Aboriginal Justice delegation - Algonquin Territory: February 2008

Report of CPT’s
Aboriginal Justice Delegation to Algonquin Territory (Sharbot Lake, Ontario, Canada)
February 24 - March 1, 2008

The goals for this delegation, as stated by delegation leader Allan Slater, were as follows: 1) to learn from people; 2) to act as a non-violent team on behalf of the people; 3) To report back to our communities.

During our week in Sharbot Lake staying at the United Church manse, we heard from many different people regarding the issue of the exploratory uranium drilling at Robertsville Mine. People we visited included representatives of the Ardoch Algonquin Nation, the Shabot Obaadjiwan Nation, the MELT team of the OPP stationed in this area, many non-aboriginal settlers in the area, a minister of a local United Church, and a settler woman in the community who favours the exploration for uranium.. A complete listing of persons with whom the delegation had formal meetings is contained in Appendix A.

The complete and accurate timeline of events since June 2007 was sometimes hard to keep track of. A lot has happened. Especially difficult was getting an accurate picture of what has happened and will be happening in the legal and judicial arena of this issue. Bob Lovelace (Ardoch former chief) has been sent to jail, other leaders have circumvented jail time by agreeing to no further action on the issue, and some still await sentencing at this time. Those awaiting court sentencing include First Nations leaders, some non-aboriginal settlers, and may even include members of OPP MELT (Ontario Provincial Police Major Events Liason Team).

It became apparent that there are many different motivations for those who are against exploratory uranium drilling. The motivations fall into two main categories:
Uranium drilling as an environmental issue – there are huge health risks associated with disturbance of this area, as well as the inevitable waste that would be created. In addition, there are very few, if any, environmental standards or safeguards that exploratory or mining companies are required to adhere to.
Uranium drilling as a land rights issue – The Canadian constitution gives provinces control of their mineral resources. But that same constitution requires that provinces consult with First Nations before allowing any exploration for minerals that disturbs land that has been traditionally occupied by First Nations people. This has not happened. Through the wide permissions of the Ontario Mining Act (which is directly in conflict with the federal requirement of ‘Duty to Consult’ First Nations), Frontenac Ventures received rights to drill the land without any permission or advance notice to the First Nations or settlers living in the area.

Because of the high probability of arrest, the delegation did not spend any time at the original blockade site. It was somewhat of a disappointment to not be as directly involved in the action to protect the land, but it seems that the presence of CPT is still very encouraging and supportive to people in the area.

The delegation chose to end the week with a public witness of solidarity in Kingston, ON on Saturday, March 1st, to keep an awareness of the issues alive. Over 15 members and guests of the CPT-Ontario meeting that day in Sharbot Lake joined the solidarity action, as did over a dozen local activists. We started and ended with a symbolic ceremony that illustrated the “shackling” of Bob Lovelace, along with aboriginal rights, justice, human dignity, etc. We processed to a drum beat along Princess Street in Kingston and also stopped in front of the MP’s (Member of Parliament) and MPP’s (Member of Provincial Parliament) office. 500 flyers were dispersed.

The overall situation, however dire, did not seem at all without hopeful options. Many settlers have formed organized efforts to put pressure on city councils (recently successful in Ottawa) to demand of Premier McGuinty a moratorium on uranium mining in Ontario. In addition, a class action law suit notice has been served on the provincial government. Other settlers are forming other strategies, including possible letter writing campaigns, rallies, and/or community theatre to support the cause and keep awareness high. While the Ardoch Algonquin nation currently has its hands almost completely tied by the February 15th court ruling, the Shabot Obaadjiwan First Nation continues to entertain options for forward movement, including filing a counter-suit against Ontario.

The delegation team, in addition to appointments to hear many voices on the issues, also held group processing meetings, worship, check-ins, and public witness planning meetings. The amount of time spent together also allowed for unofficial, relevant conversations to take place involving differing instincts and perspectives within the group.

Members of the CPT’s delegation were Nermin Bahcetepe (Toronto, Ontario), Randy Bond (Beulah, Michigan), Paula Marie Deubel (Sterling Heights, Michigan), Kelley Haldeman (Bellbrook, Ohio) Rebecca Johnson (Toronto, Ontario), Allan Slater (Lakeside, Ontario), and Margaret Sumadh (Toronto, Ontario).

– report submitted by Kelley Haldeman


APPENDIX A
Listing of persons/representatives who met with the delegation (in no specific order)


Hughie and Elizabeth Proudfoot, (and briefly with Earl Rikoski (sp?)) local new settler retirees
Harold Perry, Ardoch Algonquin First Nation (AAFN) elder and former chief
Marvin McDonald, Diane Hampson, Major Events Liaison Team (MELT), of OPP
Patsy Henry, United Church of Canada (UCC) pastor at Sharbot Lake
John Kittle, Sheila Kittle, CCAMU
Harriet Riddell, local non-aboriginal resident (living next to site of blockade) in favour of mining
Bob Johnson, surprise visitor! and local settler
Chief Doreen Davis and War Chief Earl Badour, Shabot Obaadjiwan FN
Mireille Lapointe, AAFN member and presenter for Undoing Racism Workshop
Donna Dillman, former hunger striker in opposition to uranium exploration and mining
3 delegates attended a local settler meeting of 15+ persons opposed to mining

Aboriginal Justice delegation - Northwestern Ontario: July 2006

Christian Peacemaker Teams
Delegation to Asubpeechosewagong and Kenora, Ontario
July 27 to August 6, 2006

Beginnings:
Five delegates, (Andrew Cressman from Toronto Ontario, Ellen Johnson Arginteanu from State College PA, Garland Robertson from Austin Texas, Carol Rose and Carol Soderholm both from Chicago Illinois) gathered in Kenora Ontario on ThursdayJuly 27, to learn about the difficulties facing the native and European settler communities, including environmental concerns, sharing of the resources, racism and treaty rights. We arrived much later than anticipated, delayed by various complications (missed planes, luggage and traffic accidents clogging the TransCanada highway). This was the first of many changes in schedule, and like all the other changes, it had riches of its own. Those waiting in Kenora explored important local spots and those stranded on the highway walked, talked, enjoyed the temporary community of fellow stranded passengers and learned to make Innchucks (a traditional rock structure of Inuit origin). This was just the first installment of one of the repeated lessons that “life just is.”
When we finally gathered in Kenora, we enjoyed our first of many delicious meals and had an abbreviated introduction before finding and making our beds in the Kenora First Baptist Church.

The Lessons:
On Saturday we completed our business, dividing team chores and meal preparation. Living in community is a core part of the experience; it was spiced and enriched by our differences in backgrounds, perceptions and temperaments. Over the week we grew to support each other, stretch our communication skills and discover that we need less (material goods) to flourish than we usually think. (We were, however, blessed with all of the modern conveniences!)

Most lessons were repeated over the course of the ten days, through discussions with First Nation people, members of the white community, and absorbed through the daily routine:
– The difference in world views of the First Nation culture and European culture is profound from the different ways we see our relationships with people (collective vs. individual) and the earth (profound respect and collaboration vs something to be controlled), ways we think (cyclic vs. linear), our values (giver vs taker, collaborator vs controller) to the way we learn (First Nation people learn generally by observing European by question and answer).
– Subsequently we started (just beginning) to listen more deeply, accept what is rather than be stuck on what we planned, appreciate the wisdom of others without having to “top it.” and to recognize our ubiquitous white privilege.
– We learned again and again that the undermining of the First Nation’s culture has been systematic, intentional, and pervasive; it has had profound repercussions with increase in alienation, subsequent alcoholism, “homelessness” institutional dependence and tragic increase in rates of suicide. (there had been two in the small community of Grassy Narrows in the two weeks preceding our delegation.)
– Additionally, we came to more fully appreciate the depth of complexities that bear on the problems faced by the two communities and the difficulty in finding solutions: The impact of the different world views, the different government structures involved in the situation, the insidious presence of colonialism which arises even in well intentioned/progressive solutions, the difficulty in recognizing white privilege, as such acknowledgement would require difficult sacrifices.
– Above all we came to appreciate the beauty of the land and the patience and humor of those First Nations people we met. Being able to receive (without taking) their gifts of time and emotional sharing was a sometimes difficult, but always valuable, cross cultural experience.

The Experiences and Conversations:
Of note, in the two weeks preceding our arrival in Kenora, there were two blockades of the roads (one the Trans Canada and the other Separation bridge), conducted by outside environmental groups and a segment of the Grassy Narrows community. These blockades ended with significant police involvement and arrests, leaving the communities (both First Nation and white) divided and tense. These events affected our delegation.

Saturday, July 29. The delegation, sitting at the feet of the teacher (elder), heard the reflection of life experience of Nancy *****a woman whose journey from a 3 year old child began in the residential school system, and extended to life as elder and grandmother. She shared with us her wisdom of ages, her powerful present struggle, some of her diverse choices. .
This was the delegation’s first exposure to the residential school system. We heard and learned more about it throughout the week from others. We learned that it was a systemic, systematic way of undermining the culture, which lasted from until 1970. The children often experienced abuse at the hands of the school staff, leaving them with scars that many still deal with today. Around 50,000 children never returned to their villages, most presumed dead.

Sunday, July 30. The delegation divided up to attend different worship services, then gathered for lunch at the church with Karen Bastwell and Ian Davidson Hunt. Ian spoke to us of his extensive experience as an Ethnobotonist with the First Nation tribes, sharing with us the complexities of the problems from the profound cultural differences which paved the way for European domination to the current structure of the Ontario government with different agencies sharing responsibility for care and use of the land. Ian mentioned the profound difference in the way the First Nations teach and also regulate—they do so by “raising up the people to be responsible to each other and not by locking them up.” He quoted an Elder, who has acted as his translator, of both language and culture, as once saying “If I wanted to control, I would no longer be Anishinabe”

Monday, July 31. The morning was devoted to learning about the court system through attending the morning session of court. The morning raised questions and concerns about imposing the European legal system on the First Nations people, recognizing how differently their own culture deals with the development of understanding and executing responsibilities to each other. (Esther had shared a story about a young man, while intoxicated, who had killed another. His people sent him to an island to take care of himself and to reflect on his actions. He had a transformative experience and returned to his people a productive member.) One of the cases heard was very complicated—a terrible crime (sexual abuse of a young child) by a young Anishinabe man with multiple disabilities of his own. It brought many of the concerns to focus.

