Jim Fitz's Christian
Peacemaking Reports - 2005
Hello, I am Jim Fitz. I sensed a call to do full time peacemaking in
the Fall of 2002, at which time I left my work managing Plow Creek
Fellowship's produce farm.
As a part of that peacemaking, I volunteer three months a year with
Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) in
Colombia. The presence of CPT gives
protection from the threats of the paramilitaries and guerrillas to
some eighty families.
Since many of the problems in Colombia originate here with our
government policy, I spend the rest of the year working to make people
aware of how our 1.6 million dollars a day in US Colombian military aid
is making the situation worse.
I promote peace and justice in the following ways: I
give slide presentations, talk to people personally, participate in a
weekly vigil, have booths at fairs, line up others to speak, write
emails to supporters, and pray regularly. I depend on donations and
your prayers to support this peace work.
I am available to give talks and slide presentations about my
time in
Colombia. Contact me at: jimfitz(at)plowcreek.org
or 815-646-4672.
Jim's
2005 Peace Plans
Introduction to Peacemaking in Colombia
2005 Colombia Reports
Challenging Stereotypes
In Colombia
Prevention
prayer needed
Human Rights Organizations meeting
Visiting
Isidro in Jail
Arrests
in Micohumado
CTP Iraq appeal
CPTers
abducted in Iraq
Vigil in support of Cindy Sheehan
What can we do for peace?
Conversations with Pedro
Reba’s Visit to
Valle Nuevo: March12-20, 2005
Jim’s
Peacemaking Update
One pacifist's answer to 9/11
Creating a Peace Culture
Jesus and London Bombings
Español
Peace Work Update
Peace Vigil Conversations
Colombia Petition
A
Powerful
Testimony by Camino Mejia - Sargent who refused to fight
in Iraq
Español
February 15, 2005 A Peaceful
Death
Español
Colombia
Reports - January 2005
January 9, 2005
Mennonites and Pentecostals
January
8, 2005 Colonel Rios
Current
Reports
2004
Reports
Jim's
2004 Peace Plan
2003
Reports
Jim's Reports from CPT team in
Colombia 2003
Introduction
for Readers
To some this is new, to others it
will be a refresher about the civil war in Colombia in which Christian
Peacemaker Teams works at reducing violence.
Peacemaking in Colombia
I will arrive in Colombia September 15 to do peacemaking work on behalf
of 80 farm families caught in the 40-year-old civil war. Since 2001,
Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), by their nonviolent presence, have
been providing protection for the farmers on Opon River area of
Colombia from threats and killing by guerrillas and paramilitaries. CPT
is an ecumenical organization working to reduce violence in conflict
areas of the world.
I am a member of Plow Creek Mennonite Church, Tiskilwa, Illinois. I
work full time at peacemaking and as part of that I give three months
yearly with CPT in Colombia. I plan to post a weekly report about our
work.
Since I was there one year ago the situation has improved in several
ways. One of the most hopeful signs is that the communities along the
Opon continue to build unity amongst themselves in telling the
paramilitaries and guerrillas they are not going to cooperate with
either of them and that they just want to be let alone to farm in
peace.
As security has grown churches and development groups have begun to
work with the people. These groups presence has allowed CPT to reduce
its presence in the Opon from 6 to 4 days a week. This has enabled CPT
to begin to provide security to the people of Micohumado and some to
others also.
Most recently there was a setback, when one of the community members
was assassinated.
Some background on the war situation follows:
The paramilitaries, guerrillas, and Colombian Armed Forces are fighting
each other for control of the farmers, the oil, and the drug traffic in
the area. Each group continually accuses the farmers of siding with
their opponents.
When CPT encounters any armed group, they urge them to give up their
arms. CPTers explain that trying to make peace with a gun hasn’t worked
for the last 40 years to resolve this conflict. All you get is more
suffering and death every day. CPT then suggests they seek nonviolent
ways of working on their conflicts. As result of our dialogue, one
commander and some of his soldiers left the paramilitaries and began to
carry Bibles instead of
guns.
If an armed group is at someone's home, CPT remains until they leave
because with CPT’s presence the armed groups are less likely to
threaten or kill the farmers. The farmers often say that without CPT’s
presence they would long ago have had to abandon their farms. CPT
shares abuses they see with the news media in Colombia and through
email reports to supporters.
According to numerous human rights groups, including Amnesty
International, paramilitaries commit about 80% of the human rights
abuses in Colombia. They are a right wing illegal group often
associated with big business and large landowners. The Colombian armed
forces and the guerrillas each commit another 10% of the human rights
abuses. The guerrillas are fighting the above two groups for control.
Christian Peacemaker Teams has seen the failure of Plan Colombia’s
American-funded aerial spraying to kill coca, and the devastating
effects on food crops and on local populations. Pray and urge your
representatives to support humanitarian and development aid, which is
constructive, rather than military aid and aerial spraying, which are
very destructive.
Please join me in peacemaking by praying with me for:
- The protection of the farmers and the CPTers, especially for when
we encounter armed groups.
- That the CPT Team be given wisdom as to how best to be
peacemakers in the midst of much violence.
- That the CPT Team be given the grace to live together in unity
and
love. This is one of the biggest challenges to the team, especially
when we are pressured to make tough decisions together that not only
affect us but Colombians too. Seems always several of us have not known
each other before and we are starting from scratch to build
relationships and sometimes the others warts seem overwhelming to work
through.
- That I will know what I need to say, and have the courage to say
it at the right time and in the right way in love.
Thank you for every one of your prayers.
Peace, Jim
Slow mail me at: CPT, Apartado 280, Barrancabermeja, Colombia -- takes
2 weeks to arrive.
Phone 011-577-621-8777
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Challenging
Stereotypes In Colombia
“Are you a Christian?” I asked the eyeglasses vendor after I saw his
New Testament. He humbly said, “I am trying to be.” He then
went on to tell me, “I left my first wife and my children five years
ago for a woman of the street, who was into a lot of bad stuff,
including Satan worship.”
He continued, “I was only able to leave this bad relationship and the
influence of this woman after I got the help of the prayers of some
friends a month ago. I am now praying and working to straighten myself
out with the help of the Lord and a church. I hope to be able to get to
know my children again. I am a trained psychologist, and here I am on
the street selling glasses.”
