CPTnet
9 December 2005
COLOMBIA: CPT Colombia's statement about missing co-workers in Iraq
[Note: The Christian Peacemaker Team in Colombia read the following
statement at their 5 December 2005 press conference in Barrancabermeja,
Colombia.]
John 1:5 The Light shines in the darkness and the darkness has never put it
out.
As you already know four colleagues of ours Harmeet, Jim Norman and Tom are
being held in Bagdad Iraq since November 26. Their families and friends are
very worried for their well being and for the misunderstanding that they are
spies. They are working for peace and human rights in Iraq. Nine days
later we continue to call upon those who have them to treat them with
humanity and allow the Spirit of Life to speak to their hearts.
CPT has been in Iraq since October 2002 doing independent human rights
reports and working for the rights of those detained by the United States
and Iraqi forces. Also CPT has facilitated trainings in non violent
intervention and documentation of human rights violations. CPT was the
first group to denounce the torture of Iraqi prisoners held by USA forces
and we hope to continue this work. CPT opposes the multinational forces
occupation of Iraq as well as the foreign policies of the USA in Colombia
and we call for an end of such interventions.
CPT is an initiative and a program that looks to reduce violence. We are
based in the teachings of the gospel of Jesus and have teams of volunteers
working in highly conflictive areas in the world: Iraq, Palestine, Colombia,
Canada and the United Sates. We look to express our solidarity with each
one of the victims of violence and war, these being the strategies that
governments use to worsen the well being of those WHO DO NOT WANT WAR.
In Iraq not only lives Saddam Hussein and his armies but millions of Iraqis
who are victims of the terror carried out by Hussein, Bush and Blair. The
same in Colombia, not only paramilitaries, narcotrafickers, guerrilla
fighters and the state, but also 44 million people who want to live in peace
and tranquility and not be trapped by the democratic security policies of
Uribe and Bush.
We as CPT recognize before all Colombians the immense pain that family
members and loved ones of all those who are disappeared, kidnapped, or
unjustly imprisoned must feel. That is why today when we are living the
same experience we see your constant struggle for those lives as a deep and
courageous learning. As peacemakers we join ourselves to the numerous pleas
that each one of you has made from the moment that you lost your loved ones.
That is why we pray for those who have Tom, Norman, Jim, Harmeet and each
one of the disappeared or kidnapped persons in Colombia may have mercy and
free them soon without the use of violence or armed force. We all wish to
see their faces in our homes. We want them to know how much we love them,
how much we miss them and how anxious and worried about what has happened.
_______________
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Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) seeks to enlist the whole church in
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