Edith Bartley knows what it’s like to lose close relatives to acts of international terrorism. She knows all about suicide bombers. Bartley knew about Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda cells long before they became part of the American consciousness.

And she knows what it feels like to see televised ceremonies across the nation to commemorate the Sept. 11 deaths of 3,056 people, while the loss of her father and younger brother on Aug. 7, 1998, in Kenya go unnoticed.

On that summer morning, the United States embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, were destroyed by suicide bombers later linked to Bin Laden. Four men were later convicted in New York and sentenced to life in prison.

According to the State Department, more than 220 persons—including 12 Americans, 32 Kenyans and eight Tanzanians—were killed and more than 4,000 others were injured in the truck bomb attacks.

Bartley feels that they, too, should have been remembered on Sept. 11.

“Our families were killed by the same terrorist groups, “ explains Bartley, 30. “Our families were targeted because they were Americans and represented the ideas of America. And our families were killed on American soil—it was just half a world away.”
Her father, Julian Bartley Sr., 54, was a career diplomat and was serving as U.S. consul general in Kenya. Her brother was working a summer job in the embassy.

“This is not a situation where people died of old age or died of natural causes, a prolonged illness or even a car accident,” recalls Bartley, who graduated from the University of Missouri Law School last May. “My father was not present at my law school graduation. He won’t be able to walk me down the wedding aisle. My brother at 20 was robbed of the opportunity to finish college and have a family of his own. I have no other siblings.”

Four years ago, she could hardly sleep at night. Though it’s easier to fall asleep now, she and her mother, Sue, still struggle with having lost the two males in their close-knit family.

“Even though it’s been four years, there are moments that you’re doing something completely unrelated and a flood of emotions can come over you,” she says. “Our lives have been changed forever.

“What has added insult to injury is the lack of acknowledgment and respect that has been displayed from our own government toward these 11 American families.”

The State Department initially objected to paying the families any more than the limited life insurance polices on their lives and a portion of her father’s salary. And even after the federal government set up a special fund for victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, they were not included.

Consequently, Bartley has served as a one person lobbying team for the 11 families. She has roamed the halls of Congress trying to get for the East Africa victims the same benefits that are routinely distributed to the better-known victims.

After repeatedly seeking a meeting with Bill Clinton when he was in office and being rebuffed, she cringes at the sight of the former president announcing that he will help raise scholarship funds for the victims of Sept. 11.

Still, she has pressed on and that persistence seems to be paying off. Shortly before the August recess, the U.S. House of Representatives, on a vote of 391-18, passed H.R. 3375. That legislation allows the families of the East Africa bombings to apply for the same federal compensation that the other terrorist victims receive.

A similar measure is stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee, but Bartley is optimistic that it will eventually pass. And she is even philosophical about why the victims of the East Africa bombings have been virtually ignored.

“We watched the World Trade Center on TV,” she says. “We watched people jump from those buildings, making a decision between dying from heat or jumping to their death. The images were there and are there in our minds forever.

“In East Africa, people were in meetings talking. My brother was laughing—I spoke with people who were with him in his last moments. It was a loud bang of grenades and then the big boom and it was quiet. People were decapitated, split in half—all of these things.

“But you didn’t see it on CNN. You didn’t see it on ABC. It wasn’t on CBS. People weren’t looking at it. It happened, and they woke up in the morning and read about it. It didn’t have the same impact or garner the same attention. It wasn’t in our backyard—it was in Africa.”

In the U.S. House, Bennie Thompson, who had earlier introduced legislation that would have awarded $1.5 million to the families of those killed in East Africa, said: “It took both the events of September 11th and the tireless efforts of a very brave young lady named Edith Bartley, who lost not one, but two members of her family in the Nairobi bombing, to change the sentiments of this chamber.”

He added, “…The passage of this legislation is not only testament to your hard work, but a tribute to your father and brother as well. They would be proud.”