I showed him and his two friends, who are also vendors, my CPT photos
and told them about our CPT work. I asked him, “Would you like a copy
of this Peace Pilgrim pamphlet that has been a help to me in my
journey?” He answered, “Sure, I’ll look at it.” After reading a
few pages he then remarked, “This is good.” We just really
connected in our 20-minute conversation; before I knew it he and his
friends insisted on giving me three banuelos [fried dough with cheese]
and a pop. We agreed to be praying for each other. Say a prayer
for Fonso, Leo and Joe*.
Ten days later I went back to visit Fonso, Leo, and Joe again, and just
as I was saying, “I’ll see you,” Leo said, “Wait a minute, Joe is
getting you a pop and some banuelos; have a seat.” Sitting down I
remarked, “It has been really hot these days and I see you don’t have a
fan.” Leo replied, “You’re right; I can’t use a fan because a fan would
cool the frying oil, but I have a hole in the roof tarp that lets the
heat out. What actually happened to the roof tarp is that one of the
buses caught it and tore up my booth the other day. That is why it is
that way.”
Hearing about the damage to his booth made me feel sorry for him so I
decided to give him 10 pesos (5 dollars) towards repairing his booth.
So I said, “Here is 10 pesos. Use it to help fix your booth.” I
expected him to be grateful for money to help repair the booth, but he
said, “No I really don’t need that; you don’t have to do that.” But I
insisted, “Just see it as a gift from the Lord.” He kind of said,
“OK if you insist.” And I went on eating.
A few minutes later he said, “You know I have this small business and
it makes me some income. God will provide to get my booth
repaired. There are many people, especially children, whose parents are
often drunk here in the port who are much needier than me. Give it to
them.” I said, “But I don’t know how to find them and get it to them.”
Leo replied, “Well, if you want, I can get it to them.
I went on to ask Leo, “Are you married and how many children do you
have?” He said, “I have three children (which means he surely could use
the money) here with my present wife and one child in Medellín
to another woman. I am really sorry for fathering a child and then
abandoning him and his mother. This happens a lot in Colombia and it is
really bad.” He waved his finger to emphasize how bad it was.
These two incidences really challenged my stereotypes of Colombian men
as sleeping around and than abandoning those involved. Another
stereotype that I have is that Colombian men are willing to take
advantage of North American money for themselves any time they can. I
sense it is Leo and fonso’s relationship to God and the Church that has
implemented these good changes in their lives. This all confirms my
belief that establishing good family values and personal integrity in
this society are part of God’s work to bring peace to Colombia.
My stereotypes were further challenged that same day when I asked about
my missing sleeping mat in the port. I was inquiring of people I
strongly suspected had stolen it. But to my surprise they said, “Oh we
have been keeping it for you; it is right here.” Also, again, I had to
rethink my assumptions when three other street vendors expressed their
disgust to me that one of their buddies who was sleeping around.
They waved their fingers to say how bad it was.
These were all good examples of the light becoming flesh and blood here
in Barranca and through it God is overcoming the darkness of
assassinations, violence and corruption that seems to envelop life
here. Not all is darkness. Alleluia!
Peace,
Jim
Left to right is Fonso the eyeglasses vendor, Leo with the banuelos,
Joe, his helper and me. This is Leo´s vending stand on the
street in the main commercial district of Barranca. Since I wrote the
letter I have eaten lunch with Leo´s family twice. These are some
more friends to whom it is hard to say goodby. CPT work is not only to
transform society but also for us to be transformed, as I feel I was in
getting to know these guys.
*Names have been changed
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The
people who are holding our teammates have reset the
deadline for a response as Dec. 10.
Please continue to pray, thanks , and peace,
Jim
IRAQ - An appeal from the CPT Team
Dec. 6, 2005
[The following appeal was just broadcast on Al-Jazeera television and
has
been distributed to other Arabic and English media]
We are very concerned about our friends. We would very much like
to know
that they are in good condition.
It is our most sincere wish that you will immediately release them
unharmed.
While we believe the action of kidnapping is wrong, we do not condemn
you as
people. We recognize the humanity in each person, and respect it
very much.
This includes you, our colleagues, and all people.
We believe there needs to be a force that counters all the resentment,
the
fear, the intimidation felt by the Iraqi people. We are trying to
be that
force: to speak for justice, to advocate for the human rights of
Iraqis, to
look at an Iraqi face and say: my brother, my sister,
Perhaps you are men who only want to raise the issue of illegal
detention.
We don't know what you may have endured.
As you can see by the statements of support from our friends in Iraq
and all
over the world, we work for those who are oppressed.
We also condemn our own governments for their actions in Iraq.
Please, we appeal to your humanity to show mercy on our brothers and let
them come back safely to us to continue our work.
May God spare our friends, and all the people of Iraq any further
suffering.
CPT Iraq team in Baghdad
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CPTers abducted in Iraq
12.02.05
Four CPTers were abducted in Iraq on November 26. Below is an update
from the Iraq Team. We on the Colombian team have been shaken by this
news. Your concern and prayers are much appreciated.
Along with this sad news from Iraq came a tragedy here in Colombia. A
sister who was a pillar in the Colombian Mennonite church was killed in
a motorcycle accident. This motorcycle happened to be in the
Colombian President Uribe’s motorcade in Bogota. She and her son
had been on a CPT delegation. She was a special person who was
extremely dedicated to serving others and she often avoided involvement
in positions of power in politics or the church in her belief in the
importance of focusing on Jesus and not herself. The funeral sermon
highlighted her servant attitude. President Uribe attended the viewing
and the funeral.
These events really brought home how we need to be grounded in the
Lord. It made me pray a lot more than usual. It makes me grateful to be
able to pray. We on the team all said we appreciated the community of
the team and being able to pray together and just be together.
When I shared about the abductions, Opon farmers asked me, “Will the
violence ever end? It seemed the Lord gave me the words, “When these
things happen we have to dedicate ourselves ever more strongly to work
and to pray for justice and peace. I still believe that peace is coming
to Colombia despite what has happened.¨
I will be flying home on Dec. 12 and am looking forward to being with
family and friends. Special thanks to each of you who participated in
this work by your support with prayer and financial support.
Blessings of peace,
Jim
PS. If you would like to participate in this work with your financial
support, send checks to Plow Creek Mennonite Church, 19161 Plow Creek,
Tiskilwa, 61368 with Jim’s Peacemaking in the memo line.
CPTNet
Nov 30, 2005, 1
am (Baghdad)
Update on
Missing Persons in Iraq
We were very
saddened to see the images of our loved ones on Al Jazeera television
recently. We were disturbed by seeing the video and believe that
repeated showing of it will endanger the lives of our friends. We are
deeply disturbed by their abduction. We pray that those who hold them
will be merciful and that they will be released soon. We want so much
to see their faces in our home again, and we want them to know how much
we love them, how much we miss them, and how anxious and concerned we
are by what is happening to them.
