People in the Middle East have a better chance of being trampled by marchers than bombed because the real Gandhi is there.
So has Sistani been in contact with Arun?
-Am
Gandhi's non-violence message to Mid-East Last Updated: Wednesday, 25 August, 2004, 10:24 GMT 11:24 UK
By Soutik Biswas BBC News Online correspondent in Delhi
A grandson of India's pacifist independence leader, Mahatma Gandhi, is on a mission in the Palestinian territories to preach unarmed, peaceful struggle in the search for reconciliation with Israel.
Arun Gandhi says Palestinians revere his famous grandfather Arun Gandhi, the fifth grandson of the spiritual leader, is speaking at public meetings organised by a group of Palestinian social and political activists in Ramallah, Abu Dis and Bethlehem that begin on Thursday.
The meetings are being organised by Palestinians for Peace and Democracy which, according to reports, has some 400 volunteers.
For 70-year-old Arun Gandhi, who runs an institute in Memphis, USA, to "examine, promote, and apply the principles of non-violent thought and action" through research and community services, this is his first visit to the Palestinian territories.
During his visit, he is also due to meet Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, visit a refugee camp, and participate in a candlelight vigil in Manger Square, Bethlehem.
Arun Gandhi The former journalist says he will tell the Palestinian people that they should try out non-violent campaigns against the Israeli occupation.
"I am going to tell the people about the value of non-violence. I am going to tell them that 55 years of violence has achieved nothing but more agony and heartaches and that it is time for them to try new ways of dealing with the issue," Arun Gandhi told BBC News Online.
'Safest and sanest'
He feels that the Palestinians have no alternative but to pursue peaceful methods of resistance to Israel in the long term.
"It is the safest and sanest alternative. Violence has not achieved anything. The Palestinians do not have the capacity and the ability to match the weapons of mass destruction that are available to Israel. So it is virtually suicide for them," says Arun Gandhi.
Taking Gandhi's message to Palestinians would not be difficult, he says.
"I know Mahatma Gandhi has been forgotten in India but not outside. I think he is better known around the world than in India. The Palestinians are not only aware of him but revere him," he says.
Mahatma Gandhi believed passive resistance and civil disobedience were the most appropriate methods for obtaining political and social goals.
Non-violence is not alien to the Palestinian resistance, says Mohammed al-Atar, director, Palestinians for Peace and Democracy.
"In the first intifada the Palestinian people called the shots and the occupation reacted to it," he says.
"We boycotted their (Israeli) products. We called labour strikes when we wanted. They closed our schools. We opened our homes as schools. We refused to pay their taxes. We were in charge."
The idea to pitch for a Palestinian campaign began when a few members of Mr Atar's group went to Memphis and visited Arun's MK Gandhi Institute of Non-Violence.
"We had long discussions and they were impressed and decided that I should be invited to Palestine to speak to the people and hopefully motivate peaceful resistance," Mr Gandhi says.
He is hoping to get in touch with non-violent peace initiatives both in Palestine and Israel during his visit.
Arun, whose father, Manilal, was Gandhi's second son, was born in Durban, South Africa and lived there for 23 years.
Manilal spent some 14 years in prisons in South Africa for campaigning against apartheid.
'Fond memories
"I did not have much of a formal education because of apartheid. I have fond memories of Mahatma Gandhi as a boy of 12," he says.
In 1956, he moved to India and lived there for 30 years working as a journalist with a leading English newspaper. He also edited a Bombay (Mumbai)-based magazine and did some social work among the poor and the Dalits, low-caste Hindus once known as "untouchables".
Arun Gandhi moved to the US in 1987, and launched the MK Gandhi Institute of Non-Violence in Memphis. He has also written extensively on his grandfather, including eight books.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on 2 October 1869 in Porbandar, India. He led India's movement for independence from British rule and is one of the most respected spiritual and political leaders of the 20th century.
Gandhi is honoured by his people as the father of the Indian nation and is called Mahatma, which means Great Soul.
In 1948 he was assassinated by a Hindu fanatic who opposed his tolerance for all creeds and religions
Allawi and his American backers with the use of an agent/agents could also have looted the shrine in order to discredit Sadr or Sistani. Whoever is condemned of looting the shrine loses.
Has the Shrine been Looted?
The shrine of Ali was not only a tomb with an attached mosque. It was also a museum. Since being built in its modern form in the seventeenth century, the shrine has been the recipient of bejewelled swords, glittering gems, and other priceless gifts from Muslim monarchs and notables from all over the world. And we all know what has happened to museums in American-ruled Iraq.
