AMY GOODMAN: And as we move into our last segment today, we turn to the anniversary, the 11th anniversary, of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, also the 11th anniversary of the imposition of U.S.-backed economic sanctions, that have killed more than a million people in Iraq since 1990. In Iraq, 18. U.S. and British activists marked the occasion yesterday with a fast outside the U.N. Mission in Baghdad. Here in New York, activists from Voices in the Wilderness, Catholic Worker, Pax Christi began a 40-day fast outside the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. They were joined on the first day of the fast by former Assistant Secretary General of the U.N. Denis Halliday, who resigned in protest over the sanctions in 1998. People were more used to seeing him inside the world body, but there he was fasting on the outside, as was Kathy Kelly, founder of Voices in the Wilderness, two-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee. And she joins us in the studio now before heading up to the U.N.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Kathy.

KATHY KELLY: Amy, it’s always a privilege to be with you or hearing you.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, it’s great to have you with us. Tell us why you’ve stopped eating.

KATHY KELLY: Well, we decided to undertake a 40-day fast because we’re looking to experiment with ways to follow up on the hope that perhaps change comes so slowly in this country that we may need to hope that people in other countries will put pressure on the United States to say, “Look, these policies are unsustainable.” And so, we’ve got 40 days of opportunity to do outreach here in New York City across from the U.N. And certainly Denis Halliday epitomizes the theme of this fast: breaking ranks. We’re hoping that people in other countries will also find ways to break with the United States on a policy that Halliday describes as genocidal, one that we, for ourselves, recognized has imposed terrible affliction and suffering and death on the most innocent of peoples.

We also know that three people are doing a 10-day water-only fast in Seattle. And in the last two weeks of our fast, Life Under Siege encampments will be starting up in communities and college campuses all across the United States, a chance for people to say, “Let’s try it out ourselves. Let’s see what it’s like to go without potable water, electricity, cars, cellphones, computers — all the things we take for granted.” And part of the reason we get all this stuff is because we’re able to threaten everybody else all around the world with our weapons, our weapons of mass destruction.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re looking, six months after President Bush took office, now going onto the longest presidential vacation in decades, at the Bush record. And I want to ask you, since you’ve been focused on this from the beginning, from George the first, from President Bush, through President Clinton’s years, now back to President Bush, George Bush, what the change has been, especially now. Do you see a change in policy from Clinton to Bush?

KATHY KELLY: Quite honestly, no. I think that the maintenance of the status quo has been very important for both George Bush Sr. and Jr. and President Clinton, that they — the bottom line is being able to keep control over an area where so much oil wealth is located, and the United States can’t continue to compete in world markets if it doesn’t have control over the oil that other people from other countries are purchasing.

AMY GOODMAN: What gives you the strength to continue? I mean, this has been now more than a decade. And a lot of the time, I mean, you’re going back and forth to Iraq. You’ve done all sorts of things that challenge the sanctions, and you have spent a lot of time not eating. So, what gives you any faith that you are going to have an effect?

KATHY KELLY: Well, we certainly can’t walk away. We can’t walk away from the people whom we’ve met over there and say, “Look, this issue is just too hard to work on.” But I would say that being able to be in touch with communities across the United States who, likewise, have juggled up their schedules, have said that they’ll quit their jobs, and members of their communities have found ways to focus on this issue and to begin to build a movement of resistance to economic sanctions, has given me a great deal of heart. I’m completely edified by the people who have come into New York for this fast. And I think that there’s a chance that, you know, we’re not at all going to be taking actions commensurate to the crimes being committed — that’s a given — but I do believe that we are moving toward a time when people around the world are going to eventually say, “Look, there is a rogue superpower in our world, and it’s the United States, and we’ve got to find ways to restrain the U.S. government.” So these are the kinds of connections we hope to make while we undertake the Breaking Ranks fast.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you see more bombing of Iraq on the horizon?

KATHY KELLY: I think there’s a great likelihood of that. I think that we have a team in Baghdad right now, and we’ve been a bit on pins and needles throughout their stay. We also know that the United States is talking about resurrecting the notion of smart sanctions, and we think those would be a bit more like offering an aspirin when surgery is needed, or offering a sedative to lull the world’s conscience on this issue. We hope that a renewed bombing doesn’t happen, but it seems very likely that the saber rattling, if it looks like it will push up opinion polls for George Bush Jr., might occur.

AMY GOODMAN: Kathy Kelly, thanks for being with us, founder Voices in the Wilderness, on a 40-day fast in front of the United Nations.

And that does it for today’s program. Democracy Now! produced by Kris Abrams and Brad Simpson; Anthony Sloan, our technical engineer, music maestro; Errol Maitland, our technical director. And I’ve been told to thank those who make Democracy Now! possible. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting supports Pacifica Radio and the Pacifica stations KPFA, KPFK, KPFT, WPFW and WBAI. Thank you also to our affiliates. All of that, of course, means all of you. We are Pacifica Radio. From the embattled studios of WBAI, from the studios of the banned and the fired, from the studios of our listeners, I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for listening to another edition of Democracy Now!