Displaced People

On 1 October, the team and local friends held a Briyani Day in the IDP camp in Bestesen, Zharawa. Around ten kids, seventeen women, and two men joined the picnic. Half of them walked one hour from Zharawa back to the IDP (Internally Displaced People) camp to greet the visitors. The displaced people shared their disappointment in the IDP representatives and local authorities. The visitors tried to steer the conversation toward what those gathered could do to highlight the concerns of displaced peoples.

CPT's Aboriginal Justice team has made available candle readings and bulletin inserts for the next three Sundays in Advent and Christmas.  They are available at http://www.cpt.org/work/aboriginal_justice/resources/advent2010   The bulletins give links to actions that Canadian and U.S. CPTers can take up on behalf of Indigenous rights.

On 7 August, Juan Manuel Santos replaced Alvaro Uribe Velez as president of Colombia.  From 2006 to 2009 Santos held the position of Minister of Defense in Uribe's government.  He is seen by some as a brilliant strategist, because he was at the helm when the army killed one of the highest-ranking commanders of the FARC (Colombia's largest insurgency group) and rescued fifteen high-profile hostages. He is seen by others as a gruesome killer. While defense minister, media networks broke the story of the "False Positives" scandal in which Colombia's armed forces killed more than 2000 civilians and claimed they were enemies killed in combat to get financial and other rewards.

PRAYERS FOR PEACEMAKERS, Nov. 24, 2010

Give thanks that a national government has finally been formed in Iraq, eight months after the elections in March 2010. Pray that it might prove stable, and effective in promoting justice and well-being.

Doug Pritchard

Christian Peacemaker Teams

Toronto, Canada

Colombian Bicentennial 2010

What Bicentennial of Colombia are we talking about?
What are they telling me about, I wonder
if they are two hundred years of shattered dreams
What Bicentennial are they telling me about
if the whip only changed hands

School Patrol

Together with the members of Operation Dove, the team monitored the Israeli military accompaniment of the school children from the Tuba area as they passed near the Israeli settlement of Ma'on. Twice the soldiers failed to arrive in the afternoon, and the internationals accompanied the children back to Tuba. Four settlers, with faces masked, chased the children during one of these accompaniments, but no verbal or physical contact with the settlers occurred, and no one was injured. On another occasion, two high school students were returning to Tuba when two masked settlers stole the donkey they were riding.  Later the donkey appeared back in Tuba missing its saddle.

I was preparing to leave Hebron’s Old City one day in August 2009 when a friend of mine, Hamzi, invited me to go swimming in Abraham’s Well, an ancient spring located in Tel Rumeida, essentially the only neighborhood in the West Bank city where Palestinians and Israeli settlers physically encounter one another on a daily basis.  

The thought of taking a dip in the cool underground waters of Abraham’s Well sounded superb.  In our enthusiasm as we approached, we didn’t notice the four Israeli soldiers sitting above it until they came running, screaming at us, rifles aimed in our direction.

PRAYERS FOR PEACEMAKERS, Nov. 17, 2010

Pray for safe travel for the representatives of six communities that Christian Peacemaker Teams accompanies in Colombia as they gather to evaluate and offer feedback on CPT’s work and relationships.

Doug Pritchard

Christian Peacemaker Teams

Toronto, Canada

On Sunday our delegation visited Amna Suraka, a prison where Saddam Hussein kept Kurdish dissidents and political prisoners. We walked through the facility and listened to our guide tell us stories of merciless torture, overcrowded cells, and unsanitary conditions for men, women, and children.  On Monday we travelled southeast to the village of Halabjah, where the Iraqi government used chemical weapons to murder more than 5,000 Kurdish civilians, almost two-thirds of which were women and children, in March of 1988.

I am a proud Ohio farm girl living and working as a Christian Peacemaker with our Palestinian partners in Palestine. My rootedness to the earth has helped me feel h at home here in West Bank, Palestine where the land is valued so strongly. Back home in the States, however, I never had see my home demolished, my trees uprooted, my land confiscated, my irrigation lines destroyed like my Palestinian friends have.  I have never been threatened with the possibility of losing my home so other families may move in by what they say is their legal right. No one ever forced me to leave my lemon tree or my huge fig tree shading my courtyard, or my terraced garden that feeds my soul.