The fate of the priceless treasures stored at the Shrine of Ali has proved an intractable sticking point in the negotiations between Muqtada al-Sadr and Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, according to al-Zaman. Since 1845 or so, the shrine keeper has been in a single family. Under the Baath, he was under the authority of the state Board of Pious Endowments. Haydar al-Rufay'i al-Kalidar was viewed by the Sadr movement as a collaborator because he worked with this board. He was killed by a Sadrist mob on April 10, 2003, along with Ayatollah Abdul Majid al-Khoei, who had just flown in from exile in London. His place has been taken by Ridwan al-Rufay'i al-Kalidar, a 23 year old engineer from the U.K. For most of the period after the fall of Saddam until 1 April, 2004, the shrine of Ali came under the control of the Badr Corps, the paramilitary of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, now headed by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, an ally of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.
Up until April 1, the treasures of the shrine were intact and accounted for. But when the ragtag Mahdi Army militiamen took over the shrine as part of their first anti-American insurgency, which responded to sudden American threats to kill or capture Muqtada al-Sadr.
Sistani appears to fear that in the past five months, the Sadrists may have looted the treasures of the shrine. (If they did, it would have made them enormously wealthy and helped to bankroll the further expansion of the movement.) He fears for his good name if he takes the keys to the shrine from the Sadrists and then later an inventory is done, and treasures are missing. It would be impossible to know at that point whether Sistani's men had stolen them, or Sadr's.
So apparently an inventory would have to be done first, before Sistani will take possession. One of Muqtada's spokesmen suggested that the Shiite Board of Pious Endowments be charged with carrying out a quick inventory, so that the transfer can go forward.
Another Sadr spokesman said that the surrender of the shrine by armed militiamen has been exaggerated. He said there are still Mahdi Army volunteers in the shrine, but that they are armed only with their personal (light) weapons.
Al-Sistani to lead backers in march on Najaf Al-Sadr supporters fired on while rallying in nearby city of Kufa
MSNBC News Services Updated: 9:44 p.m. ET Aug. 25, 2004
NAJAF, Iraq - Grand Ayatollah Ali Husseini al-Sistani, Iraq’s most powerful religious leader, made a surprise return to the country Wednesday and immediately called on Shiite Muslims to march with him on Najaf in a bid to peacefully end the uprising there.
Al-Sistani is heading to Najaf “to stop the bloodshed,” said Al-Sayyid Murtadha Al-Kashmiri, a representative in London. “Those believers who wish to join him, let them join.”
Aides said al-Sistani would unveil an initiative to get Shiite rebels out of the revered Imam Ali mosque, where U.S. and Iraqi government fighters have been battling supporters of a radical Shiite cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, in the city for the past three weeks. They gave no details.
Dressed in a black robe and turban, with a flowing white beard and dark rings under his eyes, al-Sistani arrived in the southern city of Basra from Kuwait in a convoy of more than a dozen vehicles led by police cars with sirens wailing. He plans to head to Najaf, his adopted home, on Thursday.
After meeting with al-Sistani, Basra Gov. Hassan al-Rashid told reporters that the cleric would lead a march Thursday to Najaf. “The masses will gather at the outskirts of Najaf, and they will not enter the city until all armed men, except the Iraqi policemen, withdraw from the city,” he said.
Al-Sistani, 73, had been in London for medical treatment since Aug. 6, one day after clashes erupted in Najaf. The cleric wields enormous influence among Shiite Iraqis, and his return could play a crucial role in stabilizing the crisis.
“The Americans have been surrounding the shrine for days, and al-Sadr’s followers stayed barricaded and determined. This march is the only way for both sides to save face,” said Mohammad Bahr al-Uloum, an independent Shiite cleric.
Allawi, al-Sadr welcome top cleric Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s office issued a statement welcoming al-Sistani back “on behalf of all Iraqis.” Al-Sadr’s forces said they would suspend fighting in every region he passes through on his way to Najaf.
In Shiite areas across Iraq, appeals issued from mosque loudspeakers urging Iraqis to heed al-Sistani’s call. In the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, many left for Najaf in cars and buses in answer to a call from the mosques to “help stop the bloodshed.”
Abdel Hadi al-Daraji, an al-Sadr spokesman in Baghdad, followed that call with one of his own for all Muslims to march on Najaf.
“I call on all my Sunni brothers and also our brothers in all of Iraq’s provinces to immediately head to Najaf and to protect the shrine,” he said on Al-Arabiya television.