We are angry
because what has happened to our teammates is the result of the actions
of the U.S. and U.K. government due to the illegal attack on Iraq and
the continuing occupation and oppression of its people. [the
above statement I fear will cause some supporters to be angry and
<>question why the Iraq team said this. It isn't accusing
the
U.S. government of directly instigating the capture, but of
creating the conditions out of which it came. - Jim Fitz]
Christian
Peacemaker Teams (CPT) has worked for the rights of Iraqi prisoners who
have been illegally detained and abused by the U.S. government. We were
the first people to publicly denounce the torture of Iraqi people at
the hands of U.S. forces, long before the western media admitted what
was happening at Abu Ghraib. We are some of the few internationals left
in Iraq who are telling the truth about what is happening to the Iraqi
people We hope that we can continue to do this work and we pray for the
speedy release of our beloved teammates.
We can confirm
the identities of those who are being held as follows:
Tom Fox, age 54,
is from Clearbrook, Virginia and is a dedicated father of two children.
For the past two years, Mr. Fox has worked with CPT in partnership with
Iraqi human rights organizations to promote peace. Mr. Fox has been
faithful in the observance of Quaker practice for 22 years. While in
Iraq, he sought a more complete understanding of Islamic cultural
richness. He is committed to telling the truth to U.S. citizens about
the horrors of war and its effects on ordinary Iraqi civilians and
families as a result of U.S. policies and practices.
Mr. Fox is an
accomplished musician. He plays the bass clarinet and the recorder and
he loves to cook. He has also worked as a professional grocer. Mr. Fox
devotes much of his time to working with children. He has served as an
adult leader of youth programs and worked at a Quaker camp for youth.
He has facilitated young people's participation in opposing war and
violence. Mr. Fox is a quiet and peaceful man, respectful of everyone,
who believes that "there is that of God in every person" which is why
work for peace is so important to him.
Norman Kember,
age 74, is from London, England. He and his wife of 45 years have two
married daughters and a 3-year old grandson. He has been a pacifist all
his life beginning with his work in a hospital instead of National
Service at age 18. Before his retirement he was a professor teaching
medical students at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London. He is
well-known as a peace activist, and has been involved in several peace
groups. For the past 10 years he has volunteered with a local program
providing free food to the homeless. He likes walking, birdwatching,
and writing humorous songs and sketches. In his younger days he enjoyed
mountaineering.
James Loney, 41,
is a community worker from Toronto, Canada. He has been a member of
Christian Peacemaker Teams since August 2000, and is currently the
Program Coordinator for CPT Canada. On previous visits to Iraq, his
work focused on taking testimonies from families of detainees for CPT's
report on detainee abuse, and making recommendations for securing basic
legal rights. James was leading the November 2005 delegation in Iraq
when he went missing.
James is a peace
activist, writer, trained mediator, and works actively with two Toronto
community conflict resolution services. He has spent many years working
to provide housing and support for homeless people.
In a personal
statement from James to CPT, he writes: "I believe that our actions as
a people of peace must be an expression of hope for everyone. My hope
in practicing non-violence is that I can be a conduit for the
transformative power of God's love acting upon me as much as I hope it
will
act upon others
around me."
Harmeet Singh
Sooden, 32 is a Canadian electrical engineer. He is studying for a
masters degree in English literature in Auckland University in New
Zealand to prepare for a teaching career. He enjoys art, is active in
squash and worked part time as a local squash coach. His family
describes him as peaceful and fun-loving and he is known to be
passionate about the plight of the underprivileged around the
globe. He works tirelessly in his spare time to educate and help
others.
Christian
Peacemaker Teams has been present in Iraq since October 2002, providing
first-hand, independent reports from the region, working with detainees
of both United States and Iraqi forces, and training others in
non-violent intervention and human rights documentation.
Christian
Peacemaker Teams is a violence reduction program. Teams of trained
peacemakers work in areas of lethal conflict around the world.
For more
information go to www.cpt.org
Please continue to pray for missing and thier captors,for these and
all the others around the world.
Jim Fitz
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Prevention prayer needed
Sandra, a CPTer home on vacation woke up in the middle of the night
burden with fear, as she had just dreamed that CPTers were in a town of
farmers surrounded by armed groups, when the CPTers tried to leave a
spirit of death knocked them over like dominoes except for Sandra.
The dream was so disturbing the next day she took it to her church and
in response they had a special time of prayer for her and the CPT
Team. The sense was that the team may be in for some hard times
though it is unclear at this point what it all means in specifics. We
sense also it was a message calling the CPT team to prayer and to seek
God’s help in the days ahead. And we are here asking your help in that.
Then last night at supper we shared about a number of occurrences that
have happened over the last month or so and some just recently. For
security reasons I can not share them other that to say that some
people that we trusted have lied to us. And we suspect it is because
they needed to do it for there own security. Any way we sense in light
of the above dream and what has happen some bad things could be in the
making in this area of Colombia. And it makes me fearful.
And so we want to ask you to pray for peace for the Barranca area of
Colombia, that we CPTers could have clear discernment regarding
our work here and we could live trusting in God and
not burdened by fear, so that we could be instruments of peace
for what ever comes. And please pray for CPT’s and the Opon communities
safety.
At the same time I don’t want you to be burdened with fear for our
safety, try to see this as violence prevention.
Thanks much,
Jim
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This is visiting a family in the Opon, The woman was ill with a
fever
and there daughter was plague with intestinal worms. We prayed
with and for
them. this is a typical home in the Opon.
Human
Rights Organizations meeting 10-28-05
I attended a meeting today where there was much heat, some laughter,
and in which many straight forward questions about human rights were
asked. The place was the office of the Vice President, and the
occasion was a meeting between representatives of the human rights (HR)
organizations of Barranca and government officials: Carlos
Franco, formerly an ELN guerrilla, who is now the head of Human Rights;
the police commander of Barranca; Army commander Rios; and a person
from the Mayor’s office.
I was impressed with the directness of the questions the HR groups put
to government officials, especially in light of the fact that they are
strong adversaries of each other. The HR´s are advocates for the
people and watch dogs of the government in many ways. They also are
helping the government to find safe ways to stop the assassinations and
threats that cause people to displace.
