On Thursday, 3 July, people from CPT Colombia's Barrancabermeja district marched to express their opposition to the surge in violence that has invaded the community. Since the beginning of 2008, thirty-seven people have been assassinated in Barrancabermeja (the same number killed in all of 2007). Barrancabermeja's civil and police authorities have ignored or even denied this increase in violence, leaving the community feeling abandoned to the armed actors. The settling of accounts between different criminal groups linked to paramilitaries reportedly has fueled much of the violence. In what they call "social cleansing," these armed groups kill people they have labeled "undesirable.'

On 10 July, CPTers Kathie Uhler (a Franciscan Sister) and John Lynes attended a demonstration at Ni'lin protesting Israel's construction of the Annexation/Security Wall there. The village of Ni'lin, located in the Ramallah district, has for more than a month led intense, nonviolent demonstrations-three-to-four each week-against the Wall, which will confiscate 1/3rd of village's land or 2500 dunams (one dunam=¼ acre).

On 20 June 2008, S.,* a Palestinian teenager, was on the roof of his house, which abuts the Israeli settlement of Avraham Avinu, after having retrieved water from a neighbor's roof. A soldier accused him of stealing money from the Israeli settlement of Avraham Avinu, and told him to come down to the entrance of his house, where a squad blindfolded and handcuffed him. His arrest struck onlookers as particularly abusive. An eyewitness, A.,* enacted the manhandling of S. to CPTer Kathleen Kern as she walked by a barbershop, where men were discussing the incident. Kern invited A. to the team's apartment where he called TIPH (Temporary International Presence in Hebron) to report what had happened.

Give thanks that former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and 14 others are free after years of captivity by FARC guerillas. Pray for peace in Colombia, where the conflict has left over 200,000 dead and displaced three million others.

For the past two years, CPT has accompanied the indigenous Awa people in the province of Nariño. In May of 2008, CPT organized an international delegation to the zone in solidarity with the Awa and with Afro-Colombians. As a continuation of this accompaniment, the Colombia team is relaying an urgent action issued by the Organization of Indigenous Unity for the Awa People (UNIPA) on 30 June 2008, in which they report the deaths of three members, all minors. The Colombia team urges you to accompany UNIPA in their struggle "for respect of life, of autonomy and of the cultural identity and defense of the territory of the Inkal Awa people."

Before I left for a CPT assignment in Hebron, a relative asked what I would be doing there. I told him I would probably be spending a lot of time at Islamic Charitable Society (ICS) orphanages the Israeli military was trying to close down. "Why are they trying to close them down?" he asked. "Because they are run by an Islamic charity," I said. "Oh," he said, nodding, as though the word "Islamic" were a sound reason for depriving several hundred children of a home.

As I looked for analogies that would explain the situation of the ICS, I thought of the Salvation Army.  I remember how much I loved hearing the sound my coins made at Christmas time when I dropped them in the red metal pot, and the smile the old man in the Salvation Army uniform gave me as he rang his bell beside it.  My husband, however, associates the Salvation Army with Oliver North, whom it invited to speak at fundraising events. As someone who cared passionately about the human rights abuses the governments of Central America were committing against their citizens during the 1980s, he was appalled that a Christian organization would provide North a platform, given that North's work with U.S. intelligence agencies supported criminals responsible for the deaths of thousands of Central Americans.

No one suggested shutting down the Salvation Army's ministries because of their connection to a man who lied before Congress about selling weapons to Iran to fund the Nicaraguan Contras. No one in the United States would suggest shutting down charitable institutions for the needy run by conservative Republican Christians simply because a conservative Republican administration initiated the catastrophic violence in Afghanistan and Iraq.

On 5 July, 2008, at 11:30 a.m., the Israeli military added three barriers to ones it had erected in previous weeks, further blocking vehicular access on the road between South Hebron village of At-Tuwani and Yatta.

Sunday 8 June

Four settlers attacked four Palestinian shepherds grazing near the village of Susiya. Six masked settlers arrived on a tractor, and four got off the tractor and beat an old woman, her husband, her nephew, and nephew's wife with wooden clubs. The old woman was beaten unconscious and taken to the hospital in Beersheva. The old man and his nephew went to the Hospital Al Ahli in Hebron. Paramedics treated the nephew's wife, who filmed the attacks (later used by the media and Israeli police), at the scene. The police who arrived at the scene told the family that it was "probably Arabs" that beat them up. The family lives on the other side of Suseya settlement in Wadi Ijhaash, isolated from the other Susiya families by a thirty-minute walk. After the video appeared in international media, the Israeli police took into custody two settlers from Suseya settlement.

The Palestinian families of Wadi Nasara--a valley on the outskirts of Hebron next to which the Kiryat Arba settlement has expanded--have had to put up with increasing amounts of settler harassment over the years. But in March 2007, when Israeli settlers occupied a Palestinian building across the road bordering Wadi Nasara, families in the valley began facing attacks from two sides.

Tuesday, 27 May

Janzen and Benvie visited a local friend and found that three settler boys had stolen his donkey. Even though the police called the guard at Harsina settlement, he would not stop the boys. The donkey's owner had just spoken to a local settler, for whom he had worked, who offered to look into getting the donkey back. The donkey was thirteen-years-old and had been trained to walk in the field between the rows without stepping on any plants.

Fallon, Van Hoogstraten, Uhler, and a visitor had tea with the former mayor of Beit Ummar. The Israeli military authorities had just released him from prison after eleven months in administrative detention. The initial charges--Hamas membership and being elected mayor from the Hamas party--were dropped by the judge, after which, the military took up the case and decided the evidence in a "secret file" justified holding him. He told the CPTers that he is willing to go to jail for the rest of his life rather than betray the people who freely elected him mayor. He said he and his family are willing and "very happy" to make this sacrifice.