Najaf’s police chief, Maj. Gen. Ghalib al-Jazaari, cautioned Iraqis not to come to Najaf, saying they should await instructions from al-Sistani, “because their enemies could cause them a disaster and they could put their lives in danger.”
Al-Sadr supporters fired on in Kufa Meanwhile, in the neighboring city of Kufa, new violence killed several people as protesting supporters of al-Sadr were fired on, possibly by Iraqi national guardsmen. The marchers carried pictures of al-Sadr as well as of al-Sistani.
Videotape from Associated Press Television News showed demonstrators wounded during a few minutes of heavy gunfire. An employee at Kufa’s Furat al-Awsat Hospital said two marchers were killed and five others were wounded.
No one in the crowd could be seen firing a weapon, and it was unclear whether the incident was a gunbattle or an unprovoked attack on the demonstration. Witnesses said the gunfire appeared to come from an Iraqi National Guard post, which sat behind concrete blast walls along the parade route.
Earlier in the day, Najaf Gov. Adnan al-Zurufi said Iraqi security forces had “taken all needed measures to prevent any crowds from entering the province,” calling it a “military area.”
The demonstration by hundreds of al-Sadr supporters was headed to Najaf from Kufa, with plans to break the U.S.-led siege there, witnesses said.
The demonstrators’ chants praised al-Sadr and condemned Allawi as “a coward” and an American collaborator.”
In another development, extremists claimed Wednesday to have kidnapped a brother-in-law of Iraqi Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan, saying he would be killed unless military operations in Najaf ceased. Last week, Shaalan spoke harshly about ending the militant resistance in Najaf and the occupation at the Imam Ali Shrine.
Shiite schism A younger generation of Shiite nationalist clerics and politicians who feel let down by a largely non-political religious establishment has backed al-Sadr while still acknowledging al-Sistani as a more senior and scholarly figure.
Al-Sistani has been under pressure to condemn U.S. military force around the Imam Ali Shrine, where hundreds of Iraqis have died in three weeks of clashes.
“The ayatollah is trying to set things right. The popular forces in Iraq have been astonished by his silence over the American use of brute force, although we understand that as a traditional religious elder he prefers subtlety,” said Ali al-Lami, a Shiite politician sympathetic to al-Sadr.
“Al-Sistani realizes that the uprising will not end by killing a few hundred fighters in Najaf. Late or not, the march or anything to stop the killing of Iraqis is welcome at this point,” he said.
If protests called by al-Sistani against U.S. political plans for Iraq months ago are anything to go by, hundreds of thousands of Shiites could march on Najaf.
Regardless of the turnout, some Iraqis are optimistic for the first time that the conflict could be solved peacefully, an outcome that would shore up support for al-Sistani. But among the young and unemployed, there is still skepticism.
“All the elder clerics left Najaf to make it easier for the United States to finish off al-Sadr,” said Jabbar Hashem, who is from a poor, east Baghdad district. “They did not really care how many people got killed.”
Continued fighting In Najaf, meanwhile, heavy shooting broke out near the shrine Wednesday.
The fighting came after the interim Iraqi government warned al-Sadr loyalists to surrender and leave by Tuesday or die. But there was no sign of the threatened final ground push from Iraqi forces. On Tuesday, the Iraqi forces moved to within 200 yards of the shrine.
The militant force, which has waged fierce battles with U.S. troops throughout the Old City and Najaf’s vast cemetery, seemed considerably diminished in number and less aggressive after days of U.S. airstrikes and relentless artillery pounding.
At one point, al-Sadr agreed to hand over the keys to the shrine to al-Sistani’s representatives to end the conflict, but those negotiations bogged down amid renewed fighting.
U.S. warplanes bomb Fallujah Meanwhile, witnesses in Fallujah said U.S. warplanes strafed targets at least 15 times on the city’s eastern outskirts, and strong explosions could be heard. Militants fired anti-aircraft guns in response as U.S. aircraft approached.
At least four people were killed and four others were wounded in the bombings, said Dr. Adel Khamis of Fallujah General Hospital.
A Marine spokesman, Lt. Col. Thomas V. Johnson, said several insurgent “firing positions ... have been struck this morning with tank fire, and, yes, aircraft were also used against the targets.”
It was the second day in a row that U.S. forces struck at the city, which is 40 miles west of Baghdad. U.S. forces have routinely bombed targets it describes as insurgent safehouses or strongholds.
Sunni Muslim insurgents based in Fallujah are believed to be responsible for months of kidnappings, bombings and shooting attacks against coalition troops, Iraqi forces and civilians across Iraq.
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