Tuesday. August 1. The delegation went to Grassy Narrows reserve and to Slant Lake, where the permanent blockade had been held. Judy DeSilva met with us and spoke with us about the history that led her people to resort to the blockade in order to be heard. She spoke of the recent blockades and the concern about the increase in police violence in reaction to the blockade. She spoke of the differences in the culture of the environmental group that had joined the blockade, but was hopeful that they went away with a respect for the First Nation people.
The delegation was able to join the NeChee center Street Patrol for both the 12 to 3 and 4 to 6:30 shifts. This experience allowed us to get first hand exposure to the homeless, the compassion of the Street Patrol and police interaction with both the street people and the NeChee staff. Although there were some questions regarding how much safety it provided the homeless during the summer, it was thought to be crucial in the winter. This particular experience also gave some of us the gift of seeing a very large bear rummaging in the back of a pick up!

Wednesday. August 2. The delegation met with the Chief of Police, Dan****-. Chief Dan talked about the challenges of policing in Kenora,. He felt that talking about racism only put people on the defensive and tried to present the material by talking about biases. He defended his staff’s behavior, while recognizing that it was not always ideal, stated that the reactions were often out of frustration and fatigue. The white police staff often have no contact with First Nation people outside of their interaction with them on the job, taking care of the problems. They are trying to establish some other contacts, such as soccer games to improve relationships. At the end of our meeting, one of the delegates hoped that he would challenge his staff to “go beyond the frustration” in their treatment of the homeless.
The delegates met with Harry***** and the staff of the Fellowship Center. Harry talked about the history of the center and its work providing services to the homeless, including daily lunch. He also talked about how they incorporated some of the Aboriginal spiritual practices in the care of the First Nation peoples

Thursday. August 3. The delegates toured the city’s murals. The city has depicted its history through a series of murals. Of note, there were virtually no First Nation’s people in the murals. Of those that there were, their faces were hidden, other than one who was in the bar room scene! Also it was remarkable that all, but one, of the murals dealt with the history since the European settlers came to the area.
Mary Alice Smith joined us for dinner and talked both about the current situation for the Anishinabe in Kenora and it’s history. She underlined how the livelihoods of the Anishinabe people has been insidiously and steadily undermined, through the environmental changes and the legal restrictions, eg., the prohibition against selling the produce of the land. How this gradual erosion of the livelihoods in addition to the cultural erosion of the residential schools and, specific to the area, the moving of the Grassy Narrow reserve in the 50’s have all created the alienation and rootless ness of the Anishinabe, which manifests in the alcoholism and homelessness. These are merely symptoms of a larger disease which the white culture only sees as the problem. Ms. Smith also discussed the recent report of the The Anishinabe Peace and Justice Commission, in which CPT had input. Mary. She emphasized that the work to be done at this point, largely involves educating the white population. She expressed hope that CPT could help make some of the recommendation of this report go forward.

Friday and Saturday, August 4 and 5. The delegation rose very early to begin a special adventure at Trout Lake. , Kaaren Olsen Dannermann had extended us an invitation to join her and others First Nation people during a week’s retreat, which was set aside for them to learn and teach the native language and ways. The delegation lost its way, and had intimate exposure to the desolation of clear-cut areas. This merely accentuated the untouched beauty of the lake and the island when we finally arrived. We were welcomed into their activities: observed the making of a birch bark canoe, using the traditional tools and methods, shown how to make a birch bark basket, involved in covering a sweat lodge for a ceremony that evening and included in the preparation of dinner for that evening. Two members of the delegation took part in the ceremonial sweat lodge that evening. On Saturday, the delegation included itself in the life of the island, helping with the wash (using a scrub board) and helping make pancakes on an outside wood stove. We met with the community for a meeting to discuss ways in which the delegates might help the community strengthen itself and increase outside support. The meeting ended abruptly with the pouring rain and the delegation returned to the other side of the leg, amidst rain, thunder and lightening.

The Action:
The delegation developed a plan for an action to take place on Thursday. We intended to honor the efforts already in existence in the area to build bridges between the European and First Nation communities, to foster understanding and promote healing. We planned on walking to the different sites, singing a celebratory song, dancing and leaving a symbolic gift.
However, for several reasons this action was cancelled. (The Elders of the community had not been available for the essential consultation and the tenderness of the community following the recent blockades increased our need for caution so that we not inadvertently stir up issues that others would then have to handle in our soon planned absence.)
From this disappointment, however, the delegation came to a decision for another action which seemed even more “right”. All delegates decided to adopt a day of fasting to coincide with the celebration of Thanksgiving in order to bring attention to the plight of the First Nation People and the long history of injustices that they have suffered. It was also agreed that Andrew Cressman would write an article for the CPT newsletter highlighting this decision and asking others to join in the fast.

The Departure:
The delegation had a beginning farewell on Saturday evening and continued the farewell, affirming the gifts of each of the participants. The delegation ended with Carol R, Carol S, Andrew C and Garland R leaving Esther in Kenora to tidy up loose ends.
We will remember this time with gratitude to each other, with immense gratitude to the Anishinabe people who shared so generously and with a reverence for the land of their people.

Colombia: Fall 2007 (Opon)

Walking in the Footprints of Empire: Be Not Afraid

By Beth Harris, CPT delegation member, Fall 2007

Although the nine members of our Christian Peacemaker delegation to Colombia ranged in age from twenty-two to sixty-two years old and had worshiped in a diversity of faith-based communities, when we met, we had much in common. None of us slept the night before we flew to Bogota, and we were ready to open our hearts to the peacemakers in Colombia. We had come to Colombia not only for a fact-finding delegation, but also guidance concerning the directions of our own lives.

In 1984, Ron Sider, made a speech "Jesus' Call to Be Peacemakers" to a Mennonite World Conference that motivated the founding of the Christian Peacemaker Teams. Ron proclaimed, "Unless we Mennonites and Brethren in Christ are ready to start to die by the thousands in dramatic vigorous new exploits for peace and justice, we should sadly confess that we never really meant what we said" (about our commitment to nonviolent peacemaking). Members of our delegation had all signed statements of personal responsibility concerning the risks that we were taking by entering areas where violent conflict could take place and wondered what dangers we might face.

Our delegation leader, Rev. Daniel Dale, told us, "Empire has left one of its biggest footprints in Colombia." Our journey inside this footprint took us to religious communities creating peace churches in war zones, displaced children seeking comfort in art, music and dance, youth refusing to be killers and cannon fodder, and rural communities trying to overcome poverty in their earthly paradise. Collectively we combined our new insights with our own creative power to join the Colombians' growing nonviolent resistance movement.

Although our group from the United States and Canada never seemed to be in physical danger, we met Colombian activists who were risking their lives. Furthermore, our meeting with the Campesina Association of the Cimitarra River Valley (ACVC) was canceled because four members of the leadership had just been jailed, and fourteen more were issued arrest warrants. Our delegation prayed in front the ACVC office, and the remainder of our time in Colombia occurred in the shadow of these arrests. Human rights and development groups in Barrancabermeja declared their support for ACVC and criticized the arrests as part of a broader effort by the Colombian government to taint the reputations of the leadership of the civilian popular movement, including campesinos (small farmers), indigenous people, Afro-Colombians and students, as working with the "terrorists."

In order to understand the significance and courage of the peacemakers in Colombia, we had to learn about war's role in empire building and its consequences for the Colombian people. Colombia has received the greatest amount of U.S. military aid of any country in the Americas; it also has the second highest internally displaced population in the world (second to Sudan). The regions with the greatest numbers of displacements are those with the most natural resources, including oil, coal, gold and other minerals, and where multinational corporations are accumulating land for agribusinesses, transforming land rich with bio-diversity into monoculture production fields.

"I have lived everything that is war."

We learned about the nightmarish conditions, including gruesome massacres, which had caused displacements from rural areas. "Manuel," a 23-year old man who had been displaced, told us, "I have lived everything that is the war." He said,

In a neighboring town the paras took my uncle and cousin. My two other cousins went out looking for them, and the paras captured them, too. The townspeople pleaded to the paras not to kill them. But all were killed and thrown over a bridge. My uncle's last son joined the guerrillas. Later he changed sides and became a commander of the paras My cousin then went the house of a woman who had fed him when he had been a guerrilla. He told her that he knew that she had fed the enemy. She answered that she had no choice; they had been armed, just as he was armed now, and they had forced her to feed them. My cousin then killed her, cut off her head, and put it on a stick as warning to the others in the town. He became a very bad man. . . . In my town, the paras had a truck called the "Last Voyage" truck. Those who were captured and placed on this truck had their throats and bellies slit. The paras threw away their guts and dumped their bodies into the river.

Stunned by the horrors that Manuel had experienced, we formed a circle, and Rev. Dan led us in prayer for divine guidance for healing and peace.

Forty years of war

Colombian community organizers, religious leaders, human rights activists, and scholars shared with us their understandings of the political history of Colombia, which had created the conditions for such a long and brutal war. We learned that along with the natural wealth of Colombia has come a great disparity between the rich and the poor. About 400 persons control 85 percent of the legal economy, and .4 percent of the landowners own 61 percent of rural land. The Colombian government has never had the capacity to enforce its rule over the entire territory, which is about three times the size of Montana. Consequently, regional economic elites and armed groups operating outside the government have imposed their rule in various regions of the country. Paramilitary groups were first established during the 1940s by the Conservative party in its efforts to expel members of its political opposition, the Liberal party.

In 1962, as part of the U.S. war against communism, the CIA taught counter-insurgency and terror techniques to the Colombian police and paramilitary groups. The brutal repression against opposition to the government led to the consolidation of small bands of leftist insurgents, who had been active in organizations of small farmers, religious communities, students and faculty. Since the mid-1960s there has been an armed struggle for political power between the leftist armed groups, referred to as the guerrillas, and the collaborative effort between the Colombian government and the paramilitary forces, called the paras.

The character of this struggle has been influenced by an even broader alliance between the multi-national corporations, U.S. government, Colombian government, and paras against both the guerrillas and independent organizations in civil society representing campesinos, unions, youth organizations, peace-oriented churches, and human rights activists. In addition, the introduction of the coca as a crop in rural areas during the 1970s created a source of income for the campesinos, whose legal crops could not compete with subsidized agriculture in global market, and for fueling the armed conflict. Both the guerrillas and paras have taxed the coca growers to maintain their armies. However, according the Felix Posada, the director of the Center for Latin American Popular Communication, most of the profit from Colombian cocaine production has gone to seven Mexican narco-trafficking cartels.

Colombian youth: Killers, cannon fodder and the Fifth Commandment

Both the legal and illegal armed groups in Colombia have relied on the youth to be their killers and cannon fodder. A growing number of churches and youth groups are resisting the recruitment of youth to the battlefields. The Mennonite Church, which invited the Christian Peacemaker Teams to Colombia, has been at the forefront of a conscientious objector movement. At Justapaz, the Christian Center for Justice, Peace and Nonviolent Action in Bogota, we learned that the CO movement is part of broader strategies to prevent violence, heal those who have suffered from violence, and create communities and churches devoted to nonviolent approaches to conflict resolution. The CO movement is also spreading throughout the country and networking on national and international levels. As a Mennonite in the United States, one member of our delegation has been active in international campaigns initiated by Colombian churches.