One of the most difficult things that they are dealing with is that
police information is passed “under the table” to the
paramilitaries. The result of this is that if a person reports
suspicious or criminal activity, the reporter might likely be
assassinated. As a result, the civilian population is afraid to
say anything; yet, the police can’t apprehend anyone if the people
don´t report to them. During this meeting, the members of the
HR´s insisted persistently that the police and army needed to be
cleaned up. This was not exactly what the government officials wanted
to hear. I prayed during this part of the discussion.
It seems that there is no easy answer to such problems, but they must
be worked on to forge a space for peace here. I was impressed by the
obvious strong commitment of everyone there, especially the HR’s steady
diligence in pressuring the government to find a good way to stop the
violence.
Many of the government officials, including Carlos Franco, knew HR
people by first name. At times the interchange got very pointed and
heated and yet at other times they could laugh with and at each other.
The existence of both heat and laugher gives me hope, for they were
signs of healthy exchanges and relationships. As a friend related to me
afterwards, peace is not going to happen overnight, but is a process
that will happen only over time. And it seems this meeting was an
important part of that process.
CPT played an important role in this meeting; we let everyone know we
are watching.
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Visiting
Isidro in Jail 10-15-05
“Oh, CPT, the group that doesn’t believe in using guns,” remarked the
jail guard. “Yes, I work for Christian Peacemaker Teams, and that
is what we believe,” I said. “For forty years Colombia has
been trying to resolve its conflicts with guns, and it doesn’t seem to
be working.”
This conversation took place at the start of my visit to Isidro, the
community leader of Micohumado (Mico), whose arrest I had witnessed the
week before. My arrival at 9:30 am meant that I was fortunate to
get in, since they stopped letting people in at 10:00. There was about
an hour of checks by guards, including frisking and being sniffed by a
dog for drugs, stamps on my arms, and finger printing.
Once in, I was directed to Isidro´s cell block #4. The door was
unlocked and locked behind me, and immediately I found out it would not
open again until sometime after 3 pm., when all visitors would leave. I
was greeted warmly by Isidro. The next four hours I spent with
Isidro, his uncle who he hadn’t seen in 19 years, and another inmate,
Jose*, from the Mico area. In the small cell, about 8´x 8´,
that he shared with another inmate, we ate a hearty meal of salad,
soup, yucca, and meat together, with one spoon among us. To my
surprise, there was a big mural of Che Guevara in the cell.
Jose has been in jail for a number of months and has no lawyer on the
outside working his case, which means that the future is not very
bright for him. I felt sorry for him.
Isidro said, "Of the 236 inmates on this cell block #4, about 100 were
from guerrilla groups, and the rest were community leaders. There are
no thieves or people with drug problems on this block. In order
to be in this cell block I had to go through a 30 minute interview to
see if the inmate community organization of the cell block would accept
me. The cell block has rules like no stealing, and no verbal or
physical abuse. People have to follow these rules or be disciplined,
and they are very strict about their rules. In the five days I have
been here I did not see any fights. We really learn to live together in
good ways in this block."
There was a large outside area under a roof with tables where
inmates were playing pool, chess, and just visiting. Two large
inside rooms provided space for a library, for inmates to watch TV, for
activities such as making a fishing net, and for worship services. Here
there were large murals of guerrilla leaders. I asked Isidro if there
is pressure for him to join the guerrilla group in the prison, and he
said, "They have meetings, but they don´t pressure me to attend."
I was able to take in some books on nonviolence, including a New
Testament, for Isidro. Isidro said, "I am very interested in this kind
of reading and I have lots of time to read."
He shared, “Tell people it is not fun to be in here, but I am not
demoralized. I have not done anything wrong, I am not a criminal, and I
believe in the end God will work things out.” He added, “I was not
tortured or treated badly in the arrest and questioning time. But I
learned what they are accusing me of; one accusation was that I was
driving a car for a shooting. The only thing that was true of their
accusations was organizing my community to have a march for better
roads and schools. There can´t be anything wrong with
that."
According to Isidro, “What is happening is that they make guerrilla
deserters accuse people of different things as a way of getting their
sentence reduced. Also the government doesn´t like
community leaders, because with strong leaders, communities may not
follow exactly what the government wants them to do. So that is why
they picked on me.”
He also mentioned several times, "Thanks so much for visiting me; it
means a lot to me. CPT´s work is very important for the farmers
of Mico. When I ask him what he grows on his farm he said,
“I do not grow coca on my farm. I don’t really want to have anything to
do with the stuff.”
I felt awkward at times, being a North American, spending four hours in
a Colombian jail, with someone I had never met before. But Isidro
seemed to sense it and with his warm hospitality I overcame most of my
discomfort. He is a humble person.
He said, “My dad was killed for being a community leader, and I feel I
need to try to continue his important work of working for the
betterment of Mico.” Your prayer for Isidro would give him a boost.
Peace, Jim
Here I am in the mountains of Micohumado
area. Behind me are the roofs of the town of La Plaza where Isidro lives.
The trip to Mico was one of the roughest I have ever been on. It
took two hours to go 20 miles.
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Arrests
in Micohumado
I watched intently from our back patio here in Micohumado (Mico for
short) as people in black suits with CTI on their backs, soldiers,
others in civilian clothes, and some with video cameras were going in
and out of two homes at 7am. They were all being guarded by a group of
soldiers. As a CPTer whose mission is to observe and report violence I
paid close attention to this situation.
Soon there were female cries from the home, "My child, my child." For
the next two hours we heard this cry numerous times along with the cry
of a very distressed teen who was one of four children of the mother
involved. The pain I felt as I heard the cries of a mother and her
children being forcibly separated made me know in my heart in a new way
the horror of war.
A crowd of Micohumado villagers soon gathered at a distance with fear
on their faces. They informed us three CPTers that the people in
black were the arresting body of Colombia's Attorney General's office
and that someone had accused the man and the two women in the house of
being guerrilla collaborators. One villager told me, "The accused man
is a hard-working farmer here. Everyone here knows him. Let the
community judge him."
When we CPTers approached the investigators to get their story, they
told us, "We came from Bogota with arrest orders for these people. We
are just doing our job. We are not saying whether they are guilty or
not. We will do an investigation to help determine that. The villager
mentioned above joined us and repeated what he had told me to the
investigators. The investigator said, "That would not be part of due
process; we could not do that."
During this period, Matt, my CPT friend, took a photo from our back
yard. This flash caught the attention of one of the investigators who
came running to him, demanding he hand over the film. Matt refused. We
than called the Defender of the People, a watchdog agency of the
government, and they said we had the right to keep the film.
