Winter 2002 Vol. XII, No. 1

Afghanistan: What is Terrorism?

PHOTO: These Elders are among the 2.4 million Afghans living in refugee camps in Pakistan.

Why do you call it terrorism when an airplane hits one of your buildings and kills innocent people, but you do not call it terrorism when American airplanes drop bombs that kill people in their homes?" That's the question that CPT director Gene Stoltzfus (Chicago, IL) and CPT Canada coordinator Doug Pritchard (Toronto, ON) heard repeatedly as they traveled in Pakistan and Afghanistan December 15, 2001 - January 14, 2002.

The two-person delegation went to the region to begin an experiment in Christian enemy-loving in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the retaliatory bombing campaign launched on October 7. They met with a wide range of Afghan and Pakistani human rights organizations, development and relief agencies and Afghan citizens and refugees. They heard firsthand how some Afghan civilians are experiencing the "war on terrorism."
In the areas they visited, many people supported the U.S. bombing which they say helped bring about the demise of the Taliban. At the same time, residents expressed grave concern for the thousands of civilian victims of the bombing and the U.S. government's unwillingness to take responsibility for their deaths.

Pritchard and Stoltzfus peered into the craters where bombs had fallen in the middle of villages but had not exploded. They witnessed extensive damage to civilian homes and toured the twisted ruins of the twice-bombed Red Cross warehouses in Kabul.

One reliable organization with monitoring capability estimated 5000 houses destroyed and 2500 killed in four of Afghanistan's 30 provinces. "We will never know the full statistics of death and destruction as a result of the bombing," said Stoltzfus. "But," he added, "when placed beside the human and economic cost of the September 11 attacks, it is clear that the loss of civilian lives in Afghanistan considerably exceeds the loss of life at the World Trade Center. Most of those victims had nothing to do with any acts of terrorism."
The two delegates returned from Afghanistan solidly committed to defining "terrorism" in a way that includes the misguided, state-sponsored use of bombs that strike civilians in the same category as misguided "holy war," be it Muslim, Jewish, or Christian.

They also came back deeply convinced of the need to raise strong voices of critique and opposition to the emerging role of the U.S. Air Force in policing the international community.

Photos are available on CPT's website: www.cpt.org.
[NOTE: Due to cultural limitations, CPTers were not able to talk to Afghan women, and their hosts would only take them to areas within 20 kilometers of Kabul because of the rampant insecurity of looting and raiding. They were not able to reach the Khandahar region where Taliban support was strongest.]

Afghanistan: The Challenge to Reduce Violence

CPTer Doug Pritchard meets with victims of U.S. bombing in Afghanistan.

CPT delegates visiting Pakistan and Afghanistan explored the needs for violence reduction and what the role of a longer term Christian peacemaker presence might be in the region.

"Where have you been for the last 23 years?!" exclaimed the leader of an Afghan NGO upon hearing about CPT's work in other conflict zones.

The CPTers encountered some sense of hope among Afghan civilians who think that the end of Taliban rule might provide a brief opportunity for a fresh start in their country. They fear that this narrow opening will be lost unless the widespread abusive behavior of warlord soldiers is brought under control. "Guns are everywhere!" reported CPT Canada coordinator Doug Pritchard. "Heavily-armed men walk the streets of the cities and maintain check posts along the highways."

"This is our biggest problem," said the director of one Afghan aid organization. "These men have no education. They only know how to get food with a gun. We have to get rid of their weapons and find them jobs."

CPT's Steering Committee, Corps and Staff are currently considering a proposal to place a full-time team in Afghanistan. CPT invites your prayers and your voice in that process of discernment and planning.

Fear Not: A Pilgrimage of Faith

Following the September 11 attacks in New York, Washington DC and Pennsylvania, CPT issued a "Call to Prayer Action" for churches. That call included the suggestion to stop worship as usual and publicly walk a mile in silent prayerful procession for rejuvenating the nonviolent imagination among God's people.

Congregations across the U.S. and Canada took up the call, conducting special prayer services, planning walks and holding vigils to lift up the Biblical injunction to "love our enemies," and to discourage vengeful foreign policy.

On December 16, as they prepared to depart for a month-long trip to Pakistan and Afghanistan, CPTers Gene Stoltzfus and Doug Pritchard led a prayer vigil near the rubble of the World Trade Center towers in New York. To support that peace mission, CPT-Hebron team members and CPT Regional Groups in Northern Indiana and Cleveland, Ohio engaged in special walks and vigils around the theme, "Fear Not."