In 1991 Colombia ratified a new constitution that for the first time established freedom of religion and the right to freedom of conscience. However, this same constitution also required military service for young men. Conscientious objectors have claimed that freedom of conscience must include the right to choose not to kill. The Colombian constitutional court has not yet accepted this legal interpretation. Regulations for implementing peacetime service include a number of exemptions, including those who are involved in religious studies, students, parents, and those who have been displaced by war.

We heard from many Colombians that enlistment often does not proceed according to the regulations. Through extra-legal channels, young men from wealthy families are able to buy military registration cards while avoiding military service. In contrast, Colombians from working class and poor families may serve even if they are exempt because they are not informed about the law or their families are afraid that asserting their rights will lead to retribution by the government.

While we were visiting Barrancabermeja, the port city on the Magdalena River where the Colombia CPT team is housed, we learned that several CPT activists had recently witnessed youth being illegally recruited. After rounding up young men without military ID cards in working class neighborhoods, the soldiers sequestered them in a local battalion and presented them papers to sign for their enlistment without informing the youth of the legal exemptions. In one case, an organizer in the Fifth Commandment, the local CO group, informed the other youth of their exemptions while being driven to the battalion on a Friday; they all managed to be released the following Monday after proving that they were exempt.

The economy of Barrancabermeja (also called Barranca) is dominated by oil and large-scale cattle industries. The official reverence for the oil industry is expressed by an impressive metal statue of Cristo Petroleo in the middle of a lake in front of the state oil refinery. From the mid-1960s until 1998, guerrilla groups controlled the city. In 1998, the paras began conquering the city block by block with massacres and assassinations. Now Barranca is one of the most militarized cities in Colombia, with each branch of the Colombian military represented. Despite the strong military and paramilitary presence, unions, youth groups, human rights organizations, and women's groups in Barranca continue to be active.

Our delegation was inspired by the talent, compassion, feisty humor, and creative actions of the youth in Barranca. During September, the month prior to our arrival, the paras issued death threats listing the names of 150 youth in Barranca. Considering themselves the moral police of society, the paras target not only their political opposition, but also anyone they consider unconventional or deviant. After a youth was shot in front of the meeting place of the "League of Affection," one of the youth groups, a coalition of youth planned a four-day "Festival of Life" in working class neighborhoods, where the targeted youth live. The festival highlighted the natural beauty of the diverse Colombian youth with the symbol of butterflies. There are thousands of different kinds of butterflies in Colombia. The cultural events, which included music, dance and drama, lasted late into the night, demonstrating the youth's refusal to be ruled by the fear generated by the death threats. On the final night, young men and women performed a "Dance of Life," demonstrating how narco-trafficking, racism, and armed conflict were restricting their lives and the power of creative resistance and solidarity to transform their communities into life-affirming places. In response to threats against gay youth, the coalition chose a gay man to be one of their MCs.

League of Affection and jungle cheers

We visited many inspiring organizations serving youth and children that used dance, drama, art, and human rights education as foundations for creating a culture based on respect for diversity, solidarity, and nonviolence. One of the highlights of our delegation was our gathering with the League of Affection, which is particularly creative in its use of "alternative language for creating peace and harmony." Their strategies of inclusion transform ordinary space and time into rituals of solidarity infused with expressions of the joy of life. Youth from the League of Affection accompany those who are threatened by armed actors, organize projects to protect the environment and endangered species, and bring laughter to fearful, displaced children and people with terminal illnesses. This youth group collaborated with a union leading a boycott of Coca Cola to organize a Concert for Life, which called for the multinational corporations to leave Colombia. They brought in Colombian bands from Bogota and provided traditional Colombian food and an indigenous home brew made from corn. When the youngest member of our delegation shared that she is involved with collective dance projects with youth in the United States, our hosts responded with a raucous cheer, imitating the sounds of animals in the jungle. They explained that this cheer is a reminder of our natural place within the animal kingdom.

Poverty in earthly paradise

Our delegation's visit to two villages along the Opon River, Niequez and Florida, reinforced our connection to the natural world. Our pre-delegation instructions had prepared us for protecting ourselves from the intense sun rays and bellicose mosquitoes. However, nothing could prepare us for the incredibly beautiful land, lush fruit trees, and courageous, open-hearted people whom we met. The lack of electricity, plumbing, and running water forced us to change our taken-for-granted daily rhythms.

The first task of CPT in Colombia was to accompany the people of Nieques and Florida back to their homes along the Opon River in 2001. The previous year they had been displaced to Barranca after the paras had murdered members of their communities. The people continued to be afraid because paras, who accused them of feeding the guerrillas, forbid them from bringing food from Barranca to their villages. In 2004, the two communities set up meetings with both the guerrillas and paras to make some agreements so that they would be able to live in peace. Since that time, they have felt safer but continue to face other challenges. They had to pressure the government to provide their children a school teacher.

Nearly half of the 20 families who returned to their riverside homes left again because of their precarious economic situation. The communities have been working with the Magdalena Medio Peace and Development Programme, which they call the Programa, to improve their economic conditions. However, many of the remaining villagers complained that the development projects had become more burdensome than helpful. For example, they were sent chickens whose beaks had been clipped so they had to eat special feed that the campesinos cannot afford. They were also sent cacao trees at the wrong time for planting, and most of them died. The promise of water buffalo has never been realized. In general, the campesinos thought that the Programa was trying to get them to commit their time to planning long-term projects while they lacked the resources to survive even in the short-term. CPT is now re-evaluating the kinds of support that they can offer these communities.

Liberating life at the entrance to war

After our delegation returned to Barranca, we planned a public action in support of the youth movement's campaigns against military recruitment for armed groups. Inspired by the youth's creation of an "alternative language," we used the recruitment truck image, but with a different meaning. On our large cardboard truck was painted in Spanish:

"No! Recruitment for War!"

"Yes! Recruitment for Life!"

A creative Colombian CO and the full-time CPT team served as advisors to help us to create a pamphlet about the legal exemptions to military service and the legal grounds for conscientious objectors to refuse to serve in the military. As we hauled our truck downtown on the back of a pick-up, people stared with curiosity and amazement. Downtown we walked through the streets to the beat of our homemade drums while distributing our pamphlets. When we arrived at the battalion where illegally recruited men were sequestered, we performed street theater portraying the liberation of military recruits by the recruitment truck for life. It was exciting to see our articulate media spokesperson on the national TV news shortly after our action. The following day our jaunty green truck appeared on the front page of the Barranca newspaper. We were pleased to find out that the Sunday paper not only covered our theatrical action, but also included the information about illegal recruitment and legal exceptions to mandatory service.

Be not afraid of life and death

Important aspects of our delegation were working with many thoughtful and dedicated activists, including the full-time CPT team, and learning about the practicalities of becoming effective peacemakers. The team shared that they struggle with an inherent racist principle that makes accompaniment helpful to Colombian activists who are dedicated to nonviolence. Because the Colombian government is concerned with its relationships with the United States and Canada, the military is less likely to kill those from these countries than Colombians, especially those who are living in isolated rural areas. The team also has to weigh whether or not their own actions may lead to deportations, which would prevent them from carrying out their solidarity work. CPT Colombia includes people from the United States, Canada, and Colombia, and they have to take into consideration the fact that those from Colombia are taking greater risks than the others. In addition, many on the team are coping with issues that go beyond short-term courageous nonviolent interventions. For example, how do activists challenge racism and sexism within their own group, and what are strategies for continuing work as Christian Peacemakers while raising a family?

On our last night together in Bogota, Rev. Dan led us in a closing circle. Dan reminded us that our solidarity work must begin with our recognition of our own complicity with the crimes of the empire. He read from the words of the Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero, who offers a very different understanding of Christianity than the image of Cristo Petroleo protecting Colombia's oil refinery. Archbishop Romero accepted his inevitable martyrdom for his accompaniment of the poor and his order to the military to stop the repression. He said,

Martyrdom is a grace that I don't believe I merit. But if God accepts the sacrifice of my life, may my blood be the seed of liberty and sign that this hope will soon become a reality. May my death, if it accepted by God, be for the liberation of my people and a testimony of hope in the future.

In his last homily on March 23, 1980, Archbishop Romero pled,

In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people, whose cries rise to the heavens, every day more tumultuously, I ask you, I beg, I order you in the name of God: stop the repression.

We then shared bread and a cup of grape juice, reminding us of the sacrifices of the many martyrs and our capacity for renewal. Our journey together in Colombia was ending, and it was time now to let the spirit of hope, even in the face of a 40 year war, carry us home and guide us on the next steps of our journeys.

Members of CPT's September 26-October 9 Colombia delegation were Carolyn Berry (Town and Country, Missouri), Nathan Buchanan (Philadelphia,Pennsylvania), Dan Dale (Chicago, Illinois), Aine Donovan (Akron, Ohio), Christine Downing (Breton, Alberta), Monica Haas (Monroe, New Jersey), Beth Harris (Ithaca, New York), Amanda Jokerst (St. Louis, Missouri), and Morris Trimmer (Lexington, Virginia).