Months before, CPTers had had long conversations with the accused man
and from that we know that he has had a deep interest in the spiritual
basis of CPT and Gandhi and generally in nonviolent movements. At that
time he had asked for something to read about our spiritual roots. This
crisis has moved us. I will try to visit him in jail.
It is hard for us CPTers to know the truth of the matter about the
accused. Were they arrested as a way to instill fear in the
village? Some villagers feared this might be the beginning of
more arrests. Others thought our presence might have prevented that and
encouraged better treatment of the accused. But we do know that we have
a mandate from Jesus to visit the man and women in jail and to share
where our faith comes from.
Pray with us, for us, and for everyone involved that God would use
everything that has happened to somehow forge a space for peace in this
area of Colombia called Mico.
Jim
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Sharing
in Mico
Captain Rodriguez, of the Columbian Army called, roughly, from the
door, "Are there some foreigners here?" We three CPTers
immediately ended our meal and went to the door and introduced
ourselves. Rodriguez told us clearly he was the commander of the army
unit stationed on the hill overlooking the town.
Rodriquez said, "I spent a month in Georgia at the School of Americas
(SOA), and I found out there is poverty in the USA that I did not
expect to see. Not everything is rosy in your country either." We said,
"You are right about that." Rodriquez then asked, "Have you
participated in the (SOA) protests, and if so, why?" I said I did
because of all the documented atrocities of killing and torture that
SOA graduates have been involved in, particularly the killing of
priests and nuns in El Salvador. Rodriquez responded, "Those were just
isolated incidents. When I was there I received no training in
torture." I said, "Well, I am glad to hear that."
Rodriquez then brought up, "We are here to protect the people of
Micohumado, but they don't appreciate us. They don´t inform
us about what is happening." I said, "Now, wait a minute. I asked a
half dozen guys, just this morning, what they thought of the army's
presence in the village and to my surprise they told me they were very
grateful for the army being here. Their presence has reduced the
violence. Not long ago the guerrillas and paramilitaries were fighting
it out in our streets." I think Rodriquez was surprised at my answer.
One of the reasons that people keep quiet is that if people inform the
army about illegal armed group activities, it is likely the armed group
could retaliate by assassinating the informer.
We asked Rodriquez, "What about the spraying of Roundup on
food crops?" Matt said, "What about the fields I have seen of yucca
that have been surrounded by jungle? How can they justify that? It is
hard for me to believe that is just a mistake." Rodriquez
answered, "They are just mistakes. They can´t be accurate all the
time." Interestingly, the man accompanying him, Lieutenant
Montaña, quietly said, " I must agree with you that the spraying
of Roundup is wrong."
Rodriquez also asked, "Were you brought up as a conscientious objectors
and to believe in peace?" I answered, "My uncle was forced to dig
a hole and told it would be his grave, because they were going to
shoot him for refusing to participating in the army during
WWI. "
Rodriquez bought us each a pop and Montaña bought us empanadas,
which made us CPTers remark later that it was like having communion
with them. Our relationship with them changed from somewhat hostile to
very friendly, a work of reconciliation in our two hours of sharing.
We ended by praying together for peace for Mico, a common goal. I
invite you to say a prayer for peace too.
Jim
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Barranca
Visiting 10-05
I asked the eye glasses vendor, "Are you a Christian?" after I saw his
New Testament. He humbly said, "I am trying to be." He then
went on to tell me "I left my first wife and children five years ago
for a woman of the street, who I learned was into a lot of bad stuff
including Satan worship."
The vendor continued, "I was only able to leave this bad relationship
and the influence of this woman, after I got the help of the prayers of
some friends a month ago. I am now praying and working to straighten
myself out with the help of the Lord and a church. I hope to be able to
go back to my children. I am a trained psychologist and here I am on
the street selling glasses."
I showed him my CPT photos and told him and his two friends about our
CPT work. I ask him, "Would you like a copy this Peace Pilgrim pamphlet
that has been a help to me in my journey?" He answered, "Sure I'll look
at it." He then after reading a few pages remarked, "This is good." We
just really connected in our 20 minute conversation such that he and
his friends insisted that I have three banuelos [fried dough with
cheese] and a pop on them. We agreed to be praying for each
other. Say a prayer for Alfonso, Leon, and Jon.
Ten days later I went back to visit Alfonso, Leon, and Jon again, and
just as I was saying, "I'll see you," Leon said, "Wait a minute Jon is
getting you a pop and some banuelos, have a seat." Sitting down I
remarked, "It has been really hot these days and I see you don't have a
fan." Leon replied "You're right; I can't use a fan because a fan would
cool the frying oil, but I have a hole in the roof tarp that lets the
heat out. Actually its not there on purpose, one of the buses caught it
and torn up my booth the other day, that is why it is that way."
That made me feel sorry for him as I ate, to the point; I decided to
give him 10 pesos (US$5.00) toward repairing his booth. So I said,
"Here are 10 pesos -- use it to help fix your booth." I expected
him to say oh thanks so much, but he said, "No, I really don't need
that, you don't have to do that." But I insisted, "Just see it as a
gift from the Lord" He kind of said, "Ok if you insist." And I went on
eating.
A few minutes later he said, "You know I have this small business and
it makes me some income, God will provide to get my booth repaired.
There are many people, especially children whose parents who are often
drunk, here in the port who are much needier than me, give it to them."
I said, "But I don't know how to find them and get it to them." Leon
replied, "Well, if you want I can get it to them."
I went on to ask Leon, "Are you married and how many children do you
have?" He said, "I have three children (which means he surely could use
the money) here to my present wife and one child in Medellín to
another woman. I am really sorry for fathering a child and then
abandoning him and his mother. That common occurrence in Colombia is
really bad." He waved his finger to emphasize how bad it was.
These two incidences really challenged my stereotypes of Colombian men
as sleeping around and than abandoning those involved and as willing to
take advantage of North American money for self any time they can. And
I sense it is Leon and Alfonso's relationship to God and the Church
that have implemented these good changes in their lives. This all
confirms my belief that establishing good family values and personal
integrity in this society are part of God's work to bring peace to
Colombia.
My stereotypes were further challenged that same day when I ask about
my missing sleeping mat in the port. I was asking people I strongly
suspected had stolen it. But to my surprise they said, "Oh we have been
keeping it for you, right here it is." Also, again when three other
street vendors expressed their disgust to me at one of their buddies
who was sleeping around, waving their fingers to say how bad it was.
These were all good examples of the light becoming flesh and blood here
in Barranca and through it God is overcoming the darkness of
assassinations, violence and corruption that seems to envelop life
here. Not all is darkness. Alleluia!
