Ben Linder

Ben Linder is dead. The 27-year-old engineer from Portland, Oregon, built dams in rural Nicaragua and liked to dress up like a clown for the kids. What better thing is there to do in a poverty-stricken war zone than trying to improve the lives of peasants and making children laugh?

With so many U.S. citizens now in Nicaragua, it was inevitable that someday the first would be killed. And every one who has ever gone to Nicaragua knew that and accepted the risk. Anyone who tries to stop a war or heal its wounds risks becoming one of its casualties.

What every U.S. citizen working for peace in Nicaragua also knows is that the death of Benjamin Linder was intended to send a signal--to them. Ben was targeted, just as he and others like him were warned they would be. Of course, the contras and the U.S. State Department deny that.

U.S. officials suggested Ben was caught in a crossfire between Nicaraguan government forces and the contras. I couldn't help recalling Alexander Haig's suggestion that the four religious women raped and killed in El Salvador in 1980 might have provoked the attack by running a roadblock. At least we can say that the U.S. government's treatment of the truth about Central America has been consistent.

I traveled in the Nicaraguan war zones as a member of the first Witness for Peace delegation in December 1984. Frequently our daily plans and travel routes had to be altered because of contra attacks. We could often hear mortar fire nearby and were sometimes stranded in unexpected places or encountered roads that had been closed because of the fighting.

On our return trip to Managua from the northern frontier town of Jalapa, our bus driver raced to get off a road that was expected to be shelled by the contras at any moment. That same road was closed one hour later because of a contra attack.

I remember most vividly a vigil we held near the Honduran border, at the site of another vigil a few months earlier by the group of North Americans who first had the dream of Witness for Peace. It was a memorable moment, linking their vision with the presence of our group--the first of many Witness for Peace delegations to come. But while we prayed there, hands joined together in hope for peace in Nicaragua, I felt a shiver run down my spine as I realized that we were being watched from mountain shadows within rifle and mortar range.

Since that time Witness for Peace volunteers have found themselves and, indeed, placed themselves in more dangerous situations out of a commitment to nonviolence and a faith that enabled them to take risks for peace. Many of my close friends have gone to Nicaragua with Witness for Peace, and every time they do, I catch my breath again and find myself praying more and harder.

I will never forget that August day in 1985 when I received the news that a Witness for Peace group had been kidnapped by the contras. Some feared them dead.

A number of us heard about the kidnapping while in a jail cell after crossing the line marking the perimeter of the Nevada Test Site to pray on the 40th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing. The fears, tears, and prayers for our brothers and sisters in Nicaragua were as intense as any I've ever known. Yet, locked up together, tightly grasping one another's hands, we experienced a faith and a solidarity that transcended jail cells and international boundaries.

THAT SAME FAITH AND solidarity motivate and sustain many of the U.S. volunteers now in Nicaragua, but this motivation will never be understood by those who continue to lie in order to cover their horrible violence. Something has happened between North Americans and the Nicaraguan people--they have met and grown to love one another. The faith and courage of the poor have taught many lessons to North Americans who have never been poor. Now one more lesson has been taught--the experience of suffering and loss.

Many people loved Ben Linder--his family, his friends, his co-workers, the people he served, and the children he made laugh. You can see that love in their faces and their tears, and you can see the joy and hope he left behind in the tearful smiles that come when stories are told about Ben.

Daniel Ellsberg was in Washington, D.C., recently for the national peace events in late April. He was asked by a local television reporter what turned the American public against the war in Vietnam. "Body bags," said Ellsberg.

Exposure of the official deception and lies didn't do it. Telling the truth didn't do it. Describing the suffering of the Vietnamese didn't do it. Body bags did it. Not until larger and larger numbers of American boys came home in body bags did the American people start to feel the Vietnam War was a mistake, or simply wrong, or just not worth it.

Those American men died while fighting a war. Benjamin Linder was killed while trying to stop a war. Maybe Ben's death will begin to bring the U.S. war in Nicaragua home for other Americans. If it does, then Ben's death will help to accomplish what he tried to do with his life.

Regardless of the outcome, Ben Linder risked and gave his life trying to help somebody else and trying to stop senseless and criminal violence. In a time when integrity is harder and harder to find, a young engineer from Oregon offers us some. Thank you, Ben.

Jim Wallis is editor-in-chief of Sojourners.