BETWEEN THE LINES Q&A with Ann Wright

Between the Lines Q&A

A weekly column featuring progressive viewpoints
on national and international issues
under-reported in mainstream media
for release July 14, 2010

Former Army Col. Ann Wright Recounts
Israeli Assault on Gaza Aid Flotilla

RealAudio

MP3

Excerpt of talk by Former Army Col. Ann Wright
on Israeli assault on Gaza aid flotilla,
recorded and produced by Melinda Tuhus

annwright

Ann Wright is a 25-year military veteran who rose to the rank of colonel, then retired and joined the State Department, where she was second in command when the U.S. opened its embassy in Afghanistan in December 2001. She resigned from the diplomatic corps in protest when President Bush invaded Iraq in March 2003.

After her resignation, Wright has been a full-time peace activist with Code Pink and other groups. She was on board the Greek flagged ship "Sfendoni," one of six ships in an international aid flotilla that was trying to break the blockade of Gaza in order to carry tons of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian population there. Israeli soldiers boarded the ships on May 31, resulting in the deaths of nine activists -- eight Turks and a Turkish-American. An Israeli military investigation into the naval raid concluded in a July 12 summary that the killing of the aid flotilla's activists was justified, though the operation was beset by flaws in planning and intelligence. The U.N. and governments around the world continue to demand a full and impartial international investigation into the incident.

Ann Wright recently spoke about her experience aboard the aid flotilla to an enthusiastic, capacity audience at the West Haven, Conn. library a few weeks after returning from the Middle East. In this excerpt of her talk, she describes what happened when the Israelis boarded her ship, and the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the nine activists who were killed aboard the largest ship, the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara.

ANN WRIGHT: So, each of the ships' captains was contacted by the Israel Defense Forces, saying "You are approaching a security zone of the state of Israel. Turn back. Turn back." The captains of the ship and others on board the ship were on the radio saying, "We are civilian ships. We are unarmed. We carry no weapons. We are bringing humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza. We intend to come and break the blockade."

Well, four hours later, we started seeing, from the stern of the ships, the large number of lights of Israeli naval vessels that were starting to approach the flotilla. At about 4:30 in the morning, Zodiac boats, pretty good sized and heavily armed, with commandos equivalent probably to our Navy Seals, began approaching the stern of the largest vessel, the Mavi Marmara, and started trying to scale onto the ship. They proceeded trying to get on it by shooting percussion grenades up into the upper deck -- these devices that blow up with huge sound, with lots of smoke to disorient people to give the commandos an opportunity to board the vessel with people still being stunned. There was tear gas used on the Marmara. On my vessel, we did not have tear gas used on us, but we had the percussion grenades fired into the windows of the small ship I was on. We saw the stern of the Mave Marmara being approached and the percussion grenades going up from the Israeli commandos and we saw helicopters coming over their ship. At that point, the captain of their ship called the captain of our ship and said, "Why don't you try to speed ahead? Maybe some of the commandos will take off and follow you" because ours was a much faster ship. So that's what happened. Some of the commandos followed us, and some stayed with the Mavi Marmara.

Most people don't realize that all six ships were boarded forcefully by the Israeli military and there was a varying degree of non-violent resistance to the boarding. All the passengers on all the ships had already gotten together to determine what level of non-violent resistance we would give, because you didn't go all the way over to the Mediterranean and spend millions of dollars in material and boats to say, "Oh, welcome, here's a red carpet. Come right on." We weren't about to use lethal force or anything like that to prevent the Israeli military from boarding. On our ship -- 17 people -- we decided we were going to put women out on the railing of our boat and we did it because when you put guys out there you know what's going to happen -- that testosterone starts moving (laughter) and all of a sudden, the escalation of this. We didn't want that, so we put women out there who were yelling at the commandos as they came up beside us. It wasn't very difficult for them. As we were speeding for about 20 minutes at 20 knots, we had really moved along and had taken several of these Zodiac boats with us, but when a very large light started coming across the bow of our ship, and all of a sudden the captain pulled off the power and boom, we were dead in the water, because a huge ship was in front of us, and the captain said later that that was it, we were not going to jeopardize the lives of people on our ship by this; it was time to stop. So that gave the Israeli commandos easy opportunity to try to board the ship. But we had the women who were standing there: "Get off our ship! We didn't invite you on this ship! It's 70 miles. ... We're in international waters. You have no right -- you're a pirate if you come on our ship!"

What do you think happened? Boom, the women were run over. As commandos -- whether they're Israeli or American commandos -- when these kids -- and they're 18-, 19-, 20-year-olds -- they're kids -- when these kids with all their (sounds) and they've been told, you take control of that ship, then they take control of it. And we had one woman who was shot in the face with a paint bullet. Thank God it wasn't a regular bullet, as they started using on the Mavi Marmara very quickly.

There are a lot of questions that an investigation needs to find out about. What were the rules of engagement? It only took about 20 seconds for them to gain control of our ship. On board the Mavi Marmara, a lot of other things were happening. While our ship was under Israeli control within 20 seconds, on the Marmara, as you probably saw, as the helicopters came over that ship, the commandos started rappelling out of the helicopter. The video that we've all seen was a pretty brutal one, where the commandos were coming down and there were guys on the upper deck who were hitting them with rods and sticks and a couple of chairs. What happened? What caused that reaction to happen? Well, one thing the investigation has to inquire in was, was there lethal gunfire coming from the helicopters? And an al Jazeera reporter who was standing up on the top said that right next to him was a Turkish gentleman who was shot and fell and was just bleeding profusely all over that upper deck. If that is true -- and I have no reason to doubt the reporter saying that -- then there may be a reason why the response all of a sudden turned that people were picking up sticks and were hitting the commandos as they came down. If they'd already seen that somebody had been killed, that there was blood all over, why were the soldiers doing that to this group of unarmed civilians?

Ann Wright is a former Army colonel and U.S. diplomat, now a peace activist who was aboard the Gaza Freedom flotilla. For more information on the Free Gaza Movement, one of the groups coordinating the Gaza aid ships, visit their website at www.freegaza.org.

Related links:

"Israeli Raid on Gaza Aid Flotilla Triggers Firestorm of Protest Worldwide," Interview with Ramzi Kysia, organizer with the Free Gaza Movement, conducted by Scott Harris, Between The Lines Week Ending June 11, 2010

Melinda Tuhus is a producer of Between The Lines, which can be heard on more than 50 radio stations and in RealAudio and MP3 on our website at http://www.btlonline.org. This interview excerpt was featured on the award-winning, syndicated weekly radio newsmagazine, Between The Lines for the week ending July 23, 2010. This Between The Lines Q&A was compiled by Melinda Tuhus and Anna Manzo.

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