by Brian Young


During the month of July, CPT organized a 3,000-mile Border Witness Drive from Tucson, Arizona to Brownsville, Texas and then north to Washington, DC, culminating with legislative advocacy calling for comprehensive immigration reform. Team members were: John Heid (Winona, MN), Sarah Shirk (Chicago, IL), Haven Whiteside (Palm Harbor, FL) and Brian Young (Richmond, IN).

“Walls don’t work.” We heard that theme many times during our travels along the U.S./Mexico border.
Laredo Community College sits in a bend of the Rio Grande near a point where migrants often cross the border. At a cost of close to $1 million in Homeland Security funds, the college erected a ten-foot-high wrought iron fence all the way across the southern edge of its campus. It has not stopped people from coming.

Written by the CPT Borderlands Witness Team, July 2007

Open our eyes and ears. Deepen our understanding of the humanity we share with all peoples and the divinity we share with you.
Break down the walls of fear and indifference.
Widen the doors of our hearts that we might more fully welcome all to the banquet of life.
Break down the walls of fear and indifference.
Guide the feet of our sisters and brothers through the blistering heat of the desert, and our own as we bear witness to their struggle for justice.

by John Heid

In the upper Rio Grande Valley, the boundary between Texas and Mexico meanders willy-nilly like the river it rides. A muggy lushness prevails in sharp contrast to the arid Sonoran desert frontier of Arizona and New Mexico.

by John Heid

“The actual physical borderland...is the Texas - U.S. Southwest / Mexican border.  The psychological borderlands, the sexual borderlands and the spiritual borderlands are not particular to the Southwest.  In fact, the Borderlands are physically present wherever two or more cultures edge each other, where people of different races occupy the same territory, where lower, middle and upper classes touch, where the space between two individuals shrinks with intimacy.”
- Gloria Anzaldua, Preface to the First Edition, Borderlands/La Frontera

According to the Washington Post (2/2/07), the number of immigrants held in detention by Homeland Security’s ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has surged 30% since 2005.

A refugee services coordinator in New Orleans stated emphatically, “We couldn’t have done it without them.”  Undocumented Latino workers were among the “first responders” after Hurricane Katrina hit.  They were the ones who dealt with toxic water, decomposed animal bodies, fungus, mold and miles of rotting garbage. They cleared out hospitals, public buildings and homes chocked full of waterlogged furniture and destroyed appliances.  They handled the filthiest tasks, paving the way for the massive reconstruction efforts to follow.

CPT’s Borderlands Witness team offered the following reflections to help inform the current immigration debate.

OBSERVATIONS:
•    Current policy has failed.  It has not stemmed the flow of immigration; rather, it forces people to cross the border in more dangerous areas.  Deaths in the desert have reached an all-time high.
•    Construction of border walls as authorized by the Secure Fence Act of 2006 will further divide families and communities.  Walls are not an effective solution.

On August 7, 2007, CPTers watched as a crew of workers under Israeli supervision dismantled the “short” (80-cm high) security barrier along Route 317.  By the end of the day, no wall remained.

by Diane Janzen and Sean O'Neill

On June 6, the Israeli High Court lifted a temporary injunction that had prevented the Israeli military from performing evacuations and home demolitions in the Palestinian village of Susiya since 2001.
    The High Court gave the village leaders 30 days to present a map of the area, showing the existing structures and areas where villagers want to build houses, to the Israeli Civil Administration’s District Coordination Office (DCO).

by Jan Benvie

Last February CPT helped establish a youth soccer team in Hebron in partnership with a Palestinian NGO and CPT’s neighbor, Zleekha Muhtaseb (see “Hebron: Soccer for Peace;” Signs of the Times; Summer, 2007; Vol. XVIII, No. 2).

by Esther Kern and Diane Roe

Every Friday CPTers join Palestinians, Israelis and other international peace activists to harvest stalks of golden hay by hand on the hillside of a farm nestled between the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba and a settlement outpost on the outskirts of Hebron.
    The owner of this coveted piece of land is Palestinian farmer Anan Al Ja’abari.  Yet, he cannot till most of the fertile soil, nor bring his flock of thirty goats to graze on the land for fear of violence and harassment from the settlers.  

On September 3, 2007, CPT sent a violence-reduction team to accompany the Ardoch Algonquin and Shabot Obaadijiwan First Nations in a blockade of uranium mining exploration on their unceded territory.
    The Ontario provincial government issued a permit to Frontenac Ventures Corporation for a two-year, $3.5-million program to explore the feasibility of open pit uranium mining on Algonquin lands without the consent of the Ardoch and Shabot communities.

