This comes from Elisa in San Francisco...

Today's SF Chronicle had a short piece that talked about the high numbers of Iraqi civilians that have been "war casualties." They get their high estimate of 30,000 from Iraq Body Count, and didn't even mention the study by the journal Lancet that calculated Iraqi deaths as around 100,000. They didn't even mention it, though I guess that should not come as a surprise.

Last May, I wrote about an anti-war vigil held by Scott Blackburn of Voices in the Wilderness (now Voices of Creative Nonviolence), to recognize the deaths of the then 1.594 American troops. In his vigil, Scott rang a bell once a minute to mark each death. He was ringing the bell from 8 am on a Friday morning until 10:34 Saturday. I commented that you would need more than 70 days of bell ringing to reach the numbers in the Lancet study, plus those American deaths.

This week, in a way, both have happened.

Continue Reading on Elisa's Website

The following Ceremony leaflet and press release comes from a participant in Geneva, Switzerland. The first day of bell ringing was completed after 13 hours and 45 minutes. The participant will return to the same location in Geneva on Friday to complete the Ceremony

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Ceremony poster for displaying and leaflet note

100000 sons de cloche pour l'Irak

Aujourd'hui, à l'occasion d'une cérémonie internationale pour la mémoire, nous commémorons la mort de plus de 100000 personnes en Irak suite à la guerre. D'après une étude publiée en octobre 2004 par le journal médical The Lancet, 98000 Iraqiens sont morts suite aux conséquences de la guerre, depuis l'invasion de l'Irak. L'acteur de cette journée de commémoration sonne une clochette chaque minute pour rappeler la perte d'une vie humaine suite à l'invasion et à l'occupation de l'Irak. Ceci, pendant 14 heures (de 7h00 à 21h00). Tout au long de ces 14 heures, les noms des morts de la guerre en Irak résonnera dans l'intervalle entre les 840 sons de clochette. Des journées similaires vont avoir lieu à travers le monde du 24 au 28 octobre 2005. Veuillez vous rendre à l'adresse iraqmortality.org (en anglais).

Maya Schenwar, journalist for such publications as In These Times, asked Kathy Kelly a few questions about the 100,000 Rings campaign.

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Explain a little bit about why body counts are important... What in particular would you like to draw attention to with this action?

Last week, veteran journalist Robert Fisk, who has written from war zones for over 25 years, said that no one would ever vote for a war if they had seen what he has seen. Fisk goes to the morgues, the hospitals and the sites where people are wounded, maimed and bereaved. He fights against oblivion, using his skills as a compelling, respected journalist. We're ringing the bells to express alarm and grief over the horrific waste and carnage caused by this war.