Simcoe County’s “Notice of Project” posted at Dump Site 41 in Tiny Township reads “for the greater good.”  But members of the nearby Beausoleil First Nation, thousands of neighbouring farmers, cottagers, and other non-native citizens (settlers) believe that neither their interests nor the environment is well-served by the County Council’s decision to build a garbage dump right over a pristine aquifer.

“They have to stop raping Mother Earth,” said Vicki Monague, one of five Beausoleil First Nation women who have been leading nonviolent direct actions at the dump site since the county began digging in late March.

As traditional Keepers of the Water, the Beausoleil women set up a legal encampment on the Parnell family farm across the road from the dump site on 14 May.  A statement posted at the encampment calls on their neighbours to help protect what is most sacred to them.  “What is most sacred to all life on this planet?  Pure, natural water.”

by Anton Flores-Maisonet

From Palm Sunday to Good Friday, about 1,300 people united in Georgia’s first Holy Week Pilgrimage for Immigrants.  The prayerful walk trekking fifty miles through North Georgia and metro Atlanta  called for an end to law enforcement raids that separate families, the passage of humane immigration reform and the revision of trade policies that increase unauthorized immigration.

On Maundy Thursday more than 500 pilgrims had just completed an eight-mile journey through Cobb County, home of some of Georgia’s most vitriolic anti-immigrant residents, and it was time to engage in the subversive ritual of foot washing; an act of holy resistance to the dehumanizing dynamics of this world.

“I was thirsty and you gave me drink.”
− Mt. 25:35

CPT Reservist John Heid is among more than a dozen volunteers facing possible prosecution for “littering” in the desert.

“Two companions and I placed three-dozen gallons of water on an active migrant trail in Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge southwest of Tucson,” reported Heid.  “A Fish and Wildlife officer confronted us and escorted us out of the area.”

During record heat, and a continually rising death toll (183 so far this fiscal year in Arizona*), law enforcement officials consider life-giving water to be illegal litter.

In the early morning of 14 July, members of the Colombian National Police and the Mobile Riot Police Squad surrounded the subsistence farming community of Las Pavas in southern Bolívar province.  By the end of the day, more than 500 people had been forced off their land, including several pregnant women and about 100 children.

The police entered the community and destroyed homes and possessions, carrying out the local police inspector’s order to displace the 123 families of Las Pavas.  For the past 12 years, these families have lived on and worked the land of Las Pavas, which belonged to an absentee landlord, a relative of deceased cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar.  At the community’s request, the Colombian Institute for Rural Development initiated a process of “eminent domain” to claim the land for the state and draw up titles for the residents of Las Pavas.

This article was compiled from various writings by CPT-Colombia team members and participants in the May and July Colombia delegations.

San Pablo, a municipality along the Magdalena River in southern Bolívar province, is an oil port surrounded by extensive fields of fertile land, where some of the highest levels of violence, threats, displacement, and paramilitary activity in the region impact the civilian population.

by Eloy García

CPTers in Colombia prayed and sang out against further U.S. militarization of Colombia at a public vigil on 11 August outside a resort in Barrancabermeja where citizens awaited the arrival of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.  “U.S. military bases will not answer Colombia’s troubles,” said participants. “They will only exacerbate human rights abuses directed against social organizations working for peace and justice.”

by Sandra Milena Rincón

CPT’s first peacemaker training in Colombia began 5 June for two weeks and will conclude the first two weeks of December.  The following excerpt comes from a much longer reflection.

Twelve Colombians participating in CPT training have fulfilled a long-awaited dream: expanding CPT’s perspective on peace work and training beyond white North American culture and the English language.

by Tarek Abuata

“Ahlan wa Sahlan!  Welcome back!”  The words rang sweetly in the ears of CPT-Palestine team members who returned in May to launch a restructured project in al-Khalil (Hebron) after eight months of suspended work.  (Al-Khalil, the Arabic word for the city, is an alternate name for Father Ibrahim.)