Corps member Cliff Kindy (North Manchester, IN) was joined by some 65 people including 16 CPTers for parts of a 230-mile "Pilgrimage of Faith" walking from Goshen, Indiana to Columbus, Ohio from December 22 to January 5.

Averaging 20 miles per day, the pilgrims visited churches, mosques, military bases, and defense plants, inviting people to hear the peaceful voice of Jesus rather than the voices of fear, hatred, and revenge. The walkers carried signs reading, "Don't obey orders to kill" and "We mourn 4000 deaths here, 4000 deaths there, and how many more?"

All along the route, participants engaged in dialogue with community members asking, "How can we hear Jesus' call to pick up the cross instead of the clamor to pick up a flag and a gun?

The walkers entered Columbus, Ohio on January 4 as a hate attack on the Islamic Center was making headlines. They joined in Friday prayers with the Muslim community and paid a solidarity visit later in the afternoon to the damaged center.

The following day, January 5, CPT Reservists from Cleveland led a group of 50 people from all over Ohio, including the walkers, in a prayer vigil for peace on the steps of the state capital building in Columbus. Signs declaring "JESUS SAID LOVE YOUR ENEMY" drew honks and waves of support from some drivers and hostile gestures from others.

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, CPTers prayerfully walked on January 4 from Hebron to Bethlehem to place candles of hope in the Church of the Nativity, the traditional birth-place of Jesus. Like the U.S. pilgrimage, their focus was the angel's birth announcement in Luke 2:10: "Fear Not!"

"Like the Palestine of Jesus' day, this is a time of military occupation, violence, restrictions, and fear on all sides," said Greg Rollins (Surrey, BC). Team members lifted in prayer those affected by choices for war rather than peace, remembering especially those suffering in the U.S. and Afghanistan, as well as Israel-Palestine.

Tent for Lent

Colombia: Changing Death Lists to Life Lists

Armed groups in Colombia - guerrilla, paramilitary, Army and Navy - each have their own "Death Lists." CPTers have watched paramilitary leaders consult their lists looking for particular names of those marked for death. The governments of the U.S. and Canada are also putting Colombians on "Death Lists" by sending billions of dollars i n weapons to Colombia. Countless Colombians hope for the day when all such lists will be destroyed.

Each week during Lent, the Colombia team sets up camp in a space usually occupied by an armed group and declares it a weapons-free zone. Team members then conduct a liturgy in which lists of people known to be in danger are burnt to ashes. Every week the names on the list change. CPT invites churches in North America to join in burning these "Death Lists." On Easter morning a "Life List" will be written with all the names that were previously on a "Death List" to claim the resurrection power of Love and Life.

Hebron: Bearing the Burdens

Some signs of hope mark this year's Lenten season in Israel/Palestine - Israeli soldiers publicly refuse to serve in the West Bank and Gaza; Palestinian and Israeli groups organize nonviolent initiatives to resist the Occupation with enlarged vision and hope.

At the same time, the burdens borne by the Palestinian population, as well as by Palestinians and Israelis opposing the injustice and violence, continue to weigh heavy. Entire villages are closed off by a system of roadblocks and checkpoints. Land confiscation and home demolitions, designed as collective punishment and to provide space for ever-expanding Israeli settlements, proceed at an alarming rate. The murderous violence of revenge and retaliation claims more and more lives.

Each week during Lent, the Hebron team focuses on one of the burdens of injustice wrought by the Israeli military Occupation using a liturgy which includes prayers, scripture verses, descriptions of how the burdens of injustice are weighing on the people of Palestine/Israel, and action and advocacy ideas.

The "Changing Death Lists to Life Lists" and "Bearing the Burdens" Lenten materials are available from CPT's web site: www.cpt.org.

CPT-Colombia

CPT works in the countryside of Northern Colombia near the oil-refining city of Barrancabermeja maintaining a presence in rural conflict zones, traveling on the river transportation artery, and visiting checkpoints of armed groups - paramilitaries, guerillas, and Colombian Navy - thereby decreasing the chance that those with weapons will harass or kill unarmed civilians. CPT's work expands the political and social "space" of safety and action for nonviolent unarmed people and in turn reveals the reality of violence to those who live outside of Colombia.

