9/11 FAMILIES MEET 3/11 FAMILIES

Delegation to Madrid Marks Train Bombing Anniversary

September 11th family members from the U.S. will travel to Madrid, Spain to establish relationships with family members of the 190 people killed in the March 11th, 2004 train bombings there. In addition to joining commemoration ceremonies on the evening of March 10th, they will mark the Spanish-language release their book, "Peaceful Tomorrows: Turning Our Grief into Action for Peace". The delegation will be in Madrid from March 6-12.

The U.S. delegates represent September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, a non-profit organization founded in 2002 by family members of those killed on September 11th who united to turn their grief into action for peace. By developing and advocating nonviolent options and actions in their pursuit of justice, they hope to break the cycles of violence engendered by war and terrorism. Peaceful Tomorrows was nominated for the 2003 and 2004 Nobel Peace Prize.

The delegation, consisting of 9/11 family members Karen Shea (Portland, Oregon), Adele Welty (Queens, New York) and David Potorti (Cary, North Carolina), also will meet with leading groups in the Spanish peace movement, including "Cultura Contra la Guerra", "Justicia y Paz", and "EURED" (European Network for Peace Education, Spanish Chapter), and will hold workshops with teachers and students in primary and secondary schools, some of whom were directly affected by the March 11th attacks.

In addition, they will meet with survivors of the bombing of Guernica, Spain (1937) and families affected by the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) and its aftermath, who have joined together to create the "Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory". They will also participate in the "International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism and Security" convened by the Club De Madrid, which will bring together more than 50 former and current heads of state and government, decision and policy makers, world experts on terrorism and security, and citizens from around the world.

Contacts

September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows
(http://www.peacefultomorrows.org)
Phone in New York: 212-598-0970
Email: office@peacefultomorrows.org

Prologue by Juan Gutierrez to the Spanish Version Translated from the Castillian

This Spanish translation of “Peaceful Tomorrows” could be the key to creating a human alliance of peace and for peace. In the text, David Potorti, its author, brother of a victim of the September 11th attacks in New York, relates what some one hundred people of the 3000 from that tragic morning who lost their loved ones have suffered and felt, how they have take on this pain and loss, bringing themselves nearer and, in the words of the author, “have taken the loss of their loved ones not as an inheritance of hate and fear, but… like a unique opportunity… to spring forth from their deaths a new paradigm for the planet… recognizing our common humanity, our common needs, our common objectives.” This led them to form “9/11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows” –taken from a phrase from Martin Luther King, Jr.– an advocacy group for peace and of hope in peace. The text continues the story of how they began this action, the shape they are taking, the barriers that have stood in the way, the roads that have opened, friends on the journey and echoes that they go on finding.

This springing forth of a new paradigm from the loss of their loved ones has a flowing intimacy, sharing and a public dimension that has connected them and that is connecting them to the world.

Consider their own words: “September 11th was a day that demolished the belief that we could ever be truly independent of each other. It was a day when the walls came down, not up…” From their work, they have derived “a sense of personal peace, security and focus.” They connected with each other because “some of us, recognizing the public nature of our losses… made public statements.” It was through those statements that the people who formed September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows met and organized themselves. As a result, “people around the country and the world extended their hands in friendship to our group, and we continue to fill the holes in our hearts with new connections, new love, and new possibilities.”

Compelled by this paradigm in 2002, they marked the objective to “unite with other innocent people affected by violence and war, no matter what nation they are from” and to “give support and companionship to groups of the same attitude to strengthen the cause of peace and justice.” (Presentation Brochure 2003)

In September 2004, they invited all to create a “peace connection between whoever shares a wish for dialogue, understanding and peace, and the people affected by terrorism, violence, and war.” (www.peacefultomorrows.org) So this is how a great human network of peace and for peace was established and drawn out. In it, it can be seen how many share this paradigm and its bonds, by being survivors of terrorism, violence and war.

They are bonds with much in common, but with some distinctions. The families of 9/11 share with their other families their tragic loss, immense and incalculable pain, and their desire for peace; in this, they are the same, this in the end ties them together.

However, what distinguishes them is that they became public figures from the very beginning of their trauma, and whether they wanted it or not, they have seen “in painful situations, our losses were not simple murders, but international incidents, symbols and public events,” objects of all the attention and care -many times stupid and mistaken–they are innocent victims, although in danger of being trapped in a gold cage by the political power dominating their nation. Their worry is to safeguard their privacy given so much public exposure against the background of New York, one of the most powerful symbols of our time with its two towers, the seat of the United Nations, and its Statue of Liberty.

But in the trips that they have repeatedly taken to Afghanistan and Iraq, “to meet and unite with families that have lost loved ones or that have been devastated by the bombing campaigns of the United States”, they have met victims treated in a different manner, forced to be invisible, kept in the dark, neglected, viewed as suspects, shams, discardable, trapped in a cage of iron so that they dare not raise their voice in public or whisper something that is a glimpse of the reality or unreality of their losses and desolations.

