Humanitarian, heroine and Green: Marla Ruzicka (1976-2005)
By Khurshid Khoja
Green Party of Alameda County (California)

On April 16, 2005, humanitarian activist and Green Party member Marla Ruzicka of Lakeport, Calif. was killed in a car-bomb attack as her vehicle traveled along the road to the Baghdad airport. She was only 28.

Rural to global
Matt Gonzalez, former president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, first met Ruzicka during Medea Benjamin's Green Party campaign for U.S. Senate. He notes that Ruzicka's activism, both as a Green and a citizen of the world, was personally inspiring.

Matt Gonzalez and Marla Ruzicka. Courtesy Matt Gonzalez

"Marla came from a small town," says Gonzalez. "Most people coming from a small town to a big city like San Francisco are awed. Marla interacted with big cities as though they were all the small town where she grew up--so she made friends easily. As she traveled and saw other big cities in the U.S. and around the world, she realized that all these places were similar to her own home town."

Ruzicka viewed many of the problems and issues faced by these cities and their denizens through the same lens, observed Gonzalez, noting that this strengthened her activism with a sense of optimism that was undeterred by nay-sayers who view the world's problems as intractable. "She didn't buy into that hopelessness," says Gonzalez.

"She really stood out in the nature of her personal energy. Even in seemingly hopeless situations, she always found the positives," recalls close friend Kevin Danaher. "Any context that you put her in, she would turn up the heat."

Working for the victims of war

During a visit to Afghanistan as a Global Exchange volunteer, Ruzicka witnessed the devastating toll of over two decades of foreign military adventurism and civil war in Afghanistan. Recounting this experience, she once told an interviewer, "My heart broke, and I made a commitment to ensure that no more innocent Afghans had to suffer."

After several additional trips to Afghanistan, she expanded her commitment to other victims of U.S. military campaigns, traveling to Iraq to continue her work. In 2003 she founded the Campaign for Innocent Victims of Conflict (CIVIC).

While in Iraq, Ruzicka organized and led CIVIC's volunteer survey teams, going door to door to collect information about the numbers of dead and wounded and to arrange for desperately needed medical help. She took her findings to Washington, where she lobbied members of Congress to sponsor and pass the Civilian Victims Assistance program--renamed the Marla Ruzicka Iraqi War Victims' Fund in her honor--legislation to provide reparations to civilian noncombatants harmed in U.S. military operations.

Selfless acts in the service of humanity

Marla Ruzicka eschewed the safety and security of her life in California to embrace the practice of compassion and love for humanity. A telling entry in Ruzicka's published journal displays just how true this was: "Recent terrorist attacks have created a rapidly deteriorating security situation, forcing many aid groups to leave Iraq." Without skipping a beat, her next sentence reads, "Consequently, CIVIC's role has greatly expanded."

She was an activist--indeed, an "activist's activist," as many fellow Greens have noted--but she was not a partisan. She would not, perhaps could not, make an enemy of anyone.

Danaher also remembers Ruzicka as a first-class fundraiser for Green causes and candidates.

"Marla took to it naturally--she had no trepidations about 'the ask,'" says Danaher. "She constantly challenged folks to put their money where their values are. Her efforts [on behalf of the Green Party] make her loss all the more devastating to fellow Greens--she was a very valued member of the party."

Though her work with CIVIC won her the love and friendship of untold numbers of civilians whose lives have been ravaged by the U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, she included Washington politicians, American soldiers, Iraqi policemen and "the only Rabbi in Baghdad" among her friends and benefactors.

Marla Ruzicka's legacy

Tragically for all who survived them--friends, family, Iraqi and Afghan civilians, and the countless number of strangers moved by their incredible selflessness--Ruzicka and CIVIC's Iraq program director, Faiz Ali Salim, died on the Baghdad road they routinely traversed, doing what they loved most in spite of the dangers.

Ruzicka's all-too-brief existence will forever serve as an inspiration to Greens and progressive activists throughout the world to accept the responsibilities that their own governments won't, to make change where the odds seem impossible, and to serve what is just and good with unbridled joy.

Khurshid Khoja, attorney, is a member of the National Lawyers Guild; county council member; member, Green Party of Alameda County (GPAC); editor, GPAC Green News, and a member of the GP-US Diversity Committee.

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