Colombia: January 2008 (Micoahumado)

Report of CPT Delegation to Colombia, January 16- 29, 2008

Our Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) delegation arrived in Bogotá January 16, 2008. Six of us met in Atlanta and flew to Bogotá together. We enjoyed meeting each other and discussed our apprehension about going through Customs in Bogotá and receiving the correct visas. Fortunately there were no serious problems and we walked out of the airport to find Rachel and Jonathan – the in-country CPT coordinators - waiting for us. The next morning we met our seventh teammate from the UK. Our delegation included one person from Canada, one from the UK and five from the US in addition to Rachel and Jonathan. We would be traveling companions on an exciting journey for the next two weeks.
The delegation began in Bogotá with three days of meetings with a variety of organizations. We learned about the history of the country; how an average of three people die every day from land mines; the tragic consequences of a forty-year war; the stories of demobilized guerrillas and paramilitaries; the effects of Plan Colombia and how the Free Trade Agreement has affected the rich and poor in very different ways. We heard of continuing violence, displacements of entire communities, torture and assassinations. We learned about the suffering of women and children and how few rights women have. It was striking to hear how many women were putting there lives on the line to improve the future for their families and we wondered if we would ever be able to act so courageously in the face of such overwhelming odds.
We visited Rincón del lago in Cazuca, a new community on the south side of Bogotá, made up of displaced families. The community is growing rapidly as more displaced individuals and families arrive all the time. Here we visited Creciendo Juntos, a program started by the Mennonites that works with families in crisis. Over 100 families including 250 children are involved. The area is controlled by the paramilitary and a Colombian military base sits on a hill over looking the community. We talked with Marta, the social coordinator, and Yamile, who tutors in English as well as reading for dyslexic children. Marta spoke of the problems in the area: young men have a 6 pm curfew so they won’t be abducted by the paramilitary, children are being murdered, there is forced recruitment of youth by the paramilitary, there is sexual abuse and incest involving young girls, and they are forced to pay the paramilitary for security.
The community has challenges in dealing with poverty, lack of clean water and sewage disposal, education and living in a paramilitary controlled area. Yet with all of this we could feel how much the children in the community meant to them. The center tutors children in all subjects, has a variety of workshops, and teaches nonviolence conscientious objector classes. They continue to hope that some if not all of the children involved can be changed forever through the work of this organization. What an impact these two women have made in their community.
Next we flew to Barrancabermeja, (Barranca) where CPT is located. Barranca is a large city located on the Magdalena River and is the center of oil production in an oil rich country. On the first morning we met with a women’s rights group – the Organización Femenina Popular (Popular Women’s Organization) or OFP Northeast. Yolanda Becerra, President of OFP, was assaulted in her home the night of November 4, 2007 and members of her family have been harassed and threatened. Yolanda has left the city but the women of OFP are as determined as ever to work for women’s rights.
We spent a lot of time with OFP exploring their programs and their objectives. Their stated mission is as follows: "We are looking for the whole development of the community through the organization, social economy, education, health and culture and to defend life and women’s rights through our participative social process.”
They also stated their vision: "We hope that the reconstruction of the social fabric in the working classes can be a reality.”
OFP has nine areas of work – administration and organizational, social economy, nutrition program, decent housing conditions, holistic health, legal, youth movement, communication, researching education and forced displacement.
The Nutrition Program feeds a large number of people every day at several locations. We shared a meal with people of all ages during our visit.
Many of the social problems stem from the priorities of the Colombian government as expressed in their budget: military spending receives 65% while humanitarian assistance gets only 5%. Among the many problems faced by the country are privatization of resources, closing of medical facilities, lack of education, malnutrition, continued violence and the reconstitution of the illegal paramilitaries as the Aguilas Negras (Black Eagles) in Barrancabermeja.
We listened as the women of OFP spoke: “We didn’t raise our children for war”; “Walk away from violence and death”; ”Let’s make love to fear” and “We put our fears together and turned them into strength”. These are very strong committed women and they are dedicating their lives to brighten the future of their families and their country.
We visited with Maria Socorro, who is displaced with her children. She is the president of ASODESAMUBA, a 19-year-old association for displaced persons settled in Barrancabermeja. There have been 30 members of the organization assassinated. She said officially there are three million displaced persons in Colombia but since many do not register as displaced, the actual number could be up to eight million. The people are primarily displaced by military and paramilitary violence. According to Socorro there are an estimated 20,000 displaced families in Barranca. They receive no help from the National government because many Human Rights organizations are no longer recognized. “We must get all of our help from the International Community. Our strong efforts allow us to work with many other Organizations of Resistance. We meet every week and offer solidarity to our community and we know that we CAN say No to Violence.”
Socorro talked about Plan Colombia and how the fumigation of coca is contaminating their land, water and people. “Then the government sends the army to kill us. This is causing more social inequality and that is what is destroying us. Free Trade is impoverishing the already poor and only helps the capitalist. Small and middle size business people are not helped at all and the peasant farmers can’t compete. We will live hungrier and in more misery in the future than we do now.” Because of her views Socorro has a bodyguard during the day but lives in fear at night.
Each delegation takes a trip outside of Barrancabermeja. We took a three-hour ride in a water taxi on the Rio Magdalena to Morales. Next we rode in the back of a truck for two hours on a bumpy, winding road until we reached the gold mining community of Micoahumado. We listened to the people tell us about the years of fighting and displacement. Through solidarity within the local community and International Community, including CPT, the roads are now de-mined so they can travel again. Also, the guerrillas, paramilitary and military are not allowed in their community. We walked through their community including a hospital, a school and a cooperative that sells beans and coffee. The community wanted our delegation to have a fiesta to celebrate the four years CPT has been accompanying them. The next morning families and our delegation climbed in the back of a truck for another very winding bumpy road. We traveled to a river where the families can have outings. We had a great day playing in the river, listening to the leaders and enjoying a meal of sancocho, a Colombian soup. These were all activities they could not have done without the combined efforts of local and international organizations. We were told they had heard over the radio that the area would be fumigated in February or March. This last happened in October 2007. Now back home when we hear a plane fly over we wonder, “Is this their day”. Will their crops be destroyed, water contaminated and our new friends made sick? We are asking the US to stop the fumigation started with Plan Colombia.
An important aspect of each CPT delegation is the planning and performance of a public action. As we traveled and spent time listening to various speakers, we began to reflect on a possible issue for this event. After much discussion, it was a consensus of the group to focus on women in Colombia, with specific support of the Popular Women’s Organization. Using the theme “Una Voz para las Mujeres, Una Voz para Colombia,” (A Voice for women, a voice for Colombia) we gathered in a central park in Barranca for our action. The delegation members, team leaders, and long-term CPT members worked together to convey this theme to those gathered. We walked and sang, circling the perimeter of the park, carrying a cloth banner with the words of our theme painted on it, as well as other signs conveying our message of solidarity and support for the women of Colombia and the OFP. While members of our delegation sang and juggled, those gathered were encouraged to sign the banner with a note of support and encouragement. It was exciting to see how many stepped forward, accepted a marker, and knelt down to write on the banner. (This banner was later given to the OFP). As this was happening, other members of our delegation walked through the park and into the intersections to distribute bookmarks we had made that indicated that we, as members of the international community, stood in solidarity with women of Colombia and with the work of the OFP. The public action ended with a speech by the vice president of OFP, Jacqueline Rojas. While we know that those in the park witnessed our action, we are pleased that the message was further spread through a radio interview and television coverage.
Our delegation flew back to Bogóta and then on to our homes. We bring with us many voices and their stories. We also realized our media and our governments are not telling the citizens of the world what is happening in Colombia. We believe the voice of the women will be heard around the world. A voice for the women is a voice for Colombia.

Colombia: May 2007 (Opon)

Report of the Christian Peacemaker Teams delegation to Colombia
May 23 to June 5, 2007
by Mark Powell

