January 15, 2004

Fundraiser will help local peace activist with costly medical bills

By Terry McGuire

SEATTLE — Since the 1990 Gulf War, Seattle-based peace activist Bert Sacks has concerned himself with the welfare of the Iraqi people — particularly its children — in the wake of economic sanctions and the current U.S. occupation.

Despite U.S. prohibitions against travel to Iraq, the retired software engineer has made nine trips there to deliver medicines, food, school supplies and other humanitarian aid. He still faces $13,000 in fines for violating U.S. law during one of those visits.

But the slender, 61-year-old vegetarian, who is well-known in the Catholic peace community, never worried about his own health, given the fact he ate the right foods and took long walks daily. Though he didn't have health insurance, "I thought I was in good health," he said last week. "I thought I could make it to 65" (when Medicare kicks in).

Then last November, Sacks suffered a mild heart attack. The bill for his half-day hospitalization: $57,000, including a six-mile, $1,323 ambulance ride.

"I've had limousine rides before," he marveled, but nothing like that.

Now the Seattle-area peace community is sponsoring a brunch and silent auction to help him with medical expenses. The event will be held on Saturday, Jan. 24 at 10:30 a.m. at the University Temple United Methodist Church in Seattle, 1415 N.E. 43rd St. RSVPs, due by Jan. 19, may be made by calling (425) 488-9965 or by e-mailing bertmedicalfund@yahoo.com.

Sacks, who has worked unpaid and full-time over his years as an advocate of nonviolence, is appreciative of the attention.

"I feel really honored and blessed by having such a circle of good friends."

He said he'll continue his efforts of promoting nonviolence and looking for solutions to Iraq's sufferings.

The heart attack may have slowed him down a little, he said, but "I hope it will make my activism wiser."

Of Jewish ancestry, Sacks lived in Israel for five years, then returned to the U.S. in 1984, angry at the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. "I didn't know what to do with my anger," he said. But then, in 1990, while protesting the impending Gulf War, he was referred by a friend to the writings of a Buddhist monk who preached that the enemy is not the person but rather the person's state of mind, which has been closed by greed, anger or indifference. The task is to get at the root causes that brought about that state of mind.

Sacks said he came to see that working for nonviolence means not taking sides, but working to understand both sides, and then striving to bring that understanding from one side to the other.

He said the economic sanctions and the warfare against Iraq have cost the lives of 400,000 Iraqi children under the age of five over the past 14 years, victims of a destroyed infrastructure plagued with disease, polluted water, and lack of medicines and nutrition.

"My spiritual heart has been burdened," he said, "especially this last year as I've seen my country rush to this illegal, immoral war so ill advised because we were told all these things that were not true.

"We rushed to war, and now we're there."

Of the $87 billion the U.S. is spending on Iraq, only $18 billion is slated for the rebuilding effort, he said. Much more needs to be committed, he said.

He noted that L. Patrick Bremer III, U.S. ambassador to Iraq and administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority, said it will take $100 billion to repair Iraq's infrastructure.

One of Sacks' colleagues in the peace effort, Kathy Kelly, a Catholic and one of the founders of the Chicago-based organization, Voices in the Wilderness, which campaigns to end economic and military warfare against the Iraqi people, said Sacks has touched many people here and in Iraq with his loving and "dogged dedication to nonviolence.

"While visiting with people in Baghdad and Basra, many friends mentioned him, and somehow word had already traveled about his health," Kelly said this week. They say: "'Mr. Bert, yes, please, you tell him we pray for him,'" she said.

"With his heart open to the world, (he) has brought many people into focus," she said, "blurring the false borders that divide us."

Persons unable to attend the brunch and auction may also make contributions online at www.bertmedicalfund.org, or by sending a check to Keystone Congregational Church, 5019 Keystone Place N., Seattle, WA 98103, with "Bert Sacks Medical Fund" written on the check's memo line.