She’s been everywhere, all the hot spots, in the last nine years: Bosnia, Haiti, Iraq, Jordan, Nicaragua, not to mention numerous nuclear-missile sites and other off-limits government installations in this country. No one’s asked her to come, no one’s paid her way, and many have advised her not to go. You could almost hear the alarm in Bob Edwards’s voice when he interviewed her on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition in July 1993: “You’re going somewhere where people are mowed down while standing in line for water.” She answered, “Yes, we understand that.” What was she thinking?
Kelly shares an apartment with Karl Meyer, a veteran war-tax resister who’s achieved considerable notoriety over the past 35 years by creating a series of “inventions of nonviolence” to arouse an apathetic public and drive the Internal Revenue Service crazy. She and Meyer were married in the mid-1980s but obtained a divorce several years later, largely because Meyer was determined to separate himself from every institution approved by society and regulated by governmental entities. The divorce has apparently had no influence on their relationship or their living arrangement. Meyer remains Kelly’s mentor and emotional support, and the bond of affection between them is quite apparent. “Karl is an amazing thinker,” says Kelly. “He questions everything, makes you reconsider all assumptions. The two of us have always had a marvelous coherence.”
“I’ve seen her do things that I’d think a long time before doing,” he says. “She’ll get into situations that I’d call close to suicide. And she’s always ready to go. She gets a phone call, she packs a bag, and she’s off.”
From Split they took ten buses into Serbian-held Bosnia, and that’s where complications developed. The Serbs at first demanded that the visitors turn back. Then they agreed to let the buses continue in a “tank sandwich,” with United Nations vehicles at the front and rear of the convoy. Kelly and her eight-member group protested; as strict pacifists they opposed any military presence, supportive or antagonistic. But they finally consented to a single UN tank at the front of the line.
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A far more ambitious follow-up was scheduled for the summer of 1993: some 5,000 peacemakers would set up encampments for three weeks or more in three major cities, including Sarajevo. Called Mir Sada (“peace now” in Serbo-Croatian), the project was jointly sponsored by Beati and a well-financed French humanitarian organization called Equi Libre. Kelly organized a U.S. contingent of about 50 volunteers. When she reached Italy she learned that the number of participants was fewer than 3,000, but the organizers thought that was still a substantial delegation and could have an effect: even if the warring parties paid no heed, the international community might be moved to press harder for a negotiated solution.
Kelly and other determined pacifists believed an escort would compromise their message. With an increasingly bitter debate raging, Kelly was elected by the group to chair a general assembly. Though she supported continuing immediately to Sarajevo, she tried to give all sides a chance to speak. No agreement was reached, and Kelly admits, “I was not adequate to the task.”