“Peaceful Tomorrows” has also gone to Japan in brotherhood with the Hibakushas, the Japanese victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. They are extending a hand to distant victims in the understanding that they are still suffering from the trauma inflicted in other, more distant, times.

Precisely in these bonds is the greatness of their pledge, because to grasp the hand of silent victims forced to remain invisible, is to bring them from darkness into light that they find themselves, and under that which they give, to share, and to give infinite force to the messages of both. And to extend this same hand to the victims of past atrocities, gives timely profundity to the messages that flow from both recent and past times. Crossing these distances and obstacles will bring to the whole world hands dedicated to a new paradigm.

This human network of peace, for peace and resistance against war is starting in the United States, and from there opens onto the world. However, for more than a year they have realized a union with another network that started in 1997 –formed from two poles. One pole formed by survivors of the bombing of Guernica by planes from Nazi Germany in 1937; the other by survivors of the bombing of Dresden carried out by British and American planes in 1945, both places also of great symbolism.

The survivors of Guernica, like those of Dresden, took a long time to find each other. Only in 1997, sixty years after the latter bombing did the Guernica survivors meet for their first public encounter. The President of Germany, having received notice of the event, sent to each one a personal letter personally delivered by his ambassador. In it he wrote: “I evoke the memory of those people on that day in Guernica whose happiness of life was broken, their families destroyed, and its neighbourhoods stolen. I share with you the mourning of the dead persons and compassion for the injured. I offer to you, those who still carry the injuries of the past, an open hand in request for reconciliation.”

In this same act the survivors of Guernica responded:

“They launched upon us a rain of fire, shrapnel, and death. They destroyed our town… But this act, incomprehensible for us, did not leave us with a sentiment of hate or of revenge, but an enormous wish, full of peace, that this would never happen again and that from the ruins that were our town a new flag of peace for all could emerge for all the people of the world.

Today… they come to us… people of other lands… in front and with extended hand… Now there are neither some above nor some below. Now, we can do what then we were not able to do: open our arms and tell them: Welcome to Guernica, we walk together in peace.”

On the same April 26, two years later, in 1999, on the day when televisions were showing the bombings of Kosovo and Serbia, 50 survivors held their “Third Meeting” and unanimously decided to send Kofi Annan a message: “Don’t drop bombs, there are human beings below.” In this meeting, various delegations from South Africa, Colombia, Guatemala, and Northern Ireland participated, and among them was a survivor from the bombing of Dresden.

In Dresden as well, much time had passed for the silent and scattered survivors of the traumatic bombing of their city. Only 42 years later, in 1987, did they start to form into a working group of 10 to 15 people interested in remembering the atrocity. With gathered materials and 8 of the interviews that had been conducted with surviving witnesses they composed and presented the exhibition “Lebenszeichen” (Signs of Life) in 1989.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the socialist regime, and supported by their fellow citizens, various survivors succeeded in 1991 in forming the “Association of the Interests of February 13, 1945” and reopening the exhibition. Since that date, the memory of the survivors has been profoundly tied to the message, “What a matter most is: no more war.” From this came a pledge for common peace from the whole group. Their contacts since 1999 with the survivors and active members of the peace movement in Guernica have helped them to direct this message of peace not only to the city, but to the world.

In February 2003, the Bush Administration prepared the terrible military machine of their country to shift the response to terrorism, waging war against the population of Iraq. Before this terrible threat affected the world, memories of past wars gushed forth, the masses took to the streets. And at the centre appeared the survivors of war traumas and terror that presented their terrible and intense memories with messages of resistance and hopeful paradigms of shared peace. The citizenry is the bread, and the surviving witnesses of war and terror its yeast. In the demonstrations of Vietnam, in the front lines, walked mothers carrying in their arms or at their sides children deformed by Agent Orange. In old Europe, the immense majority rose and went to the streets, but in the United States, it was a great minority.

The Dresden group contacted the group in Guernica and they decided to write the following joint statement against the war that was read February 13 in the Frauenkirche (The Church of the Woman, emblematic in the city) in the presence of 23 survivors of Dresden and two from Guernica and various televisions.

Survivors of the Bombing of Guernica and Dresden Appeal against a War in Iraq

On 13 February 2003 the inhabitants of Dresden will commemorate the 58th anniversary of the catastrophic bombing raids at the end of World War II. On the eve of this day of remembrance, the survivors of the firestorm of 1945 have joined together with witnesses of the bombing of Guernica to issue an appeal to the people of the world.

Appeal of the Survivors of the Bombing of Guernica and Dresden 58 years ago, on 13 February 1945, Dresden was destroyed in a series of aerial bombing raids. Eight years earlier, on 26 April 1937, German planes bombed Guernica. The fate of these two cities has since become a symbol of war against civilians.

As our television sets show bombers preparing for war against Iraq, we survivors of Guernica and Dresden recall our own helplessness and horror when we were flung into the inferno of bombing –we saw people killed. Suffocated. Crushed. Incinerated. Mothers trying to protect their children with only their bodies. Old people with no strength left to flee from the flames. These pictures are still alive in our memory, and our accounts capture indelibly what we went through.

