Wednesday, Apr. 09, 2003

She Took a Bullet for Peace

By MAIREAD CAREY | Dublin

Her message is pure: Stop the killing, all of it, now. Her tactics are drawn from King and Gandhi. And her commitment is vast and deep. These days you'll find Caoimhe Butterly — a striking presence at 1.85 m, with long red hair and mournful blue eyes — outside the Irish parliament in Dublin or at any antiwar protest in Ireland. In years past you could find her working with AIDS victims in Zimbabwe, homeless in New York, Zapatistas in Mexico. Last November, you could find her in the Jenin refugee camp on the West Bank. That's where a bullet fired by an Israeli soldier found her, hitting her thigh as she tried to lead a group of Palestinian children to safety. The 24-year-old Dubliner was luckier than British peace activist Ton Hurndall who, in similar circumstances this month in Gaza, was shot in the head and now lies in a coma. Seven months earlier, Butterly spent 16 days inside Yasser Arafat's besieged compound in Ramallah. She had gone in as an ambulance volunteer, to give first aid to a man who had been shot, but she refused to leave.


Since then she has been campaigning against the war in Iraq — where she visited for the first time a year ago. "Human rights is the language I was raised in," says the daughter of a U.N. economist and a family therapist. Many will disagree with her stances. But anyone can envy her passion and drive. To finance her activism and travels she does waitressing or house painting. "It's like chipping away at a coal face, but what I have seen has been seared upon my heart and soul and consciousness. I can't close my eyes to it."

When the Gulf War began she campaigned against the Irish government's decision to allow the U.S. military to use Shannon Airport. The Bush-Blair summit in Belfast saw her arrested for smearing red jam on the riot shields of two policemen. Once her court case is out of the way she plans to return to Iraq. "There is no such thing as a benign occupation," she says. "It's time to focus again on what is happening in Baghdad."