Group fasts for peace outside White House

WASHINGTON – It’s been four days since Ann Wright, a retired U.S. Army colonel and former U.S. diplomat, had her last meal. For the first day and a half she subsisted on water, then she switched to water mixed with Gatorade and some fruit juice.

Wright, 59 of Honolulu, said Friday that she feels OK and is determined to go two weeks without food. She is fasting to honor the troops who have lost their lives in Iraq and to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq.

Wright joined a group of protesters outside the White House as part of a nationwide fasting effort that began on Independence Day, called Troops Home Fast, that they hope will end with the Bush administration pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq.

“We who are trying to stop the war are in no way endangering the troops. It’s the policies that got them there that are the big problems,” Wright said.

Wright said she spent 29 years in the Army and Army Reserves, reaching the rank of colonel. Wright was also a U.S. diplomat for 16 years. In 2003, she was one of three U.S. diplomats who resigned to protest the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Now, she is a full-time activist and member of CodePink.

CodePink is a grassroots, mostly female organization that calls for the end of U.S. presence in Iraq and for the U.S. to fund a massive reconstruction effort there with the jobs going to Iraqi contractors.

Meredith Dearborn, a spokeswoman for CodePink, said the group began in 2002 as a response to oncoming war in Iraq. She said the women chose the color pink as a “strike for peace” in response to the Department of Homeland Security’s color-coded terror alerts.

“We encouraged the fasting to begin on July 4, because it was symbolic, “ Dearborn said. “Hopefully, people will fast for as long as they can, and then they can do a rolling fast, where the fast gets passed from person to person in the community, for at least one day, or two or three days each, so that so it continues until Sept. 21, International Peace Day.”

On Wednesday, more than 50 protesters, most dressed in pink and some carrying placards, met on the lawn of Lafayette Park, across from the White House. Facing them, on the sidewalk in front of the White House, a smaller group of pro-war advocates met, also holding placards.

At times, the groups shouted obscenities at each other, and at other times, they ignored each other. Both groups engaged in conversations with tourists and passersby. One woman on the pro-war side who identified herself as “Just A. Nobody” and another man refused to be quoted by name. “Nobody,” who said she is from southern Virginia, said she supports U.S. troops in Iraq.

CodePink plans to maintain a daily vigil from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. outside the White House through Aug. 14. After that, the group plan to demonstrate outside President Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, while he is on vacation.

Although each individual is encouraged to fast only as long as his or her body allows, some, including environmental activist Diane Wilson, who is in her mid-50s, of Seadrift, Texas, and social activist and comedian Dick Gregory, who activists said had been at the White House protest, are fasting with no specific ending date.

Wilson said she plans to live off water for as long as she can. A fourth-generation commercial fisher and shrimper from Texas, Wilson said this is her seventh hunger strike. However, this one will be different. Wilson said she plans to take this fast to her death and has already written her will.

“I think in order to create peace, we have to be as serious as those who create war,” Wilson said. “And you have to be that serious. When we get out there with our banners that say ‘troops home now,’ I think they hope that’s all we do. But, a hunger strike comes from a different place, a soul-place, and it creates things.”