For decades we –and survivors from many other nations– have been scarred by the horror, loss and injuries we experienced in the wars of the 20th century. Today we see that the beginnings of the 21st century are also marked by suffering and destruction. On behalf of all the victims of war throughout the world we express our sympathy and solidarity with all those affected by the terror of 11th September in the USA and the war in Afghanistan.

But is that very suffering now also to be inflicted upon the people of Iraq? Must thousands more die in a rain of bombs, must cities and villages be destroyed and cultural treasures obliterated?

We have seen the pictures that television does not show –we know what war really means. We also know that, in rejecting this war, we stand together with the vast majority of people on this planet.

We survivors of the bombing raids send out this call to the world: Help to prevent a new wave of suffering, destruction and death! Demand a peaceful solution in Iraq! We must not just sit and watch this war happen!

Appeal of the Survivors of the Bombing of Guernica
During its last meeting on the 5th of February the Security Council decided to cover with cloth the "Guernica" by Picasso hanging in the United Nations building. That painting hangs there precisely to remind you in the name of your constituents, all of humanity, of your responsibility to prevent the very horror that threatens the world today. Uncover the "Guernica" and stop the war.

In this statement the hand was extended to the families of 9/11, and this gave rise to the first contacts between the network that was developing from the United Status and that was surging from Guernica and Dresden. From there, the project to publish “Peaceful Tomorrows” in Castilian and German was born.

However, once more, the human approach of both pledges for peace wasn’t able to be publicized, even though it had been preceded and accompanied by an intimate approach, sharing sentiments of pain and friendship for the loss of their loved ones. The tragedy of 9/11 continued two and a half years later, on March 11th in Madrid. In the afternoon of this same day, we contacted Peaceful Tomorrows, and during three days we reunited to compose a simple card of condolence:

To the people of Madrid, those who endured and survived the recent attacks, and especially the families and friends of those who were killed in the bombings,

As family members who have also been grievously hurt by terrorism, we want to let you know that you are in our thoughts and our hearts. The memories and feelings we first felt on September 11th, 2001 have come flooding back to us this week most poignantly. We feel again the pain of searching for our loved ones only to learn of their loss, our loss.

Your families are our families; your suffering is our suffering. Although you may feel desperately alone in the darkness of grief, we are with you, sharing the darkness and keeping hopeful watch for the dawn of a new day.

In deepest sympathy,

September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows

With the help of friends in Torrejón, El Pozo and Coslada –Emiliana, Javier, Nacho, Carlos– two weeks were spent hand delivering the letter to families that had lost loved ones before it was made known to the public.

Soon after, Alissa Torres, a member of Peaceful Tomorrows, wrote to us: “My husband Luis Torres, a Colombian, died on September 11th, leaving me seven months pregnant; I have been a very resilient survivor to this tragedy… I wanted to establish contact with the affected of March 11th in case I could help them with something… I had the idea of visiting them on the anniversary of September 11th, a day in which for my own good I want to be outside of New York…”

And Alissa came with her son Josh for those days in Madrid. She was received with open arms and passed hours and hours over a series of days in Coslada with Juan, his children Sofia and Javier and relatives, Melania and Maria; with Maribel, Jesus and their daughter Beatriz; and in El Pozo con Maria del Mar and her son Victor. They have made friends.

On September 11th, Alissa wanted to be quiet and alone in front of the sea. She was on Laida beach and on Mount San Miguel on the outskirts of Guernica, where she met with Luis, a survivor of the bombing. On the road, the vespers stopped near Lerma in Villamayor to approach the grave in which the “Association of the Recuperation of the Historic Memory” had exhumed the remains of 43 people executed in 1936 at the beginning of the Civil War. There at the Herminio family grave, with one of the relatives an executed victim, they spent four hours with him and his friends Mira and Virgilio.

Even though the publishing house that published “Peaceful Tomorrows” in German was not found, Icaria published it in Castilian and will distribute it in Spain and Latin America. They proposed to present it publicly in Madrid, Barcelona, Medellin (Colombia) and also in the United States for hispanics. This will occur in Spain in March, and various members of Peaceful Tomorrows will come to present it and apart from this public act, will meet in Coslada, Santa Eugenia, El Pozo, and Torrejon with March 11th families. Today, three months before, they already have begun to group. They have spoken before the Parliament and all Spain, touched, hears its truth and feels the sling force of its message.

This translation to Spanish of “Peaceful Tomorrows” is, therefore, a text of encounter that can be a key in a human alliance of peace and for the peace between the English-speaking world and the Spanish-speaking world.

Juan Gutiérrez
Founder of Investigation Center for Peace “Gernika Gogoratuz”, and a link in several of these connections

Peaceful Tomorrows’ Book: Turning Our Grief Into Action for Peace is Published In Spanish

September 11th Families: Turning Our Grief Into Action for Peace

Peaceful Tomorrows Books in Italian, English & Japanese