Ceremony Marks Two-Month Anniversary of Terrorist Attacks

By Judy Aita
Washington File Staff Correspondent

President Bush, UN and local officials at World Trade Center site

New York -- The flags of more than 80 nations - from Slovakia to South Africa, Antigua to Ukraine -- moved in a slow procession, and were deposited at the site of the World Trade Center terrorist attack during a brief November 11 memorial ceremony remembering those killed exactly two months ago.

President George Bush, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, New York Governor George Pataki, and New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani attended the ceremony in memory of the international victims of the attack. The political leaders stood silently on the platform erected amid the rubble of what was once a bustling office complex while Muslim, Jewish, and Christian clerics conducted religious services.

Referring to a verse from the Koran, Imam Dewider of the Midtown Islamic Center said that "Allah commanded to do acts of goodness and giving to kith and kin and the Almighty forbids all shameful deeds, evil acts, and transgression."

The imam said, "The Koran considers the bee's honey as the main source of healing. So we are here today to seek a scriptural healing and the word of God. We...pray we shed our differences with tolerance and work together to nourish and cultivate the earth.

"We need to return to God and perform acts of goodness on Earth, to elevate the conditions of people's mind, body, and soul." Imam Dewider said. "Be sure, as God promises in the Koran, verily with every hardship there is relief."

Rabbi Haskel Lookstein of the Kehilagh Josurum Congregation said that throughout history at times of great destruction there were also "small signs of hope; indications that life would somehow go on; that good would ultimately conquer evil.

"We thank God for our symbols of hope in American even at the time of destruction on September 11," the rabbi said. "The firefighters, police officers, medical workers made the ultimate sacrifice and turned the day of pure evil perpetrated by man into a day of remarkable heroism on the part of man.

"We thank them for restoring our faith in humanity at the moment that that faith was waning. We thank God for a city and a country that set aside all possible differences and united into a family," Rabbi Lookstein said.

Bishop Patrick Sheridan of the Catholic Archdiocese of New York said that the "victims of this vicious cruelty and diabolical revenge...were the members of our human family, our beloved brothers and sisters, the sons and daughters of more than 80 nations.....welcome them into paradise where there will be no more sorrow or weeping or pain but only peace and joy."

At the end of the ceremony, President Bush and the secretary general wrote their names beside the flags of the United States and the United Nations, which were displayed on a large billboard with the names and flags of the other countries whose citizens were killed.

Bush was in New York November 10 and 11 to address the UN General Assembly and meet with other world leaders participating in the annual general debate. Many of those attending the session have been making their way to the World Trade Center site as well as devoting a major portion of their speeches to the need for a united, uncompromising, international fight against terrorists and those who support them.