During a period of research and refocusing, CPT received strong affirmations and invitations to re-establish an international presence in al-Khalil, where Israeli settlers occupy the heart of the city.

by Maureen Jack

Two Israeli soldiers attacked a 16-year-old Palestinian youth 150 yards from his home in the Tel Rumeida area of Hebron on 13 July.  Yet he did not respond with violence.

The attack happened as the teenager was walking to his home carrying heavy electrical cables necessary for repair work on his family’s house. 

The teen reported that one particular soldier has often held him for ID checks lasting at least an hour.  This soldier and another took his ID and told him to sit on the ground.

by Joy Ellison

“You should be delivering demolition orders to the Israeli settlers!” an at-Tuwani resident admonished Israeli soldiers.

On 20 July, Palestinians in the village of at-Tuwani protested as Israeli authorities delivered demolition orders to seven new houses.  The demonstration was a part of a campaign to assert the rights of Palestinians to build on their land and to draw attention to the illegal expansion of the Havat Ma’on settlement outpost.

Determined to improve their quality of life, at-Tuwani residents living under Israeli occupation are building pylons to connect to the Palestinian electrical grid in nearby towns, enabling the village to have electricity 24-hours-a-day.

Currently at-Tuwani receives only four hours of electricity a day, supplied by a diesel generator operated and paid for by the villagers.

More than 100 Palestinian children marched 27 July from at-Tuwani to the village of Tuba along a path where Israeli settlers have attacked them and the international human rights advocates who accompany them.  They carried banners and Palestinian flags as they drummed and chanted, “This land is Palestinian land; the settlers have to leave.”

The march, part of a two-week summer camp for the children, asserted the right of Palestinians to travel on roads through their own land.  It also demonstrated solidarity with the 20 children from Tuba and Maghayir al-Abeed who face violence every day as they travel through the valley between the Israeli settlement of Ma’on and the illegal outpost of Havat Ma’on/Hill 833 to attend primary school in at-Tuwani.

“When they heard about our budget short- fall, individuals and congregations responded generously.  We are hopeful, but continue to covet your prayers and support as we count on the largest share of income during the closing months of the year,” said Carol Rose, CPT Co-Director.

In the midst of this financially troubled time, CPT needs to move the Chicago office and training facilities.  In June CPT purchased a property for less than one-third of what it sold for two years ago.  We hope to manage this purchase and renovation without taking a penny away from peacemaking projects in the field.   To do that we need:

by Michele Naar-Obed

The CPT Iraq team is witnessing murder − not the murder of individual people, although we have seen that too – but the murder of a way of life.

“We once lived in paradise,” Babaqir told CPT.  “We had everything in our villages − grain, orchards, vegetables, animals.  Our water came down from the mountains clear, clean and cold.”

Now he lives in the Zharawa Internally Displaced Person’s camp where rows of UN tents sit crowded together backed up against toilets and showers.  Temperatures exceed 100ºF and there is not one tree or structure to provide shade.  The IDPs have no electricity to refrigerate food.  They get their water from tanks brought in by the UN High Commissioner on Refugees.  Their heritage, knowledge, connection to God is being destroyed.

by Michele Naar-Obed

Located at the end of a long, dusty road in Iraq’s Nineveh Province, Makhmoor Refugee Camp is home to over 11,000 Turkish Kurds.  These refugees fled across the southeastern border of Turkey into Iraq following a military crackdown against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in 1996.

by Craig Kite

One-year-old Mohammad Ahmed was killed when Iran shelled his family’s village, Razga, on 10 March, in violation of an agreement Iran had made with the Kurdish Regional Government to stop attacks in the Pshdar district.  The attack also injured the boy’s father, Ali Hamed Ahmed, in his head, back and leg, rendering him unable to walk.

by Sophia Hochstedler

Having crossed the border from Turkey into Iraqi Kurdistan, CPTer Gerald Paoli and I began the six-hour drive to the team’s house in Suleimaniya.  Along the way, I was struck by the beauty of the mountains surrounding us and the richness of the land.