From the concrete water tower in La Florida you can see clearly out to the lake that stretches like a dark mirror to the far horizon. Five us sit here, reclined or flat on our backs beneath a milky full moon that keeps slipping free from reefs of drifting clouds. Stewart, one our guides on this Christian Peacemaker Team delegation, smokes and speaks in a low voice not unlike the tumbling of a dryer. We are talking about service, our place and complicity in and with the world, about walking out the call of liberation theology.
“It isn’t so much liberation theology,” Stewart says, “as liberating theology.”
He takes a pull on his cigarette, a bright pin-prick in the steel gray night. Below us, we can hear the rest of our delegation beneath mosquito nets and tents in an open air school, abandoned now, laughing and talking. To the south of the school is thick bush, maculate and impossibly green. To the north is a string of five or six government pre-fab houses, ugly blocks—“crematoriums,” we will hear them called—standing all but empty and facing a rising river. A soccer field is overgrown, waist deep with vegetation, two old net poles rising like nothing so much as metaphor for what is happening here and to once thriving communities all along the Opón River. Thanks to the work of paramilitaries, La Florida is in her dotage, experiencing perhaps her last evolution: a final vanishing that promises nothing so much as permanence.
Hours earlier we waded ashore through ankle deep mud that sucked at our boots. Now the school falls quiet; everyone else is sleeping, and into the hush comes the low thrum of night sound. Tree frog, Whippoorwill—nameless or unnamed. The day’s heat is beginning to fold into itself, a coolness that has been absent for days. The question arises: why is it we have come to Colombia?
Stewart takes another drag.
“There’s a saying usually attributed to an Aboriginal woman,” he tells us. “‘If you have come here to help me; please leave. But if your liberation is tied up with mine; we can walk together.’”
*
A week prior our ten person delegation landed in Bogotá, walking through customs and out into the thin air of high altitude where Nils, our other CPT guide, waited for us. For four days we listened to experts on labor, trade, human rights, and farming; we visited a shantytown of internally displaced persons, attended a rally for education funding, and a music school where former combatants now work together with underprivileged children.
I lingered a long time over that word—underprivileged—for by the standards of North America all of Colombia seems materially impoverished. Impoverished, abandoned, exploited—there is no end to the adjectives. But what we came to learn is that while Colombia is suffering from the two-headed dragon of economic colonialism and internal violence, her people are anything but bereft of hope. Which is not, of course, to say that they aren’t lacking other things.
Colombia is a land of great inequality, a country where 10% of the population possesses 56% of the wealth; where two Colombians are worth in excess of 4.7 billion US dollars while 22 million survive on less than two dollars a day. 3,200 individuals own 53% of the land while 3.2 million farmers scratch out a living on 8% of the land. Poverty is endemic. Though the government claims “only” 45% of the population live in absolute poverty, independent sources cite a figure around 65%. Exploitation of natural resources by Multinational Corporations (MNCs) is both draining Colombia’s wealth and fueling her violence. Chevron and Texaco have signed contracts for natural gas exploration that are expected to garner over a billion dollars; Colombia’s take is around 100 million. Occidental Oil pays the Colombian government thirty cents on every dollar of profit. For every ton of coal that the Billington Corporation extracts 90% of the wealth leaves the country.
But even worse than the unfettered greed of MNCs is their alleged—and sometimes confirmed—complicity with paramilitaries. Chiquita has been fined four million dollars for paying paras. Drummond mining and Coca-Cola are both facing civil suits. Dole has been accused of paying groups listed by the US State Department as terrorist organizations. Meanwhile, violence continues as government and paramilitary troops fight FARC and ELN guerillas for control of land rich in bio-diversity, displacing some three million Colombians—more than anywhere save Sudan—who have fled the fighting for the urban slums that ring Bogotá and every other Colombian city.
*
Many of these internally displaced persons, or IDPs as they are called, live in Cazuca, a shantytown on the southern periphery of Bogotá, with a population swollen to around 1.5 million. We go there on a Friday afternoon, driving in along the narrow dirt road that turns to mud when the rains come. The houses are rickety red brick dwellings topped with corrugated tin and water tanks. They cling to the rolling hillsides that stretch in all directions, and if one squints just enough it is possible to imagine the stair-step houses of some sea-side Italian village. But we are a long way from the Mediterranean. Here, there is no sewer. Dogs roam, mangy and emaciated, showing slats of ribs as they scrounge through the trash scattered along the roadside. But the real worries are the paramilitaries. With officers often trained at the School of the Americas under the auspices of the US government, they move at night, practicing a particularly insidious form of “social cleansing,” rounding up—and often executing—teenagers for offenses as grave as dancing or breaking curfew.
None of this, however, seems to have broken the spirits of the children and teachers at Creciendo Juntos, a school and service provider for displaced people. Located in a block building that smells faintly of vinegar, we sit on benches and meet the children of Cazuca. Brenda tells us of her hopes of becoming a veterinarian and buying a house for her mother. Diego seems bent on learning the names of everyone in my family. They are beautiful children, happy, it seems, in a world where 900 of their peers have been executed in the last nine years. The school offers programs on dance, music, art, debate, sex education, sports, and fighting domestic violence. There is a small library and a few computers and, just below the school on a plane of cracked asphalt, a soccer court. It is there the children lead us and, just as it begins to rain, we begin to play, young and old, Colombian and North American, kicking the wet ball and laughing while dogs roam and people begin to congregate beneath the awning of a shop. Then it is time to go and our delegation bustles into a van. Halfway out we encounter a hill too steep to climb and all unload to walk to the top of the hill where we reload. The poor of Cazuca watch us somewhat disinterestedly before turning back to their lives. We leave the slum, an act as simple as breathing for us, and seemingly impossible for them.
*
The displaced, the violence, exploitation, and attendant poverty—none of these should be viewed as disconnected circumstance. That is the lesson of our meetings over the next few days. The day after visiting Cazuca we sit in a room on the second floor of a music school in downtown Bogotá. Our guest, who I will call Felix, is almost two hours late now. He arrives a few minutes later, brushing rain from his sleeves and apologizing for a delayed flight. He sits at the table then launches into a startlingly absorbing and learned discourse on the history of trade and human rights in Colombia, a history Felix lived first hand.
Felix spent five years never sleeping in the same bed twice; any detectable routine might lead to his death. So forgive him if his hands tend to shake while he speaks. Torture, threats to his family, and a life under constant strain have a way of affecting even the most resilient of humans. But Felix’s story is not just personal; his story is the story of Colombia, of the interconnected web between the government, paramilitaries, guerillas, and MNCs that has made a colony of Colombia’s land and resources, and a disposable resource of her bravest people. War has been raging in Colombia since 1948 and the story of Felix and many other groups over the next few days is simple in concept, though dense in detail: war continues because war is profitable.
The US government’s claim that conflict in Colombia is a drug war is not so much naïve as self-serving. This is not a drug war; this is a war financed by drugs. And it is in the nexus of big-money drug-fighting that the interests, and pocketbooks, of several interests converge. Since 2000, the US has been funded the Colombian government’s fight against guerillas through Plan Colombia. To the tune of around 600 million dollars, about three-quarters of which is military aid, Plan Colombia is meant to pump money into the fight against narco-traffickers. But what happens when the Colombian government, as continues to be revealed, turns out to be working in concert with paramilitaries, some of the Western hemispheres worst human rights abusers? Are we indirectly funding the displacement of innocent campesinos while buttressing the frighteningly autocratic regime of Uribe? And what of the role of the Free Trade Agreement (or TLC) that is being pushed by both the Bush and Uribe administrations? The lesson of countless experts we meet is clear: all lines meet at a common point. This should not be taken as talk of some grand conspiracy theory. Adam Smith’s invisible hand is alone enough to account for events in Colombia. It isn’t, then, about cabals or overarching schemes; it’s about money.
Poor farmers, or campesinos, are steadily being driven from their land by paramilitaries. The campesinos then flee to urban areas where their lives of self-sufficient subsistence farming are replaced by lives of poverty and abandonment by their government. Meanwhile, their land falls into the hands of large land owners who swoop in to consolidate small farms into large holdings that are then used for cattle ranching or the growing of African palm oil or exotic fruits. But why replace food security—the ability of a nation to grow their own food—with cash crops useful primarily as exports? The answer is the Free Trade Agreement. In exchange for the right to dump excess US grains, thus driving down the price of locally grown grains, Colombia will export African Palm and exotic fruits to the US. These are the terms of the agreement. The results, should the agreement pass, will be riches for the already rich, thus heightening inequality. While things on the ground are never quite so cut and dried, the displacements do have a specific economic purpose: to open up farms to rich landowners who will then replace subsistence crops with cash crops to be exported to the US. Displacements and accompanying privatization of industries is good for both the rich and for MNCs, both of whom have been tied to funding paramilitaries. After five days in Bogotá, we leave for Barrancabermeja where we will meet the campesinos fighting against these forces.
*
Stepping off the plane onto the tarmac in Barrancabermeja is like walking into a sheer wall of heat. There is an oppressiveness to the humidity that seems to drips, slowing movement so that every motion has the slow submarine grace of underwater life. There are lizards and bugs and everywhere there are motorcycle taxis zig-zagging up and down the streets, their drivers in safety orange vests with license tag numbers printed in dark letters. At night it rains. We spend the next two days visiting community, campesino, and womens’ health and rights organizations before departing for the communities along the Opon River.
Our canoe is arrow-like. Perhaps forty feet long, it slides out of the port and into the mud-colored river. The port is a ragged place, the docks a patchwork of cross timbers; swirls of gasoline rainbow the surface. But soon we see only the green of the countryside, the occasional thatch hut or government prefab, now and then pastures of cows grazing or sleeping in the thick heat. Over the next three days we will visit three communities and a number of individual homes. We will hear tales of quiet heroism—the man who drove away the guerillas by sheer force of righteous anger—and stories of terrible sadness. We will meet Maria, a child orphaned by the violence who will sit in the shade of her grandparents’ house blowing bubbles, seemingly innocent to the forces conspiring to end the only way of life she knows. We will be served breakfast in la Florida by a woman who, that very day, is leaving behind her life in the Campo for the uncertainty of the city. We healthy well-fed North Americans will eat before our hosts eat. We will sleep beneath nets and slap bugs, deliver a birthday cake, and play with children; We will lie awake in the heat and pulse of a thunderstorm; we will lug our boots everywhere we go—all the while trying to make sense of how someone far way in Bogotá or Washington might deem such a remarkable and generous people expendable to what a trade representative at the US Embassy will term “market forces.”
Back in Barrancabermeja, a little wiser now, a little sadder, too, we give the Colombian people a chance to send a message to the US and Canadian governments. We unfurl a long banner on a busy street and ask those passing by to write a message. Soon, our banner is filled messages of hope and defiance demanding an end to Plan Colombia and the passage of the Free Trade Agreement. The mood is almost festive, but it is not without tension. It is clear that many Colombians are afraid, afraid of expressing themselves, afraid of being seen with us, afraid of the future.
*
The day before the public action we take a bus tour of Barrancabermeja with a host I will call Mario. We visit a squatters’ village and the poverty is unlike anything most of us have ever seen. The land is bare and baked to dust by a blistering sun. The houses are ramshackle collections of boards held together with scavenged nails and hope. A child sits in the dust, attended only by a flies, while inside a daycare center a woman tells a harrowing story of being shot in the leg before being forced to flee the Campo. A child cries. The heat is unbearable. There is no aid here; there are ants. In place of medicine there is a ravine full of open sewage. The woman thanks us for visiting. Outside a crowd gathers, begging for Tylenol or whatever pills we have in our pockets.
To what extent is our liberation tied up with theirs?
Back on the bus, riding again through the streets of downtown Barranca, our host Mario seems reflective. We pass a soccer stadium that looks like an old dog track.
“Please don’t faint in the face of this struggle,” Mario tells us.
We pass a club for workers of Ecopetrol, the national oil company. It looks like a run down carnival with its rusty rides and large pool. There is the ubiquitous razor-wire fence, and we are reminded of how important it is in Colombia to keep certain people out. We cross the Magdellena River and Mario tells us that a lot of bodies have floated down this river, more bodies than I like to think about. A heavy truck rolls by, the back crowded with soldiers in fatigues and carrying MP-5 rifles. Mario watches them then, for just a moment, puts his head in his hands.
“It’s been said we are a violent, rebellious people,” he says, looking up. He watches the soldiers roll out of sight, pausing, measuring his words. “But we aren’t rebellious,” he says. “We just have a sense of justice.”

Depleted Uranium (Jonesborough, Tennessee): May 2007

Participants: Cliff Kindy and Murray Lumley, Co-Leaders, Russ Attoe, Bill Durland, Genie Durland, Ron Forthofer, Ron Friesen. Anne Herman, Kirsten Romaine Jones, Judy Leurquin, Wes Rehberg, Michael Smith, Dick Williams, Gretchen Williams, and Jane MacKay Wright.

I. Purpose of the Delegation:

Our delegation’s purpose is two-fold. First, to gather as much information as possible about so-called “depleted uranium” (more accurately – weaponized nuclear waste) munitions, their chemical properties, health effects, and environmental impact. We are concerned because many of us have served with CPT in Iraq and seen first hand alarming evidence of health problems – especially horrendous birth defects – in the civilian population there resulting from exposure to radioactive weaponry used in the First Gulf War. American and allied military personnel have also suffered and continue to suffer an extensive complex of illnesses and disabilities generally attributable to exposure to radiation from the use of weaponized nuclear waste.
Informing ourselves fully about all aspects of the DU issue is the first and most essential step in an effective campaign to stop the production, testing, use, deployment, and storage of these nuclear munitions.
Our second purpose is to witness about the issue and work to raise awareness and empower on-going local activism on the issue.

II. Learning and Information Gathering:

1. Our first activity upon arrival in northeastern Tennessee was to take part in the second major national conference on depleted uranium, U238 weaponry, which took place at Eastern Tennessee State University on Saturday, May 19. Presenters were Major Doug Rokke, Ph.D., U.S. Army retired, Pentagon expert on depleted uranium and author of Pentagon-ordered studies, reports, and regulations on the protection of battlefield personnel deploying uranium weaponry, Cathy Garger, writer/speaker on depleted uranium, and Mohammad Daud Miraki, Ph.D., author of Afghanistan After Democracy, which graphically details the effects of U238 weaponry in Afghanistan. John Paul Hasko, local activist and former Aerojet employee, presented a DVD of “On Strike for Their Lives,” a 60 Minutes documentary on a workers’ strike against Aerojet in the early 1980s. The conference also included brain-storming by local activists about future plans and directions.

