CPTnet July 15, 2004 Desert Fast Journal, June 30-July 5, 2004

[CPT Arizona held a six-day 'Desert Fast for Renewal' along the U.S./Mexico
border. The purpose of the fast was to hold in prayer the enormous
challenges posed by the great migration of people North. An estimated
20-30% of migrants passing through the area where CPT fasted experience
violent assaults. CPT workers prayed every four hours during the day and
night, and provided care for people in need who approached the desert camp.]

Day One

In the morning, the team and delegation set up camp along the border. When
they arrived at the site, a young man was resting under a tree. He said he
was from Chiapas and had been separated from his group. His knees were
badly swollen and he could not continue. The team gave him water and
emergency food. He chose to stay under the tree and hoped the Border Patrol
would come soon so he could go home.

At noon, delegate Tim Kortenkamp led the first prayers for the fasting
action. After prayers, Mark Frey and Ron Friesen stayed to begin their
three-day portion of the fast. A visiting delegation left with Scott Kerr
and Le Anne Clausen. Since the Border Patrol had not yet come to check in
the team transported the weakened man to Agua Prieta, Mexico, where he
could rest and find his way home.

In the afternoon, a local human rights worker and his sister brought a
reporter from the Douglas Daily Dispatch newspaper to interview the
fasters. The reporter told Frey and Friesen that he is also producing a
documentary on "the failed immigration policy."

During the interview, four migrants approached the camp. They told the
fasters they had been walking for two days in the desert. The fasters gave
them emergency water and food. The migrants did not need medical attention.

At 4p.m., the journalist filmed the fasters as they prayed using CPT's
'Litany of Resistance.'

Throughout the late afternoon, small groups of migrants approached the
camp, including a group of eight women. The fasters exhausted their supply
of emergency food and water. In the distance, the CPTers observed a group
of approximately thirty migrants cross the border.

Within ten minutes, a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle approached the campsite
where people were fasting. Frey spoke with the agents, explaining CPT's
presence at the site. An agent replied, "Okay, whatever, you know it's
dangerous here, lots of smugglers." At the time, the fasters saw
black-uniformed men on the Mexican side of the border. Frey asked the
agents who they were. An agent replied, "They're Mexican military, but who
knows?" and drove on.

The Border Patrol later returned, trying to track the migrants who just
crossed. They didn't find them, and left. They later returned with a truck
and two all-terrain vehicles to continue searching for the group.

At 630 pm, a woman came to the tent asking where the highway was. She said
she was lost and separated from her group, and wanted to wait for the
Border Patrol to take her back to Mexico. A while later, the visiting
delegation and Kerr walked up to the fence from the Mexican side at the
close of visit to the Mexico side of the boarder. The woman decided to walk
back with them to the group's vehicle for a ride to a safe place in Agua
Prieta. On their way, the woman told Kerr that four women in her group had
been raped by their guides. [See Update, June 26--July 1]. Meanwhile, a
local doctor arrived to spend the night and following day with the fasters.

An hour later, one of the agents on an ATV returned to the camp to chat and
said they caught twenty migrants one mile away and vans were coming to
transport them. "They won't be coming through here any more." The agent
asked if CPT was the group who set up the water stations nearby [run by
Humane Borders], and said the one just east of the camp should be moved
further north because no one ever uses it.

Day Two

At 1030 am, another delegation of junior- and senior-high students from
"Voices that Challenge" came to learn about CPT's work and the fast. Kerr
arrived with more water and supplies. The doctor returned to the CPT house
with Kerr to examine an injured migrant man the team discovered nearby.

Two local peace workers arrived and encouraged the team to speak with more
media. One of them promised to contact the papers in the nearby town of
Bisbee. Throughout the day, Border Patrol agents in SUVs and ATVs passed
frequently on the road. The fasters did not encounter any migrants.

A delegation arrived to join the 800 pm prayers. Tim Kortenkamp and Paul
Horst stayed on for the night.

Day Three

At 10am, a white pickup drove by, then returned and stopped a short
distance from the camp. A man got out and started looking at the camp with
his binoculars. Frey and Friesen went to speak with the man, whose name was
David. David was concerned that migrants replace U.S. workers, and was
angry with the interests of corporations and employers fueling migration
problems, as well as the U.S. government. "Bush is the head Nazi," he said.

In the afternoon, a man in a red dune buggy stopped at the camp. The man
lives west of the camp on the border and was originally from Australia. He
said he didn't like migrants because they are in the country illegally. The
man was pleasant, but also angry about corporations, the U.S. government,
American culture, and expressed the sentiment that society was falling
apart in general. "The migrants come and do the work that white people
don't want to do," he said, and was frustrated that white U.S. citizens are
not willing to do menial labor jobs. He understood the migrants' plight,
but was also upset that migrants had cut his fences and left behind garbage
in the pastures which some of his cattle swallowed and died. He felt that
migrants needed more education about how difficult life in the U.S. is so
they wouldn't come.

Another sympathetic neighbor stopped by on her rounds to check the water
stations. She agreed that the nearby station was being underutilized in its
current location. In the evening, the delegation returned with Kerr and
Clausen for the delegation's closing worship service and to say farewells.

Late at night, a truck pulled up and shined a light on Friesen, then drove
away. He left a note on the team van saying he was a reporter from the
Arizona Daily Star and would return in the morning.

Day Four

Kerr and Clausen arrived to fast for the next three days while Frey and
Friesen returned