by Bud Courtney

Mid-February marked the one-year anniversary of the start of 62 days of demonstrations in which thousands of Kurdish Iraqis spoke out for justice and met severe repression from military and police forces.  The climate surrounding the anniversary was tense with anonymous calls for protests and police forces on standby for days.

Five young men were gunned down by Kurdish Regional Government security forces during those demonstrations in Suleimaniya a year ago.  CPTers and local partners decided to remember them with a Valentine’s Day vigil.

Sixteen of us met in the public garden.  We brought mirrors with pictures of each man attached and a heart drawn around the picture in blood red.  We walked solemnly to the five places where the young men died.  Our numbers grew to forty.

The mountainous regions of northern Iraq, dotted with small traditional Kurdish villages, have experienced bombing and shelling for the past six years.  Turkey and Iran claim that they are acting in self-defense against mountain fighters – the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) and the PJAK (Party for Free Life in Kurdistan).

However, the civilian villagers caught in the cross-fire have had to flee their homes to reside in tent camps for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).  Their houses, livestock and crops have been devastated in these cross-border attacks. 

CPT-Iraq along with several local partners conducted an opinion survey of 500 mostly urban Kurdish civilians concerning these Turkish and Iranian military operations in the rural areas of their semi-autonomous regions.  

by Stewart Vriesinga

Even when you don’t actually see them, the paramilitaries in Colombia cast a long shadow.  While traveling in Northeast Antioquia, my teammate Gladys Gómez and I didn’t actually see any paramilitaries.  At least we don’t think we did.  We aren’t sure about the two guys on the motorbike.

At the request of CAHUCOPANA, a grassroots human rights organization and partner of CPT, we had traveled with some campesinos from their rural communities into the city of Remedios to file a complaint with government author-ities about numerous human rights abuses and threats they had received.  

by Jenny Rodríguez Díaz

Colombian social organizations led by women are always the most vulnerable and least heard.  Sometimes I wish God’s justice came swiftly and unquestioned the way Jesus dispensed it in Mark 5:21-29.

In this Biblical story, a woman was condemned by doctors and society to remain sick and excluded all her life.  We cannot ignore this story in our culture that still silences women’s voices, isolates women, and constantly represses and trivializes the work of hundreds of mothers, sisters, and daughters.      

This story dignifies women.  The woman expresses the change that she wants for her life: “if only I may touch his garment I shall be healed.”  The Greek word for “to heal” is “sozo” which also has the connotation, “to rescue from danger.”       In the same way, strong Colombian women choose to have faith and serve as visionaries, dreaming of a just world, free from danger, where society opens its arms and welcomes whoever comes, just as Jesus did.

Since the Israeli military’s Golani Brigade arrived in al-Khalil/Hebron in late December, international accompaniment organizations including CPT have documented a sharp increase in serious human rights violations against Palestinian civilians, particularly youth and children, living in the Old City and Tel Rumeida.   

The organizations submitted a report of their first-hand observations and testimonies by victims to the United Nations.  The report exposes an increase in arrests and detentions of adults and children, serious physical injuries sustained while in military custody, home invasions, and an increase in the number and duration of arbitrary detentions of civilians at checkpoints.  It also documents harassment of and attempts to silence international observers trying to record these abuses.

by Tarek Abuata

Jesus said to “love your neighbor” and to “love your enemy.”  Jean Zaru, in her book Occupied with Nonviolence: A Palestinian Woman Speaks (2008, Fortress Press) poses the question, “What if your neighbor is your enemy?”  The answer?  More love. 

On several occasions I’ve been beaten by Israeli soldiers and I’ve experienced the ugliness of the Israeli Occupation on a very deep level.  As a privileged Palestinian, I know that I have gone through only a fraction of what others my age living in Palestine are subjected to.  

Nevertheless, I believe that more love works because I know both Israeli settlers and soldiers who have experienced transformation through the love energy with which we have faced their hatred.

by Chris Knestrick

The day after Israeli authorities arrested him, Khader Adnan declared a hunger strike to protest Israel’s policy of administrative detention.  Israel had ordered him detained for four months but never charged him with a crime.  Sixty-six days later, he reached an agreement with Israel’s Justice Ministry and broke his hunger strike.  As people involved with the campaign to release Adnan told us, he was “dying to live.”

Ahmed is 23 years old and the father of three young sons – Abdul Karim, age four; Sewar, almost two; and 8-month-old Omar.  His experience with administrative detention began when he was 8 years old, during the First Intifada.  Since then he has been in and out of Israeli prisons.  After a 2008 arrest with no charge, Israel extended his detention five times totaling two years of mostly solitary confinement.

The Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) community’s struggle to defend their land and resources against unwanted mining continues.  

In spite of KI’s Water Declaration, which protects Big Trout Lake and the entire watershed from all industrial activity, and its Consultation Protocol, which sets out how KI consent must be obtained prior to any decision affecting KI’s lands and resources, the gold mining company God’s Lake Resources (GLR) staked and accessed new claims last summer.  Multiple sacred KI graves lie within the claim area.

The 2012 CPT European Regional Convergence will bring together CPTers and supporters from all across Europe to pray, conspire, and enjoy fellowship.  The event will take place 1-6 May in the Refo-Konvent, Berlin, Germany.

Contact Marius van Hoogstraten (marius.vanhoogstraten@gmail.com) or Laurens van Esch (lmvanesch@gmail.com) to register.

Eleven people participated in CPT’s January 2012 peacemaker training; nine committed to serve with CPT as Reservists (r) or stipended (s) Corps members (half to full time). Left to right, back row: Irene van Setten, Nijmegen, Netherlands • Glenn Brumbaugh (s), Pennsylvania, USA • Tawd Bell (r), Ohio, USA • Micah Schuurman (observer from Hope Equals), Illinois, USA • Carrie Peters (s), Pennsylvania, USA • Nicky Melling (s), Cumbria, England • Lizz Schallert (r), Indiana, USA • Patrick Maxwell (r), Massachusetts, USA; front row: Dave Pritchett (r), Indiana, USA • Susan Granada (s), Manila, Philippines • Mona el-Zuhairi (s), Palestine.

In the last issue of Signs of the Times (vol. XXI, no. 4):

• we incorrectly attributed the article “DRAWING OUR LIVES” (page 3) to Steering Committee member Brian Young.  The author was actually Beth Pyles, Reservist with CPT’s Iraq team.  
• the majority of photos from CPT’s 25th Anniversary Peacemaker Congress that appeared in the last issue were taken by CPT supporter Dale Fast and Outreach Coordinator Tim Nafziger.

Peacemaker Delegations

• Aboriginal Justice: 2-15 April (for German language speakers); 10-20 August; 28 September – 8 October
• Colombia: International: 24 May – 6 June; 12-25 July; 20 September – 3 October; National: 31 March – 7 April.
• Iraq (Kurdish North): 4-17 October
• Palestine/Israel: 13-26 March; 22 May – 4 June; 4-16 July; 2-15 October; 6-19 November.

Peacemaker Trainings

• July/August: 13 July – 13 August 2012; Chicago, Illinois, USA (apply by 1 May, 2012)
• January: 4 January – 4 February 2013; Chicago, Illinois, USA (apply by 15 October, 2012)

A listing of CPTers and where they served.....