2. In addition to participating in the conference, our CPT delegation heard presentations from the following experts throughout our time together:
* Vanessa Fitsanakis, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Biology, King College, expert in nuclear toxicology, provided definitive and clear information about how nuclear toxins impact living organisms, in particular human DNA.
* Charles Gutierrez, B.S. in biochemistry and M.A. in microbiology. Former employee at Tennessee Nuclear Specialists (now Aerojet) during a time when little or no safety practices were in place. Recently retired from a position as Lab Manager at the V.A. Medical Center where he worked to provide accurate diagnosis of severe health problems in Desert Storm and Iraq War vets and experienced sanctions and attempts to discount and cover up such data.
* Jeff Wardeska, Ph.D. Chemistry Professor at ETSU and Chemical Engineer, discussed what DU is, how it behaves and how hazardous it is, as well as organizations opposed to DU weaponry.
* Video presentation by Richard B. Cook, M.S. in chemistry: “Why DU Should be Banned” – a common sense explanation at a high school chemistry class level of a scientific point of view.
* La’Shan Taylor, M.S. in Public Health, Environmental Epidemiologist, provided detailed presentation on methodology and techniques necessary for gathering usable data.
* Bruce Behringer, Vice President of ETSU for the Division of Health Sciences, gave two presentations; one discussed social determinants of health problems in mountainous regions and one on his experience in Kurdistan as part of Healthcare Partnerships in Northern Iraq.
(These last two speakers, though very interesting, did not seem to have any material of direct relevance to DU-related health problems.)
* Bill Hampton, Vietnam veteran, retired Tennessee State Trooper, member of VFW and Rolling Thunder (veterans’ group working on MIA-POW issue) discussed effects of Agent Orange on Vietnam veterans and his experience with the slowness of government agencies to take responsibility and provide help.

3. Probably the most valuable part of our learning and information gathering experience was provided by local activists with whom we had on-going interaction during the delegation experience.
* Linda Modica, National Chair Radiation Committee, Sierra Club, Master of Ceremonies for the conference, local coordinator of activism on DU issues and Aerojet Ordnance Tennessee’s operation.
* John Paul Hasko, former employee of Aerojet Ordnance, researcher, and national speaker on DU since 1994. Local supporter of CPT delegations and contact person.
* Jim Dahlman, Instructor in Journalism, Milligan College, religion columnist for the Johnson City Press. Wrote an article about the delegation and met with us to discuss how to get our message to the media.
* Rev. Ken Edwards, Local Church of the Brethren pastor and friend of the project. Present at most of our actions.
* Rev. Vincent Dial, Pastor of Bethel Christian Church, a resource on local religious and cultural climate and how ordinary Christians relate to this issue.
* Leila S. Al-Imad, Ph.D., Professor of Middle Eastern Studies, ETSU. Made her lecture hall available for the conference and attended several meetings with the delegation.
Through these people and others we are developing valuable alliances with Sierra Club, Tennessee Green Progressives and Concerned Citizens, as well as simply caring individuals who brought food and otherwise provided encouragement and support.

III. Witness and Empowerment Activism:

Armed with our growing knowledge provided by the people and events listed above, and guided by friends such as Linda Modica and John Paul Hasko, our delegation planned and executed several public actions designed to raise awareness about the production of DU munitions in this neighborhood and to empower on-going local activism, and our nationwide activism.
On two successive days (Tuesday and Wednesday) we located ourselves across the road from the Aerojet Ordnance plant with signs and banners and an informational leaflet, which we handed out to passing motorists. We were pleasantly surprised by the extensive and friendly reception our leaflets received from many of the folks in cars passing by.

On both days we released helium-filled balloons bearing the following message:

"Peace be with you,
This balloon was released on May 22, 2007 across the road from Aerojet Ordnance Tennessee, company that makes weapons from nuclear waste left over from the uranium enrichment process. These munitions are used in Afghanistan and Iraq where our troops breathe their poisonous radioactive dust.
America’s own soldiers and their families, along with Iraqi and Afghani families,
are suffering from above normal incidences of birth defects, as well as the symptoms
of heavy metal and radiation poisoning.
If you received this balloon, you may have breathed pollutants emitted by Aerojet Ordnance,
1367 Old State Route 34, Jonesborough, TN 37659, USA.
Please help us learn the reach of Aerojet’s air emissions by mailing the balloon back to us at the following address. Feel free to write to Aerojet and your public officials too.
Thank you, in advance, for mailing back this balloon and including your return address."

The address of Democracy Now Tri-Cities was provided and about 450 balloons were released to follow the wind currents. Our presence at the plant was not only to do the balloon action but to continue the effort, begun months ago by the Stop DU Campaign Team, to initiate dialogue with the plant management. To that end, we set up a press conference on the second of the two balloon release days to which Kel Smalley, General Manager of Aerojet Ordnance Tennessee was invited. He did not respond to our invitation so we set up an empty chair with a sign bearing the radioactive symbol. One reporter attended the press conference and Cliff Kindy and Linda Modica answered questions posed by that reporter and members of the delegation.
Designated members of our delegation approached the office of Aerojet on both days of the balloon release to deliver a written invitation to the Manager after verbal (phone and email) invitations were ignored, and to ask for their printed leaflet. We were not admitted and Sheriff’s deputies were called. Bill Durland, designated police liaison, dealt in a professional manner with the Sheriffs, who were friendly. We also launched a virtual balloon release on Thursday by sending the balloon message and a picture of our action to a collection of email lists and addresses provided by delegation members.

In addition to the balloon release and attendant witnesses, we engaged in several other actions. One was to visit the United Steel Workers’ Union Hall in Erwin, Tennessee across from the Nuclear Fuel Services plant there. It had been expected that union officials would meet with us but that did not happen. The union is in negotiations at this time, and appeared to be wary of public contact. We did have an opportunity to see the extensive nuclear fuel production plant from across the road and to have an informal discussion with a union member who happened to be at the hall when we arrived. This man stated that he was proud of his work at the plant. Five delegation members chose to return to Aerojet instead of traveling to the Union Hall in Erwin. They held banners and signs across the road from Gate A while some workers were leaving at the end of their word day and continued to hand out leaflets to passing motorists.

On Friday, most of our delegation, along with Linda Modica, visited the local offices of this Tennessee District’s three congressional representatives to deliver copies of Dr. Miraki’s book, Afghanistan After Democracy along with the Conference Resolution (appended to this Report) and three DVDs about DU. While this was happening, other delegation members walked through downtown Jonesborough to post and distribute flyers about our up-coming community meeting to be held Saturday afternoon.

On Saturday morning delegation members, along with local activists, visited the U.S. Armed Forces Center in Gray, Tennessee to open dialogue with recruiters about how they convey sensitive information about health risks to potential recruits. The center was closed so we held a moving prayer circle to ask blessings, protection, and enlightenment for those who work there and potential recruits. Then we went to Johnson City to see if the recruiting center there was open. We found the chief Marine recruiter at his desk. Three CPTers and Linda Modica entered and talked with him. Ron Forthofer explained who we are and our concerns for U.S. military, emphasizing that recruits should be made aware of the dangers facing them. Ron Friesen spoke personally about his concern for his step grandson who is considering joining the marines. The recruiter was presented with a stack of our DU brochures and he said he would share the information with his staff and potential recruits and would also deliver them to the Armed Forces Center in Gray. He said he had never heard of DU. Some other members of the delegation stood out at the street side with signs after which we all pigged out on Indian food.

On Saturday afternoon, our final public action was to host a Community Meeting at which results of a health survey, done in the community surrounding Aerojet Ordnance in January were shared. Attendance at the meeting was disappointing, probably attributable to the fact that it is a holiday weekend. (Four local supporters attended.) That survey did not uncover data of useful significance for the DU project, but was a helpful initial exercise. Delegation members and local attenders shared ideas about how to proceed. Cliff also shared information about “super fund” sites around the country and the pattern they may indicate. Finally, Gretchen led a discussion on economic conversion.

This delegation’s experience also included all the usual CPT activities such as a thorough orientation by the delegation leaders, daily worship, attendance at local Churches on Sunday providing us with additional contacts with local supporters, many carefully facilitated planning meetings and, of course, regular “check-ins.”

Palestine: January 2007

Christian Peacemaker Teams
Delegation to Palestine - January 2007

After arriving in Tel Aviv on January 11 and settling in Jerusalem we started our journey together: Rick Polhamus, our leader, Joyce Guinn, Fred Snyder, Mike Fay, Paul McKeown, Randy Janzen, Ron King, Ryan Sweeney, Sharon Fritsch, and Bill Barrett.

January 12 - Jerusalem

• Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions/Angela Godfrey-Goldstein: Angela led us in a conversation about the current situation in Israel and Palestine and then took us on a tour via van to places that we could see the effects of the occupation including the Wall, new settlement growth, and the Ma'ale Adammim settlement.
• Women in Black Vigil: We joined in the vigil that brings witness to the occupation every Friday.
• World Vision/Allyn Dhynes: Allyn talked about World Vision's social justice work in Palestine.

January 13 - Bethlehem

• Holy Land Trust/Elda Zaghmout: Elda spoke to us about the Trust=s vision to educate people from outside Palestine about what is happening in Palestine as well as their programs to train Palestinian activists and organizers non-violent tactics relative to the issue of occupation.
• Retracing CPT steps/Rick Polhamus: Rick had us walk through the old city of Bethlehem retracing the steps that CPT had taken when trying to get food to people in the Church of the Navitity back in year?.
• PRC/George Rishmawi: George provided us a brief history of the non-violent resistance in Palestine from the First Intifada until today.
• Checkpoints: On the way back into Jerusalem, the team was passing through the checkpoint and the guard was barely looking at the passports while letting us pass. Bill, who was still finding his passport, was let through the checkpoint with out it. Behind Bill was a Palestinian and Paul. It took Paul about 10 minutes to get through because of the questioning that the Palestinian went through showing the team the unfair treatement first hand.

January 14 - Jerusalem

• Lutheran Church of the Redeemer: We attended the English speaking church service on Sunday morning.
• B'Tselem/Etan Diamond: Etan shared with us his story of his time in the military and how he left it eventually as well as B'Tselem's mission of documenting human rights violations happening within the occupation. Special concern is given to those things that violate Israeli and international law.
• Rabbis for Human Rights/Michael Swartz: Michael helped us understand the organization's call to address Judaism's call for social justice. This organization is involved in Palestinian issues as well as Israeli concerns of poverty and discrimation.

