

Donna Mulhearn
Former journalist and political adviser, turned author and activist.
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Episode Transcript