Sept 11 families ‘not helped by others’ suffering’

A NEW York woman who lost her nephew in the September 11 attacks revealed her opposition to the war in Iraq at a public meeting in Dublin yesterday.

Valerie Lucznikowska, a member of the S11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrow’s group, told the Liberty Hall meeting that the war should not be carried out in the name of her relative, Adam Arias, who died as he fled Manhattan’s Twin Towers.

Ms Lucznikowska, a 64-year-old public relations executive, is one of around 50 relatives of people who died in the September 2001 atrocities who have joined the anti-war group. “The 9/11 families cannot be helped by seeing other people’s families destroyed,” she said.

Members of the group, which claims to have a support base of 2000 people in the United States, have been at the vanguard of the anti-war movement in America. They stepped up their public protests ahead of the first strikes against Iraq.

Ms Lucznikowska, who is on a European speaking tour, was invited to Dublin by the Irish anti-war movement, one of the three main groups involved in organising protests against the Iraqi expedition.

Many of those who lost relatives on September 11 have backed their president George Bush, but the anti-war group has been extremely vocal, particularly at recent protest rallies.

The group has condemned unconditionally the “illegal, immoral, and unjustified US-led military action in Iraq.”

A statement read: “As family members of September 11th victims, we know how it feels to experience “shock and awe,” and we do not want other innocent families to suffer the trauma and grief that we have endured. While we also condemn the brutality of Saddam Hussein’s regime, it does not justify the brutality, death and destruction being visited upon Iraq and its citizens by our own government.”