CPT's Colombia team members November through February were: Duane Ediger (Dallas, TX), Jim Fitz (Tiskilwa, IL), Bob Holmes (Toronto, ON), Jonathan Horst (Mt. Joy, PA), Scott Kerr (Downers Grove, IL), Erin Kindy (N. Manchester, IN), Lisa Martens (Winnipeg, MB), William Payne (Toronto, ON), Sara Reschly (Chicago, IL), Carol Rose (Wichita, KS), Matt Schaaf (Winnipeg, MB), Chris Schweitzer (Siler City, NC), Pierre Shantz (Waterloo, ON), Lena Siegers (Blyth, ON), and Jacobus Vroon (Vancourver, BC).

Colombian Army Appropriates CPT Boat

At the request of the civilian population, CPT recently sent two team members to the Cimitarra Valley, a couple hours northwest of Barrancabermeja, as a large-scale military operation began in the zone. CPT alerted the Colombian Armed Forces, the Canadian Embassy, the United States Embassy, the Colombian Human Rights Ombudsman and other human rights organizations of the team's presence. Community members report that human rights abuses by the military leading to the displacement of civilians were far less during this operation than in two previous operations. They attribute the army's restraint to CPT's presence. On Sunday, February 10, 2002, CPTers Chris Schweitzer and Scott Kerr were in the village of San Francisco. Also present were more than 100 members of the Colombian Army.

At 4:30 p.m. Kerr was inside the village school when the soldiers began shooting. They fired rapidly towards the other side of the Cimitarra River for approximately 15 minutes, after which they continued to fire sporadically. Members of the Colombian Army said that there were armed people on the other side of the river. CPTers did not see any obvious target, nor did they note any return gunfire coming from across the river.

When the gunfire diminished, Kerr went near the river to investigate the situation. He noticed that CPT's boat had been moved to the opposite side of the river. Several soldiers were walking away from the vessel. About twenty minutes later the soldiers returned and crossed the river in the CPT boat with the CPT flag clearly visible. They had neither the permission of CPT nor of the owner of the vessel to use it.

Kerr took a photo of the soldiers in the CPT boat. At that point Captain Alexander Gallego Marín of #14 Battalion Palagua called to the CPT members. In a public place in the village, in front of many soldiers, the Captain loudly accused CPT of advising the guerrilla of the presence of the Colombian army. Schweitzer explained that CPT's policy prohibits giving information concerning one armed group to any other armed group.

A soldier accused CPT's motorist of being connected to the guerrilla and stated in a threatening way to CPT, "Take care of him." CPT does not travel with or provide official accompaniment to any person connected with any armed group.

Kerr and Schweitzer observed Colombian soldiers inside the homes of civilians in the village. Local people told CPT members that they are afraid because there are rumors that the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (paramilitary group) are coming to the area with the Colombian army.

Schweitzer expressed dismay that many of the weapons used in Colombia - by the Colombian armed forces, by the guerrilla and by the paramilitaries - are manufactured in his own country. "As U.S. and Canadian citizens, we too are implicated when we allow weapons to be exported to war zones where the civilian population is suffering. When are we going to learn that adding more guns to any situation of violence and conflict is never going to improve the situation for the civilian population?"

New Year, Holy Ground

by Carol Rose

CPTers spent New Year's Eve in the Opón community because we heard violence might increase. The evening was quiet. The radio counted down the hours and minutes to the New Year.

As we crossed into 2002, there were firecrackers, handshakes and hugs, and then the ordinary melted into the holy. We CPTers stepped away, ceding space in awe of intimate, precious exchanges, clusters of tender embrace, tears. One man went off to an edge alone while mother and brother gently brought him back into the circle of care. Parents looked blurry-eyed into the face of each child, heads together. Siblings and spouses spoke quietly, shaking with gratitude at having made it through another year, still alive, still together. I asked about their hopes for the New Year: "A year that is more tranquil, calm." "To fish and work and live right here without problems." "To study sewing." "That they open the elementary school so that my children can learn." "That armed groups leave us be so that we can live in our homes." "To plant a field of corn and be able to harvest it." The one answer that was part of almost everyone's response: "Peace."

The New Year offers no guarantees as family member's still face death threats. Some have already fled. How many more will do so?

One of the boys asked me, "If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be?" "Here," I answered. It is true, at this moment, right here on holy ground.

CPTers Arrested at SOA

Five CPTers and supporters were among 85 people arrested for trespassing on November 18 during a solemn funeral procession at Fort Benning, GA calling for the closure of the U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA).

CPT-Colombia team members Scott Kerr (Downers Grove, IL) and Ben Horst (Evanston, IL) were held in jail overnight and face up to one year in federal prison. A trial date has not been set. Corps member Sara Reschly (Chicago, IL), Reservist Esther Ho (Hayward, CA), and seventeen-year-old CPT supporter, Helena Graham (Tiskilwa, IL) were all given five-year "Ban and Bar" letters and released from the base that afternoon.

