From 8 to 12 October 2010 at the National University of Colombia in Bogotá, various social sectors of Colombia met to inaugurate the People's Congress. Christian Peacemaker Teams Colombia was present at the Congress, accompanying the community processes from the Middle Magdalena region.

During the four days, subsistence farmers', grassroots, indigenous, miners' students', LGBTQ women's, and conscientious objectors' groups from around the country came together to form proposals for how "... people plan the territory, economy and way of governing."

PRAYERS FOR PEACEMAKERS, Nov. 10, 2010

Pray for *Abdul, a young Palestinian man working for the Israeli human rights

organization B'Tselem. He was arrested on Oct. 30 and later released by Israeli soldiers

while videotaping their harassment of Palestinian shepherds in the south Hebron hills.

Doug Pritchard

Christian Peacemaker Teams

Toronto, Canada

*pseudonym for security purposes

On the morning of Saturday, 30 October 2010, around 10:30 a.m., Israeli soldiers arrested a young Palestinian man from the village of Tuba, in the South Hebron Hills, who had been filming Israeli soldiers chasing two young Palestinian shepherds from Tuba.

The small room rang with the sounds of synchronous drumbeats.  Eight women in a range of ages hit the large drum while their voices cried out the “Warrior Song.”  Young girls took their turns at leading the song, their voices rising above the beat.  These women are the future of Asubpeechoseewagong Netum Anishinabek (Grassy Narrows, Ontario).

Community members, including the October CPT delegation to Kenora/Grassy Narrows, gathered on the evening of 4 October 2010 to remember the lives of 582 Aboriginal women. The Native Woman's Association of Canada's Sisters in Spirit (SIS) initiative had set aside this day to honour women who have disappeared or been murdered in Canada over the last twenty years. 

PRAYERS FOR PEACEMAKERS, Nov. 02, 2010

Pray for the members of the Algonquins of Barriere Lake First Nation in north-western Quebec, Canada. Their traditional government has been overthrown by the federal government who have replaced the community’s leaders with outside administrators.

Doug Pritchard

Christian Peacemaker Teams

Toronto, Canada

On Monday 11 October, at 8.00 a.m. the Israeli military arrived at the home of Noah al-Rajabi in Bani Naim without warning and destroyed the family’s water cistern, tent, and a small wooden structure family members used for cooking and storage.

Al-Rajabi told CPTers, who visited after the incident, that soldiers kicked and beat some of the animals and that one pregnant ewe aborted. When his fourteen-year-old son objected to their actions, soldiers arrested him, accusing him of “obstructing the military” and scratching a soldier’s face.

From 8 to 12 October 2010 at the National University of Colombia in Bogotá, various social sectors of Colombia met to inaugurate the People’s Congress.  Christian Peacemaker Teams Colombia was present at the Congress, accompanying the community processes from the Middle Magdalena region.

PRAYERS FOR PEACEMAKERS, Oct. 27, 2010

Pray for the young women in the conflicted city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq who are reaching across ethnic lines to publish their stories together.

Doug Pritchard

Christian Peacemaker Teams

Toronto, Canada

IDP Camp (Internally Displaced Persons)
The team visited the IDP camp regularly, but was not able to talk to any IDP representatives.  The IDP camp in Bastesan was in crisis.  The number of remaining IDP families dropped from ten families in the beginning of September to two families at the end of the month.  The families in the camp complained they could not get any help, because other IDPs were living outside the camp. 
 
On 17 September, Mr. Mohamed told the team, “We are not united.  People only take care of themselves now…They leave us here and only come back to get materials…We are only few families here and we are blamed by the other people not taking care of the other tents…We want people make a decision to keep this camp or close this camp.  If they decide to close the camp, we will go to the other place.  If they want to keep the camp, they need to come back here…Sometimes when the NGOS came, they saw we were only six families, four families.  Maybe that is the reason we cannot get help….  The families here have different needs than the other families that still have a little bit money to rent the house in the town.  The families staying the camp really need help.”

[Note: Abdullah is a young person who submitted the following article to Pana for Peace, a newspaper put out by CPT Iraq and the Pana Center to give the youth of Kirkuk, Iraq a voice.]

 I am studying in elementary school, class six, and will be passing through to class one secondary.  However, my mother still tries to feed me, leaving no way for me to choose what I like to eat.  She feeds me big pieces of food.  I have not yet swallowed one when she gets another ready for me to eat.
  This makes me laugh, but I am embarrassed to do so.  I know she would say immediately, "When you eat, do not chat or laugh.  It is a sin."