A team of four CPTers including Anita David (Chicago, IL), Peggy Gish (Athens, OH), Cliff Kindy (North Manchester, IN), and Michele Naar-Obed (Duluth, MN) will travel to the north of Iraq in late October 2007.
    In late January 2007, CPTers Peggy Gish and Will VanWagenen, along with two Iraqi associates, were abducted briefly just outside the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) area in Northern Iraq, and then released unharmed.

by Heather-Laura Peters (member of CPT’s July 2007 delegation)

Pastor Peter Stucky from the Teusaquillo Mennonite Church in Bogotá, offered our delegation a gift: a message on hope.
    Having lived in war-ravaged countries and having witnessed situations of domestic violence, my hope often falters.  How do those immersed in long-term suffering find the strength to struggle on for peace, justice and righteousness?  

On July 23-24, close to 80 leaders from peasant, Indigenous, and Afro-Colombian  communities around the country met in Bogotá for the First National Inter-Ethnic Meeting of Peasant Miners.

    July 14, 2007: Juan Dionicio Ortiz Vázquez, the former Governor of the Vegas Chagui Chimbuza Reservation, and Ademelio Pai Taicus of the Guadual Community, lost their lives to landmines as they walked to their fields in the countryside.

In Dialogue, we highlight exchanges regarding CPT’s vision and peacemaking ministry. In this issue we glimpse a discussion among CPTers initiated by Co-Director Doug Pritchard who asked the question, “Should CPT be thinking about purchasing carbon offsets for the flying and driving that we do?”

Paramilitaries Re-Group:  In Barrancabermeja, the Central Block of the Black Eagles, a new paramilitary group operating in the city, sent a series of death threats to youth and organizations.  “Central Block” reminds local people of the old “Central Bolívar Block” that operated in this area under the par

Stop Funding War:
On July 23, members of CPT’s summer training group and supporters held a mock trial, indicting Senator Dick Durbin’s (D-IL) Iraq war voting record.  With “History” as the judge, participants called the “Court of Public Opinion” to order at the Federal Building in downtown Chicago.  Although the Senator voted against using force in Iraq back in 2002, he has consistently voted in favor of funding the war.

Thirteen people completed CPT’s summer training.  Ten committed to 3-year terms as full-timers (f) or Reservists (r).  Two continue in discernment (d).  Participants (left to right) were: Back Row – Sally Ann Brickner (Green Bay, WI) - d; Fred Snyder (Lincoln, NE); Colin Stuart (Ott

Myrla Baldonado is the founding Executive Director of the Philippine-based People’s Task Force for Bases Clean-up/ABC International and a long-time friend of CPT. She leads a grassroots campaign pressing the U.S. to take responsibility for cleaning up the toxic waste at its former military bases in the Philippines. Clark Air Force Base and Subic Naval Base were the largest U.S. overseas bases for half a century before a grassroots movement succeeded in getting them closed in 1991.

CPT seeks participants for a peacemaker delegation to the Philippines February 15-29, 2008.  Persons interested in human rights work, committed to nonviolence, and willing to join in team worship and reflection are encouraged to apply.

Human rights agencies report hundreds of extra-judicial killings and disappearances in the Philippines since 2001.  Victims include community activists, journalists and church leaders. 

by Claire Evans
    
"Sometimes the walls are so tall we can't destroy them; we have to convert ourselves into bridges," explained Ricardo Esquivia of the Colombian Mennonite Church.  "It is not enough to identify all the layers of injustice that have made the wall and to make them disappear; we have to find a way to heal and make sure that the walls are not rebuilt in the same way."

I would love to see CPT encourage demonstrations [against violent toys] in other cities by sharing the songs or advising local groups. It would fit many of us who support CPT but find ourselves called to ministries that make even brief delegations problematic.

[Note: CPT has organizing packets available to guide groups through the process of planning a local witness against violent toys, including sample songs, leaflets, and media alerts. Contact the Chicago office.]

I am really excited to hear about your [undoing racism] work. It is an issue that, as white people, we have the choice to ignore, but I am so glad you are choosing not to do that.

Listing of active CPT personnel

PALESTINE

CPTers serving the Palestine teams (Hebron and At-Tuwani) June-August were: Tarek Abuata (Bethesda, MD), Jan Benvie (Fife, Scotland), Matt Chandler (Beaverton, OR), Peggy Gish (Athens, OH), Jill Granberg (Olympia, WA), Joel Gulledge (Chicago, IL),

Peacemaker Delegations:

• Philippines: February 15-29, 2008.
• Palestine/Israel: November 19 - December 1, 2007; January 8-21, March 4-17, May 27 - June 9, July 22 - August 4, October 14-27, November 19 - December 1, 2008.
• Colombia: January 16-29, May 14-27, July 16-29, September 24 - October 7, 2008.

Signs of the Times is produced four times a year. 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. Your contributions finance CPT ministries including the distribution of 21,000 copies of Signs of the Times.