The SOA, which recently changed its name to the Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC), provides counterinsurgency training for Latin American soldiers including terror tactics targeting civilian populations. Colombia has the highest enrollment in the School today.

Kerr, who has served in Latin America with CPT for two years, said, "I've met many SOA grads in my work. In Colombia, the General of the area where CPT maintains its presence is an SOA grad with well-documented paramilitary connections. It was in memory of all the farmers killed in Colombia's dirty war that I crossed the line onto the base and remained praying on my knees when I was asked to leave."

Before CPTers entered the base, a group of 100 supporters knelt in a circle to read a litany of resistance. Then, in a symbolic ritual of cleansing, participants washed the U.S. and Canadian flags, saying: "...the teaching of terror at the SOA desecrates the very values of democracy and truth and respect for human rights that our countries claim to uphold. The flag, as a symbol of those values, is stained with the blood of our brothers and sisters in Latin America, Afghanistan and many places around the world...Through the washing of these flags, we express our desire to cleanse the wounds caused by war-making and to clean the stains of shame from our nations..." CPTers then attempted to deliver the flags to the SOA located inside the base but were immediately arrested.

[NOTE: A video of CPT's action at the SOA by Goshen College student Eric Kanagy is available in DVD for $12.95 plus shipping at this eBay site.]

DIALOGUE

The proposal to place a full-time team in Afghanistan has been on the table for a number of weeks. Decisions in CPT are born after considerable consultation among steering committee, staff, Corps members, and supporters. In this issue of Dialogue, we offer a window into that process. CPT Afghanistan Delegates respond to several concerns, questions and challenges raised by CPTers.

CPTer: I read the Afghanistan proposal yesterday and went straight to a half hour of prayer. I know that sometimes God does lead us to do crazy things, but...Can CPT in Afghanistan communicate readily back to our constituency here in North America? Will CPTers be able to survive the huge cultural leaps and still have energy to do the work of CPT? Are CPT's skills best used to plant the very early seeds of nonviolence when that is almost an unknown concept? How will it work for CPT to be a very small Christian minority?

Afghanistan Delegates: Is our constituency ready to hear the stories? The news we have been getting from CNN has told such a misleading part of the story. None of the many competent, articulate Afghans we met had been interviewed by any media outlet. We in CPT are good listeners and are often charged by the people we meet to "tell your people what is happening here."

Is Afghanistan more of a "cultural leap" than Haiti, Bosnia, Chechnya, Lakota country, Esgenoopetitj, Columbia Heights, Hebron, X'oyep, Ciénaga del Opón? We frankly felt right at home in Afghanistan.

Contrary to popular belief, the seeds of nonviolence have been planted already by Afghan groups. Grassroots organizations have been taking direct nonviolent action to stop the warlords: arresting murderers, recovering highjacked vehicles, claiming back misappropriated relief supplies. Nonviolence is well known among the groups we visited, but Western media sure haven't reported on it.

I wonder what St Paul would say to the question about being a Christian minority. Are we saying that CPT only goes to wars where there are other Christians present in the region? Maintaining a strong spiritual life IS an issue for this Afghanistan proposal. The folks who go will need to be mature Christians and will need to make this a priority in team life.

CPTer: The key question is should we start a new project, or increase the size of our existing projects? Afghanistan is the new Ground Zero and the need is great. But the need is great in both Palestine and Colombia - the West Bank is on fire and Colombia has asked for more U.S. military aid. Why not put more of our energy into conflicts that are increasing and in which we already have an established presence and proven track record? I understand our primary goal to be violence reduction as we push out space for local actors to engage injustice nonviolently. Shouldn't we bolster existing efforts by experimenting with multiple teams per project thereby pushing out even more space and reducing more violence? I don't think that by acting quickly and placing a team in Afghanistan, we will push back or redirect the more global, systemic insecurities faced by the people on the ground.

Afghanistan Delegates: Why Afghanistan? One CPT image that occurs to me is of candles in the dark. We can place our candles together to shed more light in one corner, or disperse them more widely to shed some light in several places.

Another CPT image is that we are a catalyst. We encourage, stand with, and at times challenge those peacemakers who live in the region and live with the consequences of action or inaction. The more places we can catalyze, the more stuff happens. I'm not sure it would happen twice as fast if we had twice as many teams in Palestine.

