by Susan Miller

CPT’s 25th anniversary Peacemaker Congress launched us into the next quarter century with renewed vision for the challenges ahead.  Video recordings of fiery Bible studies and reflections by Shanta Premawardhana, Sylvia Morrison, Ched Myers and Elaine Enns along with riveting keynote  addresses by Elce Redmond, Angélica Castellanos, and Mohamed Salah are posted (or will be in the coming weeks) at www.cpt.org/2011videos.  The following article by CPT supporter Susan Miller is edited and used with the author’s permission.

About 160 people gathered 13-16 October at Reba Place Church to celebrate Christian Peacemaker Teams’ 25 years of nonviolent peacemaking and to focus on “Re-imagining Partnerships for Peacemaking.”

The 11th Peacemaker Congress brought together participants from across North America, as well as Iraq, Colombia,  Palestine, the Philippines and the Netherlands.

For plenary speaker Mohamed Salah, a Kurdish Muslim who has served as a driver, translator, teacher, cook, adviser and partner of the CPT Iraq team, the event marked a number of “firsts:” first time outside his country, first airplane ride and first time to speak in front of a large group.  He opened his address by greeting his family in Kurdish via the video streaming technology that expanded the number of participants in the Congress to include anyone listening online.

by Brian Young, CPT Steering Committee

Rev. Dr. Shanta Premawardhana steps to the podium to bring the message on the second day of CPT’s 25th Anniversary Peacemaker Congress in Chicago.  As he begins, Pastor Shawna Bowman kneels before a blank black page taped to the floor and starts to draw a border.  My eyes leave her for a time, engaged in Dr. Shanta’s words.

Theology, he reminds us, is not an abstraction.  It cannot be.  And we help determine the context in which each of our theologies will develop by the simple act of choosing:  who will be at table with you today?

Quotes from Presenters at CPT's Peacemaker Congress:

Safety comes when all of us stand together and say in unison that we will not allow this violence to continue, that we will not allow our children to die and we will not allow our community to suffer and deteriorate.
- Elce Redmond

In God’s economy there is such a thing as “too much” and “too little.”[In the USA] we already have a “poverty line” which says below this is too little. Now we need a “greed line” that says above this amount for a family of four is too much.
- Rev. Dr. ShantaPremawardhana

by David Hovde

Besides working for the CPT-Iraq team, Mohamed Salah teaches English to sixth and seventh graders in Suliemaniya.  While in Chicago for CPT’s Peacemaker Congress, Salah spoke to numerous school groups.  He shared letters and videos of his students singing songs of greeting and friendship in English.

At one west side school, a teacher expressed concern about the presence of military recruiters and fear that his students may not think they have alternatives to what the military offers them. 

by Stewart Vriesinga

Sattar Hattem served as a translator and mentor for CPT-Iraq when the team was based in Baghdad.  His death in October prompted outpourings of deep feeling from CPTers who worked with him. 

Sattar was much more than a translator.  As CPTer Allan Slater said, “He embodied so much of what we were trying to be.”  He shared our vision and helped shape us.  He was a Muslim who clearly understood and fully supported the essence of what it was we were trying to accomplish.   Sattar was humble, reflective, quiet, and a very deep listener.  When he did speak, it was always heart-felt and well considered.  He opened our eyes to our own cultural blind spots, and would gently and lovingly explain to us when our actions might be misconstrued or counterproductive in the local context.    

Although this issue of Signs of the Times may not reach you until after the holidays, the CPT-Colombia team’s Christmas “wish list” is relevant all year round.

Give the gift of solidarity by supporting CPT and local peacemaking initiatives.  Here are five quick things you can do:

1. Educate yourself about Colombia.  Did you know that up to 5.2 million Colombians have been forced out of their homes creating the worst Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) crisis in the world?  Or that in October the USA passed a Free Trade Agreement with Colombia, despite the fact that Colombia has the worst human rights record in the Western Hemisphere?  Or that 41 candidates were assassinated in October’s elections?  Stay informed about what’s going on in the country that the USA calls “the greatest foreign policy success story.”  Watch the team’s new video (http://vimeo.com/32471479) and stay tuned for a link to a new resource blog the team will launch soon.

CPT has accompanied and reported on the situation of 123 families displaced from Las Pavas since 2009.  Last April, we celebrated what has been called the “miracle of Las Pavas” when the families defied threats of violence and returned to their land.  

But the miracle is threatened once again.  Colombia’s regional Attorney General’s office released a report about Las Pavas accusing the farmers of having lied about being displaced and stating that their claims for restitution were unjustified.  She has called for a re-investigation of the case and for a probe into the organizations, both local and international, that have supported the community throughout the process.

On 9 November 2011, two armed, masked men entered the home of Jaqueline Rojas in Barrancabermeja.  They held a gun to her 15-year-old daughter’s head and threatened to kill her if she screamed, then locked her in a room.  They tied up Rojas, spray-painted her face and clothes and asked the whereabouts of her oldest son and her husband, Juan Carlos Galvis, who is a leader in the Coca Cola workers union.  The men vandalized the home, spray-painting family photos with vulgarities, then left with a computer and various other belongings.

by Pierre Shantz

According to a recent Bloomberg Weekly report (http://goo.gl/OKBx0), gold is eclipsing cocaine as a primary source of financing illegal armed groups in Colombia.  Both paramilitary and rebel guerrilla groups have profited from gold mining for years.  However, public attention is increasing now that large mining companies hover over Colombia’s gold reserves, some of the largest in the world.

by Kevin Baker, delegate

On the last day of our CPT delegation, we wanted to do a public action in response to the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement recently passed by Congress.  We brainstormed, strategized, and agonized over the best time and place.