Peace,
Jim
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End
Fumigation
Hello,
Eight CPT delegates walked down the Barrancabermeja airport ramp,
knelt, and prayed for an end of Plan Colombia aerial spraying to
eradicate coca. They prayed facing the helicopters and airplanes
used in that destruction, as you can see in the photo. This “War on
Drugs” is much more a war on Colombian farmer families, often
destroying their food crops indiscriminately while aiming for coca
planting. In many ways this makes the farmers more economically
dependent on coca.
The banner reads: Yes, to development, self determination, and life. No
to gringo dollars for arms and fumigation.
Two men wearing army green and brown, and US State Dept. hats, said
hostilely to the reporters who were with us, “You better watch out
because we have authority to arrest you and confiscate your cameras.”
After hearing this, the reporters left.
Then the US State Department representatives calmed down, and after
some further conversation, agreed with us that the farmers here are
just caught by all the armed groups who are often forcing them to grow
coca. As long as there is such high demand for drugs in the US, efforts
to reduce drugs by any means will prove futile. They said too, “Changes
have to happen in US legislation. We have to dry up the demand. We are
just doing a job.”
As Nancy Long, one of the delegates, who is an Illinois drug counselor
said, “We have good US drug treatment programs that work, but we don’t
have enough programs to meet demand. People are always waiting for
treatment. This all works to keep the drug prices up, which keeps the
armed groups forcing the farmers to grow coca.”
This destructive fumigation is funded by US tax dollars--1.6 million a
day to Colombia in aid. This spraying kills food crops, poisons
livestock, fish and water supplies, and causes all sorts of health
problems. Since 2002 the US Embassy in Colombia has received more than
8000 complaints of damage from overspray. As of March 2004, only
five cases have been compensated.
Please join me in prayer for an end of fumigations, and let your
government representatives know about the suffering this spraying
program is causing.
Peace, Jim
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Plan Colombia: Guns and Roundup
As told to Jim by Matt Wiens. Matthew Wiens has a Master’s Degree in
Agriculture, and is one of my best friends on the CPT Colombia team.
The guerrilla leader kept going behind the counter of the Santo
Domingo* country store, making arrangements with the woman to buy some
goods, while I was trying to pay attention to a farmer telling me his
experience of the negative health effects of Plan Colombia spraying
program to eradicate coca.
I was so distracted by being so close to such a heavily armed guerrilla
that I was no longer able give my attention to the farmer. After
agonizing as to what to do, I thought, “Well, I better do something
rather than just sit here.” So I went over to him and introduced
myself, “My name is Matthew. I am with Christian Peacemaker Teams
here working at trying to follow Jesus and his call to love our
enemies. I just want to let you know that there are churches in
the north praying for peace in Colombia. My prayer is that you never
use your gun to kill anyone.”
The guerrilla leader responded with an eloquent explanation of why he
is fighting against the government. His basic message was, “The
government here is in a war against the poor in this country. How can
we defend ourselves without guns?”
I said, “There seems to be a lot of truth in what you say. I have not
experienced all that you have seen in your life. It is hard for me to
say I have an answer. But somehow I still want to try to hold to
the dream that there is another way other than violence to solve this
conflict.”
He responded by explaining how the government is on a campaign to drive
the farmers off the land.
I said, “I agree with you. From what I have seen in Colombia, the
government sure doesn’t seem to be trying to help the people.”
Earlier a local school teacher told me how the paramilitaries had come
through the town and took all the food in the store and dumped it out
on the street and destroyed it saying, “This is food for the
guerrillas.”
I also saw first hand the results of the Roundup spraying program to
get rid of the coca plantings. I was most impacted by a 2.5 acre
field of yucca (a food staple) completely dead as a result of aerial
spraying. I could not see any coca anywhere in the area.
The farmer told me that he doesn’t have an argument if the government
is going to spray coca fields, but they need to find guys who know the
difference between coca and yucca because they are spraying fields of
pure yucca.
One farmer told me, “We farmers would much prefer to grow food crops
rather than illegal coca. The problem is the low price of food
crops. For example, the paramilitaries charge us an illegal tax
on our corn that makes the cost of production higher than the corn is
worth. Coca is the only way we can make a living. If the
government would only help us a little bit with programs to produce
alternative crop, we would gladly pull out the coca with our own hands.”
It seems the whole system is working by economics and terrorism to
force the farmers off the land. It makes me wonder if it is not a plan
to clear the land of people to make resource extraction easier, and to
force them to the cities where there is high unemployment, and thus
provide cheap labor for industry.
Please join me in praying for a quick peaceful solution to the
Colombian civil war.
Peace, Jim
*Name has been changed.
Here are the arms of a farmer visited by a CPT Colombia team member on
September 24, 2005. He is suffering from the effects of having
been exposed to high potency Roundup used in Plan Colombia
spraying. The spraying occurred near the end of July 2005.
Clear links have been documented between exposure to Roundup and
non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a form of cancer 1
1 Hardell, Lennart, M.D., PhD. Department of
Oncology,
Orebro Medical Centre, Orebro, Sweden and Miikael Eriksson, M.D., PhD,
Department of Oncology, University Hospital, Lund, Sweden, ‘A
Case-Control Study of Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and Exposure to
Pesticides’, Cancer, March 15, 1999/ Volume 85/ Number 6.
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Dropping Peace Seeds
Right off the bat, in the first step to Colombia, as I arrived at
Princeton Amtrak Station, another
passenger, Marie, said, "you must be going a ways with all that
luggage. Where are you headed?"
That sparked an extensive conversation about CPT and Colombia.
After the vigil for peace in Evanston, where I stayed overnight. We
invited Jorge, a Mexican,
home to eat with us. I told him a little about CPT and he said he would
like to do that. He is
considering joining the Monday night Potluck seminars at Reba Place
Church. He studied English
under our close friend Mary Jude.
In the airport I struck up a conversation with a 21-year-old Mexican
from Miami. I shared with
him about CPT and gave him a Peace Pilgrim pamphlet. He heartily
affirmed our peace work.
When we arrived in Atlanta I translated and helped him find his gate
for his next flight.
Than at my gate, Gerry, a Pentecostal diary farmer/pastor on his way to
adopt four children in
Bogota, started a conversation. I shared with him about CPT work and
that I was just reading a
paper on the history of Pentecostal ́s and Conscientious Objection. He
read a bit of the paper, and
said he had read some of the writing of one of the authors quoted
there.
