CPTnet
August 4, 1998
CPTer SATTERWHITE ARRESTED FOR RETURNING IRRIGATION PIPES TO THEIR OWNERS

by KR Kamphoefner

CPT Reservist Jim Satterwhite (Bluffton, Ohio), 47, was arrested by the
Israeli army at 1:35 pm this afternoon. Israeli soldiers supervised six
African workers as they removed all of the black plastic irrigation hoses from
a field of tomatoes and yellow squash in the Beqa'a Valley. The extensive
network of irrigation hoses carried water to each plant on Jabber family land.
CPTers were called to observe and document the army's action.

When they first arrived, CPTers Satterwhite, Dianne Roe, Kathy Kamphoefner
joined Jabber family members in picking some of the tomatoes so that they
would not lose their entire crop.

Satterwhite then helped one of the Jabber women carry the removed pipes to the
side of the field, in order that the family could preserve them. The army
immediately arrested Satterwhite. Soldiers ordered CPTers Roe, Kamphoefner
and Mark Frey to either move fifty meters away to take photographs or be
subject to arrest.

The army claimed that the family was stealing the water for
irrigation, and that they were only helping the Hebron municipality to control
the problem. The workers were employed by a private Israeli company to remove
the hoses. As the hoses were ripped from the fields, many of the plants were
damaged. In the heat of the sun, the tomatoes were visibly wilting after an
hour.

Last Friday the army supervised the removal of irrigation pipes from fields
belonging to twenty other families in the Beqa'a. The families said that each
row of hoses costs them 175 shekels.

The army officer said Satterwhite was taken to the Hebron Police Station, but
when Kamphoefner went there at 2:30 pm, the police said he was being held at
the Kiryat Arba Station. They would not say whether specific charges had
been filed against Satterwhite. Satterwhite is a professor of philosophy and
history at Bluffton College in Bluffton, Ohio.