Another CPT image might be a mosquito. The first mosquito buzzing around the bedroom can get your attention. If there is a second one there too, I think it gets less attention from that would-be sleeper. But if that second mosquito is in a second bedroom attracting the attention of a second sleeper...

CPTer: I would say "yes" to enlarging teams or adding sites to an existing project and I would say "yes" to resisting the unholy crusade in Afghanistan. 1) We need to get in the way of this freight train bound for hell. 2) We need to be a clear alternative to sending in the Marines. Our unique CPT work relies on God's transforming miracle for shalomification. It recognizes that our affirmation of partners on the ground will enable the work to continue past our exit. But our proactive peacemaking must rise to a new level of boldness and intentionality in our goal to reduce violence.

CPT Supporter: Maybe someone should comment on the self-righteous grandiosity of the plan to place a team in Afghanistan. What makes you think you wouldn't be slaughtered just for being Americans? Get real! And thank God that you live in a free country where you can even dream about such actions.

CPT Supporter: Can someone fill me in on the plan to place a team in Afghanistan to visit Afghan civilians suffering because of the military assault? I want to volunteer to go.

CPT Calendar 2002

ISRAEL/PALESITINE

Hebron: Praying for the Peace of the Cities

In response to suicide bombings in Jerusalem and Haifa December 2 that killed 23 Israelis and retaliatory missile strikes against Gaza the next day, CPTers vigiled "For the Peace of the Cities" December 4-7 and 9. The one-hour silent prayers were held in Hebron on a corner where the Arab market intersects with a street used mostly by Israeli settlers and soldiers, and in Jerusalem on a busy corner dividing Palestinian East Jerusalem from West Jerusalem.

CPT Hebron's team during November through February included: Nathan Bender (Toronto, ON), Judith Bustany (Los Angeles, CA), LeAnne Clausen, (Mason City, IA), Claire Evans (Chicago, IL), Anita Fast (Vancouver, BC), Mark Frey (Chicago, IL), Art Gish (Athens, OH), Kathy Kern (Webster, NY), Mary Lawrence (Lunenburg, MA), JoAnne Lingle (Indianapolis, IN), Rich Meyer (Millersburg, IN), Anne Montgomery (Brooklyn, NY), Rick Polhamus (Fletcher, OH), Dianne Roe (Corning, NY), Greg Rollins (Surrey, BC), Janet Shoemaker (Goshen, IN).

Bethlehem: Like Sitting Ducks

"We are like sitting ducks in a shooting gallery. Thirty to fifty tanks are surrounding Bethlehem, along with snipers." Zoughbi Zoughbi, Director of Wi'am, the Palestinian Conflict Resolution Center, spoke with fourteen members of a Presbyterian Peace Fellowship/Christian Peacemaker Teams (PPF/CPT) delegation who gathered in his Bethlehem living room October 28.

In the window behind him, a tracer bullet arced through the sky while machine guns fired from the Israeli military position on the hillside overlooking his neighborhood near Manger Square. Ten days earlier, Israeli tanks had entered the city. The PPF/CPT delegation was the first group from outside Bethlehem to visit since the siege began.

Delegation participants walked through the hardest hit area of the city. It was the first day that the shooting had subsided enough for shopkeepers and householders to venture into the street. They showed the delegates the damage done when tanks had rolled into town. Some shops had been bulldozed into rubble, others had lost walls in the heavy shelling. Windows of homes were shattered and bullets riddled walls and doors. Parents spoke of children so traumatized by a week of shooting and shelling that they were afraid to be separated from their parents for even a few minutes.

Delegates visited the family of Johnny Thaljieh, 16, who was killed the first day of the siege in front of Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity. The honor student had walked to Manger Square to pray in the church and to pick up a few groceries when he was struck down by Israeli gunfire.

The delegation was stunned by the amount of destruction they saw and by the emotional toll on the citizens of Bethlehem. "We will remember the children who wake up to ask if the tanks are still here in the same way our children ask if it snowed last night," commented delegate Rick Ufford-Chase.

Participants in the October 22-November 3 delegation included Albert Bagley (Bellevue, WA); Christine Caton (Waterford, CT); Carol Drew (Wellesley Island, NY); John Fife, Matthew Moore, and Rick Ufford-Chase (Tucson, AZ); Joan Heckel, Joseph Heckel and Vivian Lovingood (Pittsburgh, PA); Gene Lefebre (Phoenix, AZ); Alexandra Lusak (Troy, NY); Arch Taylor (Louisville, KY); and Marilyn White (League City, TX).