Than when we enter the plane, there was Rick Warldorf, a Pentecostal
whom I had just met at the
Seeking Peace Conference a week before. Rick was on his way to Quito to
teach cross-cultural
mission work. We spend an hour or so sharing. I than introduced him to
the Pentecostal farmer.
They had a time of visiting, in which Rick invited him to the upcoming
Pentecostal Peace
conference in Texas. ( For more info go to: pcpf.org )
And to top it off I was sitting beside a Colombian physician/professor
in genetics returning from
China. I showed him my photos about CPT work. He shared some good ideas
that "in the peace
process we need to center on reconciliation and repairing
relationships, and not on punishment
because jailing seldom helps." He added, “The recent visit to Colombia
of Desmond Tutu in his
sharing about the Truth's Commission successes in South Africa is the
way to lasting Peace."
All but one of the above are slated to receive my letters. It almost
seems as though these
encounters were planned by someone. Each one made the trip fun.
I just learned the Team is considering some major changes in our work,
your prayers for this
would be greatly appreciated.
Peace, Jim
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In support
of Cindy Sheehan we held a candlelight vigil in Princeton to pray for a
quick and peaceful end to the war in Iraq on 8/17. We ended up sharing
quite a bit. Below are two of the sharings and a photo.
Here you see the prayer vigil. It was comprised of a variety of folks
which included starting left to right in yellow,a farmers wife, a
farmer, a Orthodox priest,a filmmaker, Kim a nursing instructor,me, a
social worker, and Emily a college student.
Emily Gorenz a Senior in college wrote:
During June and July I worked in
Washington D.C with high school aged students. As part of this we
visited the Naval Base at Annapolis, MD. During our first trip the
Naval officer announced that we would be shown a video “to get us
energized and our blood pumping.”. The film was officially designed to
‘pump up’ new recruits at the Naval Academy.
. The following is my recollection of what was shown to us that day:
Slow, moving, orchestral music emanated from the speakers as footage
played of the planes crashing into the twin towers on 9/11, with words
VENGEANCE, VENGEANCE flashing across screen.
Immediately following, the President was pictured behind a podium at
Ground Zero assuring the country that the perpetrators of the atrocity
would be brought to justice. Abruptly, the tone of the film changed:
the screen became a green radar monitor reading, “DOS MODE: Mission
Afghanistan.” The harsh rock of the music group Drowning Pool’s “Let
the Bodies Hit the Floor” assaulted our ears at full blast:
"Let the bodies hit the floor, Let the bodies hit the floor, Let the
bodies hit the floor, Let the bodies hit the...FLOOOOOOOR--" the voice
screamed at us-- and I began to realize the full force of the message
and purpose behind the film. "Beaten, why for. Can't take much more.
One, Nothing wrong with me." Bomb after bomb dropped from planes onto
buildings—‘targets.’ "Two, Nothing wrong with me. Three, Nothing wrong
with me. Four, Nothing wrong with me." REDEMPTION flashed across the
screen and the bombing continued. "One, Something's got to give. Two,
Something's got to give."
GLORY flashing across the screen followed."Three, Something's got to
give , now.. Let the bodies hit the floor!" A young pilot was pictured
in the air after dropping a bomb—sticking his tongue out in
KISS-fashion and flashing a surfer hand wave. "Let the bodies hit the
floor!" HONOR flashed as the lyrics and images continued to assault us.
"Let the bodies hit the floor!!!" NOW... Push me again, This is the
end." All destruction was forgotten as the film closed on American
troops hugging small Afghani children.
It was so offensive that even reflecting on it now makes my stomach
turn.
`Emily Gorenz
============
I, Kim Abe,l worked as a nurse at Walter Reed Army Medical Center this
past summer, caring for wounded soldiers.
War is damaging in unimagined ways. I am glad to report soldiers are
getting the best of care there but no amount of money can return sight,
legs, arms, or brain functioning.
On the psychiatric unit where I worked, soldiers were young and
physically healthy, but having a difficult time dealing with what they
had seen or had to do in Iraq. The death of children, fellow soldiers
and friends seemed to be a common trigger to psychological
difficulties. One young soldier who had those experiences, initially
came to us in tears, saying he would never kill again. He continued to
have nightmares, physical pain, and rage. What a difference for him
when his family came, he smiled and laughed and had less physical pain.
Families can be some of the best and most effective treatment
available.
What Can We Do?
*Donate to Iraqi Freedom Family Support
Fund c/o Walter Reed Society WRAMC 6900 Georgia Ave Wash. D.C. 20307
The government pays for only one trip for soldiers' families to come
and stay. This fund helps to cover special needs of soldiers and
families.
*Pressure representatives to allocate funds for the cost of care and
treatment of veterans injured in war when they leave Walter Reed. These
Americans have paid a terrible price and we should never let them go
without what they need. The VA system is overwhelmed and underfunded.
*Support groups that work for conflict resolution without
war…(Christian Peacemaker Team, Voices in the Wilderness…) and support
and be family to the soldiers in your community
*Contact me if you would like me to speak to a group in your area.
Kim Abel, kim_abel@ivcc.edu <mailto:kim_abel@ivcc.edu>
Mendota, IL (815) 539-7534
PS. Love the Troops , Hate the War -- a placard at the weekly Walter
Reed vigil.
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What can we do for peace?
The following is another part of Hope magazine's John Wilson's (JW)
interview of Colman McCarthy (CM), July/August 2003. His comments on
Peacemaking I found challenging and insightful. I hope you do too.
Peace to you today, Jim
In 1985, McCarthy and his wife, May, established the Center for
Teaching Peace, a Washington- based nonprofit that helps schools begin
or expand academic programs in conflict resolution and peace studies.
Today, he teaches classes at three universities and three high schools.
JW: What can we do for peace?
CM: . Few of us will ever be called on to do great things, but all of
us can do small things in a great way..
It’s a sad reality that so many of our heralded peacemakers were
wretches at home. Gandhi was vindictive to his wife and sons, as was
Tolstoy. Martin Luther was a pathetic husband. Einstein was emotionally
cruel to his wives. Yet, look at Harry Truman. He idolized his wife and
was the model family man. Then he dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, and killed tens of thousands of families.
JW: Of peace activists through time, who inspires you the most, and why?
CM: .... my wife has an immense capacity for kindness, for staying
focused on the small things of the heart, for laughter, for being the
most other-centered person I’ve ever known. she understood early in our
marriage that the most revolutionary thing anyone can do is to raise
honest, giving, and compassionate children. And May’s kind of love is
accessible to everyone:... keep asking people what they are going
through, and then acting on the answer. Love is not a mere emotion,
it’s a call to action.
