by CHRISTOPHER HAZOU

Elizabeth Corrie still finds it difficult to talk about her cousin Rachel's death. She speaks slowly and chooses her words carefully, occasionally pausing to maintain her composure.

"The bulldozer driver kept going and started pushing dirt onto her," says the 33-year-old educator. "She tried to climb up the mound of dirt… climb up the blade to look the soldier in the eye. At some point, she fell over, and that's when she fell underneath the blade."

On March 16 last year, 23-year-old International Solidarity Movement member and American citizen Rachel Corrie was killed by an Israeli army bulldozer while trying to prevent the demolition of Palestinian homes in the Gaza Strip. Since then, Rachel's family has campaigned tirelessly for an independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding her death, and have dedicated themselves to the cause that Rachel gave her life for.

This Saturday, March 6, Elizabeth Corrie will be in Montreal to give two lectures. At 4:30 p.m., she will be appearing at UQÀM in the Hubert Aquin Pavilion (Room AM050) as part of an International Women's Day conference. Then, at 8 p.m., she will be delivering a lecture entitled "Killing Peace: The Death of Rachel Corrie" at Concordia University's De Sève Cinema (1400 de Maisonneuve W.).

Case closed

After a brief investigation, the Israeli army issued a report ruling Rachel's death an accident, despite eyewitness accounts to the contrary. Initially, the army refused to let U.S. officials or the Corrie family see the report, eventually producing a 20-page document that contained no direct quotes from eyewitnesses or documentary evidence, says Elizabeth.

"It actually said that Rachel died not from the bulldozer, but from falling debris," she says. "The case is closed as far as the Israelis are concerned."

Rachel's death was the first in a string of deadly incidents involving ISM members and the Israeli army. A few weeks after Rachel was killed, American ISM member Brian Avery survived a bullet to the face. A week later, British ISM member Tom Hurndall was shot in the head. After nearly a year in a coma, Hurndall died in January. Following pressure from the British government and Hurndall's family, the Israeli army laid charges of manslaughter against a soldier who confessed to the shooting, but critics fear he will be scapegoated because he is a Bedouin Arab.

In contrast to the British government's support of the Hurndall family, the Bush administration has done little to assist the Corrie family's efforts, Elizabeth says. Attempts to pass a congressional resolution calling for a U.S.-led investigation into Rachel's death have received little support.

"After almost a year of sitting in the International Relations Committee, there are 52 sponsors out of all of Congress," she says. "That's not a lot, not enough to get it out of the committee."

Long active in issues such as women's rights and gay rights, Elizabeth immersed herself in Rachel's cause as a way of dealing with her cousin's death.

"I was always an activist, but I was first and foremost an academic," she says. "Now I'm at a place where I have a lot less patience with academia and an absolute drive to work on this cause. I can't stop thinking about it. I have to work on this because I just know too well what is going on over there. My government has the power to stop it, which means I have the power to stop it."

Risk of non-violence

Elizabeth has also found herself face to face with the realities of non-violent resistance, a subject she teaches at the secondary school level in Atlanta.

"Since she died, I've been living out the strengths and weaknesses of non-violent resistance," she says. "This is why we try so hard to raise awareness about what happened, because non-violence can't work unless there's a public outcry."

And for those who say ISM members are troublemakers who knowingly put themselves in danger, and therefore deserve what they get, Elizabeth Corrie has a message.

"Yeah, they put themselves in danger, for sure. That's what non-violent resistance is," says Corrie. "When the civil rights protesters in America marched through Selma and were attacked by dogs and were thrown down by water guns, they knew that was a risk. But people who run over people with bulldozers or who shoot unarmed protesters are responsible for their actions too."

More information on the campaign for an independent investigation into Rachel Corrie's death can be found at www.rachelcorrie.org.