PRAYERS FOR PEACEMAKERS, Thu., Feb. 05, 2009

Pray for Canada's Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission, established to document the truth of 100 years of attempts at forced assimilation. All the commissioners have resigned, delaying the start of the first such process in the global North.

Doug Pritchard
Christian Peacemaker Teams
Toronto, Canada

The mood was one of celebration. Iraqis in the northern Diyala province city of Khanaqin crowded into polling centers on provincial election day, 31 January 2009. Many dressed in their best Kurdish or Arab traditional clothing or wrapped in flags. "We are happy to express our democracy," several told us after voting, showing their purple tipped fingers.

As international independent election observers, CPT Iraq team members visited three polling sites. At each place, voting procedures seemed efficient, and workers seemed helpful and fair. We saw no threatening behavior on the part of Khanaqin police who guarded the sites and searched people going in. But not everyone walked out happy or with purple fingers.

Friday 2 January

In the village of Greebee, another Turkish military base is situated on a hilltop overlooking the village. A Turkish tank is part of the skyline. The Mukhtar there described the effect of the base on the life of the people: "Although the Turkish soldiers do not come down into the village, we are all scared. They have taken good land. We can no longer move around freely. The children are frightened when they hear Turkish aircraft overhead. The tank's gun-barrel is aimed at our village. If trouble starts we will be the first target.  Halubja [referring to the chemical bombing of the city of Halubja by Saddam in the late 1980's] could come any day."