A November 16-29 CPT delegation included Benno Barg (Kitchener, ON), Beverly Fretz (Guelph, ON), Jim Miller (Sarasota, FL), Jan Passion (Rutland, VT), Reuben Penner (Kola, MB), Bill Rose (Tampa, FL), Marian Solomon (Ames, IA), and Roger Wolcott (Sandy Spring, MD).

Hebron: Confiscations in the Beqa'a Valley

On January 21, CPTers Dianne Roe, Claire Evans, Nathan Bender and two international visitors responded to a call that bulldozers were plowing a new road in the Beqa'a valley. Climbing the rough hillside in the cold wind, they greeted about forty Palestinian men and children who had gathered on the land. The men excitedly showed the CPTers papers and maps to their land, and explained that two brothers had received notice that 100 dunams (about 25 acres) of their land would be confiscated. Two soldiers and one armed Israeli settler guarded the bulldozer, while Israeli soldiers in jeeps were positioned nearby.

The team learned that earlier that day Israeli settlers from the nearby settlement of Kiryat Arba had confronted the villagers. Shots had been fired to frighten the Palestinians. A young Palestinian man told Bender that a fifteen-year-old Palestinian girl had gone to the hospital after a physical altercation with one of the settlers. Later in the afternoon, an Israeli Armed Personnel Carrier entered the area.

CPTers Greg Rollins and Brenda and Rich Meyer revisited the area a few days later and talked with several of the families. Abu Mahmoud (not his real name) looked across bypass road 60 at his brother's land on Sultan Mountain. On the previous day a new settler mobile home had been placed on the top of the mountain. Bulldozer tracks now totally encircled Abu Mahmoud's home. He said that the area's military commander told him the week before that his house is on Israeli state land and that he would have to leave. Two years ago, armed settlers from Kiryat Arba surrounded Abu Mahmoud's home and demanded that it be demolished. CPT and Israeli peace activists arrived at the site, and were able to summon international pressure on the Israeli military to protect Abu Mahmoud's land from the settlers. The Israeli military then told Abu Mahmoud that they would protect his house only if he no longer talked with journalists, CPT, Israelis, or internationals. Now two years later, the entire area is threatened.

A representative of the Palestinian Land Defense Committee told CPTers he has seen maps that show some 3000 dunams of land slated for confiscation for a settlement industrial area. Although Israel authorities label the activity as expansion of the existing settlement of Kiryat Arba, the new excavations are more than two kilometers away from the current boundaries of the settlement. Palestinian families in the valley have told CPTers that if the new road is completed, they may as well be transferred out because their lives will become unbearable as Kiryat Arba and nearby Givat Ha Harsina expand to form one huge contiguous settlement.

CSD Update

Advocacy efforts of North American churches involved in the Campaign for Secure Dwellings (CSD) this winter have had an important impact
1) Israeli military attempts to displace an entire Palestinian community in the south Hebron hills were thwarted when the Israeli High Court decided to postpone its debate on the issue, giving human rights lawyers more time to challenge the expulsion;
2) Hundreds of faxes and messages to the Jerusalem office of the U.S. State Department regarding the current confiscation of Palestinian land in the Beqa'a Valley resulted in a State Department official visiting Palestinian farmers in the area and personally witnessing the current expansion activity. During the course of his visit, settlers and heavy equipment arrived, and the road on which his car was parked was bulldozed shut.

For more information contact Anita Fast - CSD Coordinator; csd@cpt.org; Tel: 604-707-0194.

Hebron: International Delegates Bolster Peace Efforts

During the last two weeks of December, peace activists from around the world bolstered the international witness against Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories in a series of nonviolent actions. In response to the call by Palestinian leaders and the Israeli peace community for international observers to monitor the situation in the West Bank and Gaza, some 260 people from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), Grassroots International Protection of Palestine (GIPP) and French and Italian delegations converged in the region.

On December 26, two busloads of delegates, including CPTers JoAnne Lingle and Greg Rollins, were prevented from entering Gaza by Israeli soldiers who fired their weapons into the air and physically assaulted some of the group, including older women. On December 30, over 300 of the foreign visitors were turned back at a checkpoint into Hebron.

Members of the Hebron team joined in several of the events including a "die-in" in front of Israeli tanks in Ramallah; a march of 1000 people, mostly Palestinians, to the Bethlehem/Jerusalem checkpoint on Christmas night, and another march of over 2000, including high-ranking Christian and Muslim religious leaders, on December 31.

Second part of Winter Newsletter.