January 15 - Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron

• Bus ride passport check: The bus was stopped at a flying checkpoint and Bill was asked to step off the bus. The police woman said the date stamped on Bill's visa was incorrect, even though it was the same date as the rest of the delegation. She told Bill to Aplease come with me. Rick intervened and said something to the effect of "No, that doesn't make any sense, he came into the country with us, and he's coming with us." Then Rick told Bill to get back on the bus. And the police woman said "fine."
• Ad-Dheishe Refugee Camp/Atallah Salem: Atallah took us on a tour of the Camp and showed us the UN provided homes and how that now people have built on top of those homes to expand them. Atallah shared his experiences of his childhood, including his trip that was prohibited because of curfew and has prevented him from leaving the West Bank since.
• Hebron Old City: Rick and CPTer John gave us a tour of the Old City of Hebron before supper.
• Hebron exploring: Paul, Randy, and Bill went to get some money changed and while they were walking in the market there was an attempted but unsuccessful robbery. Bill was hit by a piece of fruit on his eye which was checked out by the clinic later in the evening.

January 16 - Hebron

• School patrol: Along with the CPTers in Hebron, the delegation went on school patrol. Some of the delegation spoke to the soldiers about where they grew up and how they got to be soldiers. Other delegation members saw a teacher be detained at a checkpoint.
• Children=s Center/Zleekha: Zleekha, a friend and neighbor of CPT, met with us and explained her work in helping children in Hebron. She is well known in Hebron for her work resisting the occupation and the Asecurity@ wall was placed between the wall and her front door so that she must travel around to get home.
• Hebron Charitable Medical Clinic: Zleekha hosted us and translated at the Clinic as the doctor and the founder met with us to tell us about the patients as well as the effect of the occupation on medical practice.
• Hisham Sharabati: Hisham shared many stories from the local people that he has been involved in as a local newspaper editor. He also shared his personal sotry about been detained repeatedly and how he has been denied entry into the United States.
• Supper: Zleekha provided us an amazing supper of Maklubae.

January 17 - Hebron, Beit Ummar

• School Patrol: We headed out with the CPTers and took the routes that the school children go to school. Randy had a connection with a soldier who told Randy that he hated his job and didn=t understand why the soldiers were in Hebron.
• Hebron Restoration Committee: This orgaziation gave a presentation on first the political situation of Hebron, and then the rehabitiation work that they are doing to restore the Old City of Hebron. The rehab work is needed because of the violence that is ruining the structures of the Old City.
• Beit Ummar Town Center/Farhan M. Alqam: Mayor Alqam, a member of the Hammas party, spoke to us about his story of his town and his times in jail on regards to his beliefs. We also saw a presentation on Israeli=s plans to construct a new Route 60 which will take away 6 square kilometers of farm land.
• Home Stays: After visiting with the Mayor, we split up to go to homes for the night. On the way to home stays, Dianne and Janet (full time CPTers) along with Joyce, Sharon, and Krista went to the Abu Khiran family home who had been experiencing soldiers breaking into their home on a regular basis. They had called CPT and were asking for international observers to stay with them. While we were there, tear gas was used outside the home to Acalm@ down some children.

January 18 - Hebron area

• Worshippers Way: We took a tour up to the well of Sarah and Abraham as well as to their tomb with John and Rick.
• Village of Dura/ Khalid Amayreh: Khalid is a journalist who has a way with words. However, he can not leave the Dura district because he is seen as a security risk.

January 19 - At-Tuwani

• Tour of At-Tuwani/Art Gish: We toured around the village and spoke with Art, Yohan and the men in the town.
• Susiya: We went to Susiya to make sure that a threat of settlers coming into the village was not realized. It was not.

January 20 - Hebron, Jerusalem

• Met with _________ who lives at Tel Rumeida to see if we should come and visit with his family as an act of protest. He requested that we not because of the climate of the area at the current time.
• Protest: Went to see a gathering protesting checkpoints.

 

January 21 - Jerusalem

• Lutheran Church of the Redeemer: We attended the English speaking church service on Sunday morning.
• Tour of Jerusalem and the Via Dolersa: Some of the delegation followed Rick on a tour of the historical sites of Jerusalem.
• We all had a final meal in Jerusalem before heading to the airport on January 22.

 

Palestine: July 2007

 

~Wi'am Center for Conflict Resolution, Bethlehem

Our delegation left Palestine having been given one commission by the Palestinian people: “Tell our stories. Make sure people know what is happening to us.” That is the purpose of this trip report: to tell the story of people living under an intense military occupation, but a people with an intense amount of hope. Hope that this too shall pass.

The Palestinians living in the region that is most often referred to as the West Bank are treated as second class citizens, and in some instances as being no better than dogs. However, these are not the Palestinians that I met during our delegation. I met Palestinians who want nothing more than to be treated as equals with Israelis, to reconcile their differences and live together peacefully under a one-state solution. I am awed and amazed at the spirit of the Palestinian people, who want no revenge on their oppressors, but peace and co-existence with them.

How would you feel if at the end of a day of work, you don't know if your house will still be standing when you drive down your street because of a military order of demolition that has been placed on it, and twice you have experienced your house being torn down because it is deemed too close to the nearby Israeli settlement (without compensation for your land or home)? How would you feel if your belongings were searched and you had to pass through a metal detector in order to pray in your church? Then, once in your church, you were watched by 26 surveillance cameras, just to make sure to you weren't planning any terrorist attacks during your time of prayer. Meanwhile, on the other side of the building, two-thirds of your church has been given over to the nation occupying your land and forming illegal settlements.

There is no way around the fact that Israel is breaking international law by placing settlements within the territory it is occupying, the West Bank. Israel has 200 settlements in the West Bank, with 240,000 settlers living in West Bank settlements, and 180,000 settlers in East Jerusalem settlements. This land has been illegally confiscated by Israel from Palestinians in an unprecedented land grab.

Hebron is where I experienced the most intense understanding of the military occupation and settlement movement. In Hebron there are 500 settlers, 400-500 Israeli Defense Force soldiers, and 140,000 Palestinians. During our time in Hebron, two settler families welded themselves into their homes in the overtaken Hebron wholesale market in H2 (the area of Hebron under full Israeli military control). The settlers welded themselves in because they were ordered to move out by the Israeli government. It is important to note that these two settler families were not ordered out of their homes because they were living in a settlement that violated international law. No, they were ordered out because they had illegally expanded that settlement to the homes they were living in, which is considered illegal under Israeli law. The other settlers living in the area were not evicted.

Israel wants the world to think that they are dealing with the problems they are having with settlers in the West Bank by the three-ring circus that went into evicting these two families. However, a day later four Palestinian shopkeepers were ordered out of their shops, and their shops were welded shut. By what order and to what end, no military personnel could give an answer. "Just following orders." During this process, an unknown individual went around the other side of the military vehicle and painted "Free Palestine" on it. The military attributed this to the work of CPT. While the full-time CPTers and delegates alike denied involvement in the spray-painting, the soldiers said they were still responsible because they distracted them from their work.

Where is the hope in all this messiness? The hope is with the children. The children are not only the future leaders of whatever the situation may be, they are the present hope for building an understanding between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers occupying H2, Hebron Old City. At one time, the Palestinian children living in H2 were not allowed to play soccer. However, a Palestinian friend of CPT negotiated with the Commanding Officer of the post across the street from the CPT apartment to allow the children to play soccer in the street in front of the apartment from 4-7 PM, every day (cars don't drive on this street). The soldiers like to watch the children playing soccer from their post on the top of the building on the opposite side of the street. This became an opening. The CPT friend told the soldiers from across rooftops to please keep their guns out of the sight of the children when they watch them, because the sight of the guns scares the children. The soldiers do so. A rapport has developed.

While our delegation was present in Hebron the children were playing soccer and some settlers were coming on the other side of the fence with some stones to throw at the children. The soldier on the rooftop warned the children that the settlers were coming and told them to get away from the fence. He then went and told the settlers to leave the area.

This soldier stopped a daily occurrence in Hebron, where Palestinian men, women and children are harassed by Israeli settlers who spit on them, throw stones at them, and from above throw sand, acid water, and urine down on as they walk through town. One person does have the power to make a positive impact in the lives of others, whether they are a peace activist, friend of CPT, or even an Israeli soldier.

Palestine: March 2008

Report of CPT’s Israel-Palestine Delegation, March 4-17,2008

by Michael Kochowiec

Flags are flying everywhere. It is a joyful celebration of 60 years of the founding of the state of Israel and it is an extraordinary accomplishment. The economy is thriving, the construction boom continues, the experiment in democracy in a Jewish state is working (sort of). It is admirable that such diverse people from far flung corners of the world have created a functioning, well-run nation. But our delegation experience also exposed an underbelly of this creation, a flip side that we understand not many Israelis experience, know about or want to know about: the debilitating consequences of the occupation of the West Bank since 1967.

It is also 60 years of survival in the Deheisha Refugee Camp in Bethlehem. It is Bedouins being uprooted, unrecognized, having their homes demolished. It is the exercise of power run amuck: of declaring the Bedouin villages illegal and bulldozers coming every six months to demolish several homes at random, only to have the villagers promptly rebuilt them. Does this serve the security of Israel? Four Palestinians who were on a wanted list were summarily executed by the Israeli army on a street in Bethlehem while we were there in Deheisha refugee camp. It is the military taking over a house, herding everyone into one or two rooms and using the rest as a lookout and a military outpost.

An Israeli soldier of 17 or 18 has immense power over the day to day life of the occupied Palestinians. He can order a grandparent of 70 or 80 to stand and wait for an hour or eight, or whatever his pleasure. He can declare an area a “closed military zone” and keep people out. The army blocked a road to At Tuwani, in south Hebron hills, to stop all vehicular traffic to and from the villages. Just a few days before we arrived there, the villagers managed to clear the block and now enter and exit until the soldiers block it again. People told us of being imprisoned for years without any charges or trials.

In Hebron a settler child age 10 -12, eyes full of hate, pushed over a 70 year old man in our delegation and then picked up a rock to throw at us. On another occasion, a settler boy kicked a CPT woman and then threw a rock at her with a soldier standing by taking no action. A Palestinian child throwing a rock or kicking would be arrested and imprisoned, and most likely labeled a terrorist.

There are 700 checkpoints between Palestinian villages which can be bypassed on roundabout roads which wind around hillsides and are in terrible shape How does this serve as security for Israel? Our trip from Hebron to a nearby suburb, which should have taken 15 minutes in a public bus, ended up taking 1 hour in a private taxi and almost three times longer in distance because the army that morning decided to close one road leading to the village. When settlers attack Palestinians, a “closed military” zone is declared and Palestinians are not allowed in, but the settlers can continue as before.

When his house was demolished for a second time, our host Atta, handed his baby to a soldier saying, “I now no longer have a home, you take care of him”. For this he was arrested and imprisoned. Much of his brother’s and father’s land was taken over by the settlers, who are even now trying to drive him totally out. A settler who shot and injured his son was punished with three days in prison.