In a warring country, I noticed a steadiness to the life there.  I admired this quality as I watched people, many of them displaced from their villages, carrying their recently harvested crops.

by Chihchun Yuan

Turkish President Abdullah Gul revealed recently to Euronews his solution to the conflict with Turkey’s Kurdish minority: “to those who want to fight to [the] death and not give up their weapons, then our military must tackle that and fight these people to the end.”  I got the impression that the Turkish government has no other strategy to make people lay down their weapons except fighting them.  I also know that Gul’s determination to subjugate Kurds is directed, in part, at another country.

Address to Mennonite World Conference, Paraguay, July 2009
by Sandra Milena Rincón (translated by Carol Rose)

Twenty-five years ago during Mennonite World Conference in France, Anabaptists from the north received a challenge to heed the signs of the times calling the pacifist church to intervene actively as a nonviolent army of Christians in war zones.

Christian Peacemaker Teams grew out of that challenge.  It took several years to define the mission, vision, objectives and methods of work appropriate to the contexts in which volunteers would be serving.  From there, CPT began a sustained program of spiritual and political accompaniment of communities affected by violence and armed conflict around the world, and prophetic proclamation within and outside of the churches.

You cannot be followers of Jesus and haters of the Jews.  Stop interfering in the sovereignty of the State of Israel.  There will be no peace between the Jews and the Gentiles until Jesus comes.  Your efforts are exercises in futility.
- molld@telus.net, “a Messianic Gentile”

Muchas gracias por la información que siempre recibimos con mucho aprecio y sentimiento!  La re-enviamos por nuestra lista electrónica Kairos-Colombia.
Translation: Thank you very much for the information which we always appreciate receiving.  We repost it to our Kairos-Colombia listserve.
- Fernando Torres, Colombia

Iraq

CPTers serving the Iraq team March-August 2009 were: Peggy Gish (Athens, OH), Sophia Hochstedtler (Chicago, IL), Bob Holmes (Toronto, ON), Craig Kite (Upper Marlboro, MD), John Lynes (East Sussex, England), Michele Naar-Obed (Duluth, MN), Gerald Paoli (Chicago, IL), Doug Pritchard (Toronto, ON), Garland Robertson (Austin, TX), Hilary Scarsella (Elkhart, IN), Chihchun Yuan (Taipei, Taiwan); Delegation members April 18-May 2 were: Hermione Anderson (Amsterdam, Netherlands), Matthew Barr (West Sussex, England), Lukasz Firla (Èeský Tìšín, Czech Republic), Charlie Jackson (Austin, TX), Caldwell Manners (Omaha, NE), Allan Slater (Lakeside, ON).

Ten people graduated from CPT’s Summer 2009 peacemaker training as Reservists with 3-year commitments.  Several would like to serve full time as funds become available.  Back Row (L to R): David Hovde (Evanston, IL), Derek Zika (Statesville, NC), Julie Myers (Cleveland, OH), Zach Selekman (Pittsburgh, PA), Drew Herbert (Claremont, CA); Front Row (L to R): Ryan Shiffer (Chicago, IL), Caldwell Manners (Omaha, NE), Nina Chiba (Calgary, AB), Melanie Southworth (Toronto, ON), Hannah Breckbill (Northfield, MN).

Peacemaker Delegations:

• Aboriginal Justice: 9-18 October
• Colombia: (international) 22 September -   5 October; (national) 12-19 December
• Iraq: (Kurdish North): 7-21 November
• Palestine/Israel: October 6-19, November 17-30

Signs of the Times is produced up to four times a year.  This issue edited by Celeste Kennel-Shank and Kryss Chupp.  Batches of 10 or more are available to institutions, congregations, and local groups for distribution.  Any part of Signs of the Times may be used without permission.  Please send CPT a copy of the reprint.