 |
|
|
 News from Around the Americas | March 2006 
Peace Activist Taken Hostage in Iraq Is Found Dead
 Martin Weil & Michael Alison Chandler - Washington Post
| | A member of the Christian Peacemaker Teams holds a sign for American Iraq hostage Tom Fox during a memorial in the West Bank town of Heborn, Saturday, March 11, 2006. The FBI verified that a body found in Iraq Friday March 10, 2006 was that of Fox, 54, of Clear Brook, Va., spokesman Noel Clay said. (AP/Nasser Shiyoukhi) |
Peace activist was missing from video that showed fellow captives this week.
Tom Fox, the Virginia peace activist who was taken hostage last year in Iraq, has been found dead, a State Department spokesman said last night. The FBI verified that a body found in Baghdad on Thursday morning was that of Fox, according to the State Department. It was not immediately clear last night when he had been killed or how. Nothing was said immediately about the circumstances leading to the discovery of the body.
Concern for Fox, a 54-year-old resident of Clear Brook, Va., who was kidnapped in November, had risen this week after he was not seen in the broadcast of a video of three fellow kidnapped Christian peace activists.
On Tuesday, al-Jazeera television aired the footage of the three other activists purportedly appealing to their governments to secure their release. A January video, in which Fox had appeared, said all the captives would die unless US and Iraqi authorities released all prisoners held in Iraq.
Noel Clay, a State Department spokesman, said he had no information on the three other hostages. Clay said that "additional forensics" on Fox's body "will be done in the United States."
Fox disappeared Nov. 26 in Baghdad, along with Norman Kember, 74, of Britain, and James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, both of Canada. The four worked with Christian Peacemaker Teams, a Toronto- and Chicago-based group that opposes the Iraq war and has criticized treatment of detainees in US and Iraqi jails.
All four had appeared in two earlier videos released by their captors, a little-known group called the Swords of Righteousness Brigade. The group has accused the four of spying for Western governments.
In Baghdad, a US military spokesman, Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, said early Saturday that he had no information on the discovery.
Fox, a Quaker, lived in Northern Virginia for more than 30 years before moving to Clear Brook, near Winchester. He was the father of two college-age children and was an assistant manager at a Whole Foods supermarket in Springfield before quitting to join Christian Peacemaker Teams. He had been going to Iraq since September 2004.
Fox was for years a member of Langley Hill Friends Meeting in McLean, which has been holding weekly vigils for his release. Paul Slattery, a member of the meeting, said that he had been in touch with Fox's family and that they wanted to take the lead on any response.
Marge Epstein, a friend of Fox's who attends the meeting, told WRC-TV (Channel 4): "We are absolutely grief-stricken."
Janet Schirch, a friend who had taught Fox at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va., said he "knew this might happen when he went to Iraq." She said that like the troops who gave their lives for the security of Iraq, "Tom did that, too. Many, many soldiers have given their lives in Iraq for security, and it's important for Americans to recognize that Tom did that, too."
Fox's death came against a background of numerous kidnappings of foreigners in Iraq. More than 400 foreigners and thousands of Iraqis have been kidnapped in Iraq since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003. At least 40 foreigners have been killed, according to the Associated Press. Fox was the seventh American hostage to have been killed in Iraq.
In one of the kidnappings that has received widespread attention, Jill Carroll, 28, an American freelance reporter for the Christian Science Monitor, was seized in Baghdad on Jan. 7 by gunmen who killed her interpreter. Carroll has been shown in three videotapes that were aired in January and February.
In his announcement last night, Clay, the State Department spokesman, said that "additional forensics will be done in the United States."
Clay said Fox's "family has been notified. Our heartfelt condolences go out to them. The State Department continues to call for the unconditional release of all other hostages."
In a statement released last night, Christian Peacemaker Teams said the group mourned Fox, who combined "a lightness of spirit, a firm opposition to all oppression and the recognition of God in everyone." It said his death "pierces us with pain."
After the airing of the video of the three hostages this week, a spokeswoman for Christian Peacemaker Teams, Jessica Phillips, expressed satisfaction at seeing three of the four hostages alive but added, "We do not know what to make of Tom Fox's absence from this video."