Finally, we settled on a street theater – a scene of two tables in front of the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá.  One table was the world of free trade, based on stories we heard during the delegation – stories of violence and displacement fueled by multinational companies robbing the resources of Colombia.  The other table represented God’s table – a table marked by equality, mutuality, and abundance.  With this vision in our minds, we spent hours assembling costumes, writing prayers, and calling Colombian partner organizations.

When the day arrived, it rained.  A lot.  This was not a shower or a drizzle.  It absolutely poured.  Our original plan wasn’t going to work. 

And then, God showed up.  

In 2004, Israeli settlers were regularly attacking children as they walked to and from school in the South Hebron Hills village of at-Tuwani.  Local villagers and their Israeli partner, Ta’ayush, asked CPT and the Italian peace group, Operation Dove, to provide accompaniment for the school children.

CPT, having made regular visits to villages throughout the Hebron District over the years, accepted the invitation and partnered with Operation Dove to maintain a presence based in at-Tuwani while continuing a long-time presence in the city of al-Khalil (Hebron). 

Seven years later, CPT’s time in at-Tuwani has drawn to a close.  

On 25 September, more than 100 people from different communities in the South Hebron Hills participated in a peace march to celebrate the power of nonviolence and the resilient spirit of the people of the South Hebron Hills.  The event was timed to coincide with the annual 24 km Perugia to Assisi Peace March in Italy, in which 50,000 Italians and internationals participated.

Schoolchildren, elders, students, farmers, shepherds, teachers, men, and women chanted and marched from at-Tuwani to Um Faggarah and then further south to the community of Khallet at-Taba, which in past years has endured the demolition of homes, outhouses, and other structures by the Israeli army.  Six families continue to inhabit the hamlet.

by Jo Ann Fricke

On Tuesday, 15 November 2011, six Palestinians stood at a bus stop outside the Israeli settlements of Psagot and Migron, and boarded a bus used by settlers to travel to Jerusalem.  Three CPTers accompanied the “Freedom Riders,” as the activists referred to themselves.

Although no law explicitly forbids Palestinians from boarding Israeli buses in the West Bank, racial and ethnic discrimination and the fact that Palestinians are not allowed to travel to Jerusalem where the Central Bus Station is located create a segregated system of transportation that is off-limits to Palestinians. 

On 24 November 2011, at 9:00 am, the Israeli army, with more than five Israeli army jeeps and two bulldozers, drove into the small village of Um Fagarah and demolished two houses and the village mosque.  During the demolition, they arrested two young women, one 21 and one 17.

One of the demolished homes belonged to a widow and her family; the other housed an extended family of 20.  The soldiers did not have demolition orders or give any explanation for the demolitions, but called the village women “whores” and entered at a time of day when most of the men were away at work. 

by Benjamin Krauß

Krauß participated in CPT’s first ever German language delegation in cooperation with the German Mennonite Peace Committee (DMFK).  Another German language delegation will visit the Treaty 3 area in Canada next April.

In September, our group of mostly German Mennonites participated in a silent vigil with Women in Black.  The Women in Black are Israelis, including Holocaust survivors, who have protested the Israeli occupation of Palestine by gathering at the same spot in West Jerusalem at the same time every Friday since the first Intifada.  They hold signs in the shape of a hand bearing the slogan “End the Occupation” in Hebrew, Arabic, and English.

Many of us felt uncomfortable taking part in the vigil because of German history.  We encountered animosity from Israeli passers-by, which we expected, and we responded to insulting gestures, shouting and even aggressive youth by smiling and silently praying.

by Reinhard Kober

Halhul, to the north of al-Khalil (Hebron) is a beautiful hilltop town, surrounded by fields and lovely gardens.  Like other cities in the Palestinian Authority-administered Area A, its population has grown from 3,000 in the sixties to 30,000 now.

The Abu Jamal family, along with many others living east of the green line border, may no longer work legally in Israel.  So they invested in greenhouses, cultivated eggplants and tomatoes, and were generally successful at first.

by Heather Mitchell, delegate

On 29 October, outside the Aerojet Ordnance plant in Jonesborough, Tennessee, CPT delegates and local community members wearing “Decontaminate Jonesborough” t-shirts set up tents in an effort to publicly imagine a new Aerojet.

The company describes itself as “an industry leader in the design, development and production of specialty metal components for munitions…” (http://goo.gl/tXXru) – in other words, depleted uranium (DU).

Participants split into groups and surveyed the perimeter of the company grounds, documenting notable buildings and materials.  Each group then had a chance to re-imagine what the grounds and buildings could be used for once the plant is no longer producing depleted uranium weapons components.  

On 4 November 2011, a clear, bright, sunny day in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Canada Boat to Gaza, Tahrir, and the Irish ship, Saoirse (SEER-shuh), attempted to sail for the second time this year into the darkness of the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

The two small civilian boats carrying 20 activists, including CPT supporters, 5 journalists and $30,000 in medicine had sailed from Turkey two days earlier.

In the closing sermon at CPT’s Peacemaker Congress in October, Elaine Enns and Ched Myers encouraged all CPTers, partners and supporters to “stand in the rock where Moses stood!” They ended with this invitation: “We urge you to dig deep to help CPT take the first steps into the next 25 years.  And after you’ve put your donations into the CPT hat, we invite you to write a prayer for, or blessing upon, some CPT person or place or partner.  Then come and put your slip of paper into the clefts of these rocks, a symbol of how we as a community of faith support this great work.” Many prayers lifted up specific CPTers and partners.  

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

Peacemaker Corps Trainings
• January: 4 January - 4 February 2012;   Chicago, Illinois, USA 
• July/August: 13 July - 13 August 2012;   Chicago, Illinois, USA (apply by 1 May, 2012)

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