The Hindu : `Human shields' at Iraqi power plant

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Mar 22, 2003

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`Human shields' at Iraqi power plant

BAGHDAD MARCH 21. Westerners, opposed to the U.S.-led war on Iraq, are acting as ``human shields'' at a power plant which provides some six million people in Baghdad with electricity.

The area around the al-Daura power plant was bombed on Thursday, the first night of the U.S. and British military campaign to oust the Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein. Daura also accommodates one of the country's oil refineries.

Today, some of the 15 ``human shields'' at the plant spoke of why they were risking their lives being there.

"My life is not more important than the lives of thousands of Iraqis living in a village close to this plant," said Michel Pauli, 57, from Switzerland.

Another opponent of the war, an American, said: "I am here as a human shield hopefully to prevent an attack on this power plant".

Marc Eubauks said he was not supporting Mr. Hussein's government but he opposed the U.S. war. "I am not backing the Iraqi regime. It is such a wrong action by the United States. It is not for our regime to change it, it is the Iraqi people's regime. If they want to change it, it is up to them to do so," he said.

Iraqi officials took around 120 journalists to the Daura power plant to meet the Westerners.

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