CIVIC: Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict

Marla Ruzicka, a native of Lakeport, California, a pristine community on the shores of California’s Clear Lake, was born December 31, 1976. She attended Long Island University’s Friends World Program, studying in Costa Rica and Cuba, Kenya and Zimbabwe, Israel and Palestine. After graduating from LIU in the Spring of 1999, Marla returned to California and worked briefly for the Rainforest Action Network. At an early age it was evident that human rights was her passion. She eventually returned to Global Exchange, a San Francisco-based nongovernmental advocacy organization, where she had volunteered during high school.

After leading a Global Exchange Reality Tour in opposition to the war in Afghanistan, Marla decided to stay behind to help families accidentally harmed in Operation Enduring Freedom. She arrived in Kabul only a few days after the Taliban were removed from power and organized a survey of the military campaign’s impact on Afghan civilians. She used the information to get assistance from the U.S. military and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to the families who were harmed. The day after Saddam’s statue fell Marla arrived in Iraq and immediately began a door-to-door survey of civilians who had been killed or injured.

In 2003, Marla formed a new NGO, the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC). Although she became an innocent victim of war herself when she was killed in a suicide bomb attack in Baghdad on April 16, 2005 at the age of 28, CIVIC is continuing the work that Marla started.

Before her death Marla had successfully lobbied the U.S. Government through Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) to provide medical, vocational and other types of assistance for Afghan and Iraqi families and communities harmed as a result of U.S. and coalition military operations. To date, $50 million has been appropriated for the “Marla Ruzicka Iraqi War Victims Fund,” and another $44 million for similar activities in Afghanistan. These funds are administered by USAID through NGOs, in consultation with the U.S. Congress and CIVIC.