The statement added, "We believe that the root cause of the abduction of our colleagues is the US- and British-led invasion and occupation of Iraq."
Hoyt Maulden was a member of Fox's five-person "support team." Last night, a woman who answered the phone at Maulden's Fairfax County home said that Maulden did not wish to comment.
Fox had recognized that his peace activities entailed possible danger. He had left instructions as to what should be done if he was kidnapped. "Under no circumstances did he want any violent efforts to rescue him," Maulden said.
A grainy, silent video aired on al-Jazeera in January showed Fox and the three other hostages, looking gaunt and exhausted. The channel's news reader said the captors were giving US and Iraqi authorities a "last chance" to release all prisoners in their custody. Otherwise, they said, the captives' "fate will be death."
The group had earlier set a Dec. 8 deadline for their execution, later extending it to Dec. 10. The January video was the first sign since the deadline passed that they were still alive.
In December, Fox's daughter, Katherine, made a tape that was seen on al-Jazeera. She said her father had "always been a wanderer."
"He believes that the real purpose of travel is to experience environments other than our own," she said. "When my brother and I were little, our family would visit a different city every year. . . . We got lost on purpose so that we were able to learn a new way back. . . . My father was teaching us to see opportunity in every step, planned or otherwise."
Fox was born in Chattanooga and graduated with a double degree in music performance and education from George Peabody College for Teachers, now part of Vanderbilt University, in Nashville.
An accomplished clarinetist, he spent 20 years playing with the Marine Corps Band, most of that time in the Washington area, said a friend who spoke on condition of anonymity. As a band member, the friend said, Fox was not required to undergo Marine Corps basic training.
Death of Peacemaker Tom Fox: Christian Peacemaker Teams' Response
Christian Peacemaker Teams - YubaNet.com
In grief we tremble before God who wraps us with compassion. The death of our beloved colleague and friend pierces us with pain. Tom Fox's body was found in Baghdad yesterday.
Christian Peacemaker Teams extends our deep and heartfelt condolences to the family and community of Tom Fox, with whom we have traveled so closely in these days of crisis.
We mourn the loss of Tom Fox who combined a lightness of spirit, a firm opposition to all oppression, and the recognition of God in everyone.
We renew our plea for the safe release of Harmeet Sooden, Jim Loney and Norman Kember. Each of our teammates has responded to Jesus' prophetic call to live out a nonviolent alternative to the cycle of violence and revenge.
In response to Tom's passing, we ask that everyone set aside inclinations to vilify or demonize others, no matter what they have done. In Tom's own words: "We reject violence to punish anyone. We ask that there be no retaliation on relatives or property. We forgive those who consider us their enemies. We hope that in loving both friends and enemies and by intervening nonviolently to aid those who are systematically oppressed, we can contribute in some small way to transforming this volatile situation."
Even as we grieve the loss of our beloved colleague, we stand in the light of his strong witness to the power of love and the courage of nonviolence. That light reveals the way out of fear and grief and war.
Through these days of crisis, Christian Peacemaker Teams has been surrounded and upheld by a great outpouring of compassion: messages of support, acts of mercy, prayers, and public actions offered by the most senior religious councils and by school children, by political leaders and by those organizing for justice and human rights, by friends in distant nations and by strangers near at hand. These words and actions sustain us. While one of our teammates is lost to us, the strength of this outpouring is not lost to God's movement for just peace among all peoples.
At the forefront of that support are strong and courageous actions from Muslim brothers and sisters throughout the world for which we are profoundly grateful. Their graciousness inspires us to continue working for the day when Christians speak up as boldly for the human rights of thousands Iraqis still detained illegally by the United States and United Kingdom.
Such an outpouring of action for justice and peace would be a fitting memorial for Tom. Let us all join our voices on behalf of those who continue to suffer under occupation, whose loved ones have been killed or are missing, and in so doing may we hasten the day when both those who are wrongly detained and those who bear arms will return safely to their homes. In such a peace we will find solace for our grief.
Despite the tragedy of this day, we remain committed to put into practice these words of Jim Loney: "With the waging of war, we will not comply. With the help of God's grace, we will struggle for justice. With God's abiding kindness, we will love even our enemies." We continue in hope for Jim, Harmeet and Norman's safe return home safe. |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us