Of course there is the wall, the cursed wall snaking into Palestinian territory dividing families, communities, land from workers, children from parents, encircling or dividing villages. It is creating hardships which are difficult to imagine. Palestinian society is based on close family ties which stretch out to a large extended family. The wall is making it most difficult to maintain these ties. It has nothing to do with security, but everything with grabbing land and extending the settlements.

Hebron has 500 Jewish settlers scattered in a half dozen settlements being guarded by 3000 soldiers. The main street in the old city is closed to Palestinians, essentially cutting the city in two. This is so that the settlers can move freely among the settlements and to the synagogue.

At At Tuwani, soldiers are escorting Palestinian children to school in a convoy to keep them safe from the settlers who in the past have hit them and thrown stones at them. They also attacked and beat international observers. I have just learned that a few days ago, soldiers failed to escort the children and the settlers stopped them and beat up the international observers.

I was moved by the hospitality of the Palestinians. They welcomed us, shared their food and their homes with us. The Deheisha refugee camp family, having suffered so much, expressed hope for the future. One of our host’s brothers was killed in the siege of the Church of the Nativity, another was deported to Gaza; still, he expressed hope that one day the nightmare will end.

There are two parallel road systems in the West Bank: paved, well maintained roads for the Israeli settlers only and pot-holed, winding, not maintained roads for the Palestinians. The Palestinian roads are blocked at intervals so that the cargo and people have to change vehicles. How does this serve to secure the nation of Israel?

An Israeli woman who was scheduled to give us a settler perspective, living in the Ephrat settlement in the area of east Jerusalem, had just lost her son in the killing of the 8 students in West Jerusalem. We joined her in mourning. What a senseless loss of life, a 16 year old that held such promise, a good, moral, kind, decent person. But what did not come out was that in the last few days over a hundred were killed in Gaza, many of them children. Likewise good, moral and kind people. When will revenge stop and sanity begin?

We met many decent, moral and kind Israelis who are voicing their concerns about the occupation and taking part in actions of various kind. But it is not enough. Too many choose not to know. A reminder found at the entrance to Yad Vashem (the holocaust museum in Jerusalem), “A country is not just what it does, it is also what it tolerates” is a saying that contemporary Israel should heed.

The last day of our delegation was Palm Sunday. A small group of Palestinians, Israelis and internationals with banners painted with the wall and the words,”where could Jesus go”, gathered in Bethany (which is on the Palestinian side of the wall) and following in the footsteps of Christ, walked toward Jerusalem and up to the check point by the wall. Immediately a military jeep with several soldiers drove up to the wall and an officer came out to warn us to disperse. We ignored him and he finally said that we had to leave or he would tear gas us. We continued for a while but eventually left and regrouped in a nearby church yard only to be followed and carefully watched by the machine-gun toting soldiers and again we were told to leave. Christ walked from Bethany to Jerusalem, but today the way is blocked by a 26-foot wall. One last act, we carried that same sign in a Palm Sunday procession from the Mount of Olives to the old city in Jerusalem.

[Members of CPT's March 4-17 Palestine/Israel delegation are Karen Anderson (Garfield, MN), Lowell Anderson (Garfield, MN), Dennis Becker (Garfield, MN), Steve Bontrager (Dundee, OH), Bruce Borland (Lake Forest, IL), Loretta Kaufman (Freeman, SD), Roy Kaufman (Freeman, SD), Michael Kochowiec (Walnut Creek, CA), Sarah MacDonald (Iowa City, IA), Destinee Parris (Raymore, MO), Marilyn Tisserand (Garfield, MN) and Sari Vilen (Dundee, OH).]

Palestine: May 2008

HOLY SITES, CULTURE AND HOPE IN THE HOLY LAND

Report of the May 31-June 9, 2008 Christian Peacemaker Teams delegation to Palestine/Israel

by Cherice Bock

“I'm here to visit holy sites and learn about the culture,” we said upon arrival in the Holy Land. And visit sites we did. The fourteen members of our delegation — individuals from Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States and Italy — have visited more areas of Israel and the Palestinian Occupied Territories of the West Bank than most living Palestinians. It is ironic that our foreign passports allow us to travel almost freely in the West Bank, while those with Palestinian IDs must receive special permission to travel outside their village or town.

 

We traveled to holy sites. We visited the Al Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, passing through three checkpoints with armed soldiers and metal detectors to see the tombs of the patriarchs and matriarchs. (Since the 1994 massacre of dozens of worshiping Muslims by a Jewish settler, this mosque is half-synagogue.) We saw Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, one of the most holy Muslim sites outside Mecca, in which most Palestinians under 40 years old and living outside Jerusalem have never been able to worship because they can rarely obtain permission to visit Jerusalem. We also visited Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, where tourists unload by the busload in this West Bank town just long enough to light a candle, then are swept back onto the bus to stop for souvenirs at an Israeli-run gift shop. Tourism used to be a thriving Palestinian economy in Manger Square, but now most shops struggle to survive. We saw the Wailing Wall on a holy day, Jewish families dressed up to pray together for the restoration of the Temple. We walked on paving stones dug up from the streets Jesus walked. We visited the Mount of Olives and the place where Jesus wept for Jerusalem, and many times we wanted to weep for Jerusalem and all her children.

 

We also learned about the cultures. Some of our most cherished memories are of the families we met and stayed with, their hospitality, their joy and hope in the midst of despair. We stayed with families in At-Tuwani and villages nearby, some of them in caves inhabited by their families since well into the Ottoman Empire. These caves are in danger of demolition by the Israeli army because they were not built with a building permit! One family's outhouse was demolished for lack of a permit. Permits cost $1500 (US), and Palestinian requests are routinely denied. We stayed with a family in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood of Hebron whose home is overshadowed by an Israeli settlement. On many holy days, settlers amass outside Palestinian homes and attack them, destroying property. Video footage can be seen on B'Tselem's website (http://www.btselem.org/english/Video). Settlers also throw stones at their Palestinian Tel Rumeida neighbors and threaten them verbally and physically. Tel Rumeida is the area where Abraham is said to have lived in Hebron. Soldiers stand by watching settler violence, unless Palestinians fight back. We stayed with a refugee family in Deheisha, a refugee “camp” since 1948. Palestinians fled their homes when violence erupted, taking their house keys and very little else. They have not been allowed to return, violating international law's declaration that refugees have the right to return to their homes. Sixty-year-olds have been refugees their entire lives.

 

Along with visiting holy sites and learning about the culture, we participated in actions. We went to Um Salomona, a village outside Bethlehem, to participate in a weekly demonstration against the Wall with the Holy Land Trust (http://www.holylandtrust.org). Demonstrators used to go to the site where the Wall will be built, but weekly the Israeli army has pushed back the demonstration site farther and farther from the actual building site, preventing many from attending the demonstration as well as destroying its symbolism. Internationals and Israelis stood in solidarity with Palestinians, but it is the Palestinians who should receive the badge of bravery: internationals and Israelis risk very little being there because Israel does not want the bad press their injury would cause. Internationals and Israelis can return home to safe places after the demonstration. Palestinians, however, must live in this situation day in and day out.

 

An impromptu action occurred when we came upon a checkpoint one day where a normal roadblock to traffic was elevated to a blockage of even pedestrian traffic due to an Israeli bicycle trip. We happened on the scene in our red CPT hats, trying to figure out what was going on. We asked a few questions of the soldiers, and before we knew it an armored vehicle forced people to move back, soldiers waved guns, and a member of the delegation was detained for 20 minutes or so. Now, at home, we might have roadblocks erected due to a bike race, but there would be major differences: the roadblocks would be advertised ahead of time, detour signs would clearly mark ways around the race, pedestrian traffic would not be totally blocked, and the people in uniform would not be soldiers and would not carry automatic weapons. They would answer in a friendly manner questions about the bike race, when the road would be open, and so forth. Our presence in this situation made the soldiers nervous so they backed people up farther than before and called in more soldiers. Our presence showed up the injustice and complete silliness of the situation so that the soldiers felt they had to make an even stronger show of power.

 

We also witnessed an incredible amount of hope. We returned home from this delegation with anger and frustration at the unjust ways people are treating other people, but we also have hope for a peaceful resolution to this conflict. The Palestinians we met are ready and eager to work in nonviolent ways to show up the injustice of the situation in which they live. They have hope and determination to work for a resolution to this conflict, although they do not have overly optimistic expectations: one man we met said he expects peace, but he does not expect it in his lifetime. He thinks it will come in his grandchildren's lifetime. And yet he still works tirelessly for nonviolent change. We also met Israelis who are working on behalf of the Palestinians, to effect change in their own government so that human rights are observed. Two such organizations with whom we met are Israeli Coalition Against Home Demolition (http://icahd.org/eng/) and the Bereaved Families Circle (http://www.theparentscircle.com/). Another organization with whom we did not get to meet is Breaking the Silence, a group of former Israeli soldiers who speak out about the way soldiers are asked to act toward Palestinians during their service (http://www.breakingthesilence.org).

 

International cooperation is perhaps not completely necessary in this situation—the Palestinians are quite capable of taking care of themselves. And yet international solidarity with the Palestinians brings them hope to continue working in nonviolent ways, and helps the nonviolent actions to be effective by getting stories and pictures out to the rest of the world. Internationals and Israelis can also work in ways within the country that Palestinians cannot, such as accompanying people past illegal settlements in relative safety. Palestinians have requested CPT's presence in Hebron and At-Tuwani, and other places would love to have teams in their area. The work CPT does in Hebron and At-Tuwani is incredible and appreciated and is only limited by the number of team members available.

 

As people of faith, those of us on the delegation felt called to take a first step to put our belief in peacemaking in action in a conflict zone. Jesus calls us to “the least of these” (Mt 25:40), to those marginalized by their societies, to stand up for the oppressed, to take good news to the poor and bring hope to the world (Lk 4:18-19), to overcome evil by remaining firmly fixed in the good (Ro 12:21). Many of us from the delegation hope to continue working with CPT in the future in order to answer this call. Do you feel that same nudge? What would happen if Christians devoted the same discipline and self-sacrifice to nonviolent peacemaking that armies devote to war?

[Members of the delegation were Anthony Antoniades (Corning, New York), John David Ashworth (Newmarket, Ontario), Cherice Bock (Newberg, Oregon), Henry Dick (Bloomington, Illinois), RolfeEvans (Saffron Walden, United Kingdom), Jeanette Hernandez (Chicago, Illinois), Wendy Love (West Bath, Maine), Vaughn Miller (Hesston, Kansas), Samuel Nichols (San Diego, California), Pieter Niemeyer (Stouffville, Ontario), M. Brooke Robertshaw (Logan, Utah), Ross Weaver (Bloomington, Illinois) and Courtnay Wilson (Dundas, Ontario).]