PRAYERS FOR PEACEMAKERS, Wed., Dec. 09, 2009

Pray for the success of Canada's Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Pray that the churches that ran the schools can support the commission and provide a safe place for Aboriginal people to share their experiences.

Doug Pritchard
Christian Peacemaker Teams
Toronto, Canada

Tuesday 3 November

Gish and Holmes visited the Mayor of Kani Mase. Asked if there were other villages affected by the bombing that CPT should visit, the Mayor said people left the villages, not because of the Turkish bombing, but because of fighting in the mountains between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Turkish military. He maintained the Turkish military are not causing any problems; they coordinate their activities with the Peshmerga and have good relations with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). 

Asked about low-level flights of Turkish military planes over nearby villages on 13, 14 and 15 October 2009, the Mayor said these flights are normal and people are used to it. Asked if people returning to their villages today are in danger, the Mayor said: “The villages are secure.  The reason they don’t want to go back is that the U.N. ‘Oil for Food’ program made them lazy and they prefer to wait for handouts.  The KRG and the Municipality have built schools, concrete houses and set up water irrigation systems. Things aren’t perfect yet: they are getting lots of help and still they will not go back.”

Holmes and Gish visited a village near Kani Mase.  Villagers said people do not come back because Turkish military planes flying low and circling are frightening; roads are impassable during winter rains; children go to schools or universities outside, and families who are wealthy establish and maintain year-around homes elsewhere.

Asked about the Turkish outpost nearby, they responded: “We don't want anyone here watching everything we do. We want to be able to go to any village without fear. Now, if an animal wanders off from the others, farmers do not feel free to go and look for them.  If they do, the Turkish military might shoot at them.”

On the morning of Saturday, 28 November, Palestinians from At-Tuwani and Yatta successfully plowed their fields in Khoruba valley and Mashakha valley, as well as fields on the property of Hajj Hussein Daoud.  These fields lie southeast of Havot Ma'on, an Israeli settlement outpost that in 2006 was designated for evacuation.  Settlers had plowed some of these fields on 5 November when, according to Palestinian shepherds, the Israeli military was present and permitted the plowing to happen.  Palestinians of nearby communities expressed concern, seeing this as another attempt by settlers to steal their land.

In 1987-88, Saddam Hussein’s Ba'athist military launched a brutal offensive against the Iraqi Kurds called the "Anfal," a term from the Koran meaning "the spoils of [holy] war." In the final years of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, Hussein feared that Iraqi Kurds might ally themselves with Iran. His campaign against the Kurds centered on the destruction of Kurdish villages across Iraq's three northern provinces and the killing or exile of their rural population. The Iraqis used aerial bombing, chemical gas attacks, and mass executions against the Kurds. Kurds say that 180,000 were killed, 90% of their villages destroyed, and one million displaced out of a population of 3.5 million.  The Iraqi government removed the survivors from two-thirds of the Kurdish land areas and concentrated them in the few remaining Kurdish towns and cities under harsh restrictions with few resources.

At-Tuwani, South Hebron Hills, Palestine-On Wednesday, 25 November 2009, the Israeli military and Border police confiscated two electricity pylons standing at the entrance to the village of At-Tuwani.  The villagers had installed the pylons in an effort to connect to the electrical grid in Yatta, a Palestinian city to the north.  The Israeli military declared the area around the pylons a closed military zone in an attempt to prevent Palestinians and CPTers from obstructing or documenting the confiscation.  When two CPTers continued to film, Border Police slammed them against a military jeep and threatened them with arrest.  Nonetheless, dozens of villagers formed a barricade to prevent a police jeep from further entering the village.