JW: What’s the most surprising thing you’ve learned in doing this work?
CM: I’ve learned that St. Francis of Assisi was right: preach the
gospel at all times. If necessary use words.
With students, you can never tell. I have ones who made straight A's
and then went out and flunked life, and others who were half-awake,
back-row dreamers, but are now using their gifts fully to decrease
violence and increase peace.
And schools have two kinds of teachers-those who want power over their
students, and those who want power with their students. But students
are looking for the second. Then you have teachers who want their
students to learn how to think, which is fine. But the better teachers
are those who want the students to learn how to think and learn how to
care.
That’s where field trips come in. I do as many of them as possible,
because it’s experiential knowledge, not theoretical. We teachers are
forever packing ideas and theories into the kids’ heads. They leave our
schools idea-rich but experience poor: unbalanced people.
The remedy is field trips to prisons, shelters, literacy centers,
battered women’s refuges. And then come back to the classroom and
figure out what governmental policies are keeping the poor poor, or the
prisons jammed with the mentally ill and addicted, who need treatment,
not punishment. Or what political decisions are being made that direct
the nation’s wealth to military programs meant to kill rather than to
social programs meant to heal. That’s the hard part for students-making
the connections between the reality of their service and the reality of
politics, and then getting the skills to keep working at both.
Would we dare send our children through twelve years of elementary
school and high school with no course in math or science? No. It’s
twelve years of each. Why not twelve years of peace education, which
you’ll use for the rest of your life in a way that you won’t be using
algebra, geometry, or chemistry?
Yet we talk about conflicts all the time. A study from the American
Psychological Association found that the average American family, when
it’s together, has a conflict every eight minutes. And those are the
functional families!
So peace education involves much more than taking on militarism or
opposing the death penalty. Peace begins with who we’re living with.
The leading cause of injury among American women is being beaten at
home-by a husband, boyfriend, ex-husband. or ex-boyfriend. Many women
have more to worry about when they walk in the front door than when
they walk out. I’m convinced that we could lower the rates of spouse
abuse if schools taught the basics of conflict resolution with the same
academic rigor that we teach math and the rest.
Every president, going back to General George Washington, General
Andrew Jackson, General William Harrison, General U.S. Grant, General
Dwight Eisenhower, has been a believer in the war ethic. The founding
fathers, who were militarists, made sure by getting the phrase
“commander in chief’ into the Constitution, plus telling Congress in
the early articles that it is empowered to declare war and raise money
for the military.
And has it ever. The last fiscal year, the military budget totaled $355
billion. that Number is too large, unless you’re an astronomer. Broken
down, it comes to $972 million a day , which is still ungraspable, or
more than $11,000 a second. $11,000. $11,000. $972 million a day is
four times larger than the Peace Corps budget for a year. It’s five
times the Teach for America budget for a year. The numbers are still a
bit abstract. To make them real, the War Resisters League reports that
49 percent of all federal discretionary funding goes to the military-or
about $3,000 annually, per taxpayer.
And what are we getting for all that money? Less and less security We
have the FBI to protect us, the CIA, the Pentagon, and now the Office
of Homeland Security The military used to be run by the Department of
War. Then in 1947, Congress changed it to the Department of Defense,
which sounds much better. Pretty soon, it’ll be changed to the
Department of Love-
The talk in Washington now is that the military budget will reach $500
billion a year by 2010.
George W Bush is not the problem. Nor is the high-spending Congress
that oils the war machine. I’m the problem. I need to figure out how to
be a better husband, a better father, a better writer, a better
teacher. And all of us need to figure out what our commitments are, and
do more to fulfill them. On one of his good days, Gandhi had it right:
“If you love peace, then hate injustice.
Peace to you today, Jim
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Conversations with Pedro
Pedro Membreno a close friend from our sister community Valle Nuevo in
El Salvador a few weeks ago spend several hundred dollars extra to stop
and visit us and friends in Chicago on his way to DC from El Salvador.
I was humbled that he thought a visit here was that important to spend
his hard earned money that way. We collected some money to help with
his travel, and he mentioned that he would be sending the money to his
wife who was left without any cash because they needed all the cash
they had to show immigration.
In the picture above on the left is Pedro Membreno out with the
strawberry picking crew I manage one morning of his visit. Our farm had
a bumper crop this year. I am the one wearing the suspenders.
In one time of sharing Pedro mentioned, “Our one son has been drinking
and it was causing a lot of worry and anxiety for my wife Angelina. We
learned from the church that it was important for families to pray
together daily, and since the children were little we have done that.
But they have to make their own decisions, and so we just have to keep
praying for them and hope they will remember that and turn to God for
help.”
I said, “Sometimes things have to get really bad before we will say I
give up and turn to God.” This long history of family praying was a
side of Pedro’s life I was pleasantly surprise to learn about. One of
the results of suffering it does get us on our knees. This moment of
recognizing our common belief in prayer was special.
At another point in the conversation Pedro remembered, “You know when
we were in the midst of the El Salvadoran civil war and we were living
with danger and suffering every day, we thought the war would never
end. But here we are today, the war has ended and things are a lot
better. How we need to keep up our prayers for peace, even though we
feel no one is listening, God is listening.” This felt like a word from
the Lord for us today in light of the present situation of seemingly
endless war and suffering everywhere.
Lord help us not to lose hope!
On another note, I am gathering people who are interested in being part
of our annual visit to Valle Nuevo. This visit is to build friendships
and to be thankful with them to God for his protecting them in 1981
when they escaped into Honduras while the Army was shooting at them.
They see it as a miracle in that only a few people lost their lives. It
is always an enriching experience to be with the people of Valle Nuevo.
If you might be interested in being part of the delegation and would
like to know more let me know and you might want to read the long
report about the last visit below.
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Reba’s Visit to Valle Nuevo: March12-20, 2005
from David Janzen
I have the joyful and impossible task of trying to explain how five men
(aged 22 to 64) from Reba Place Church were changed by our visit with
our sister village, Valle Nuevo in El Salvador. (As those of you who
have visited Valle Nuevo know, our sister community is a village of
about 900 persons within the larger municipality of about 5,000 persons
called Santa Marta. In the report that follows, I will sometimes merge
these two names.)
Beside myself (the 64-year-old) there was Allan Howe (current
Fellowship leader), David Hovde who has been a member of Reba for about
ten years, Joseph Marshak—a seminary student and a Reba novice, and
Jesse Miller—a 22 year-old intern among us.
In one day, on March 12, we were transported by air, highway, and
(you-gotta-feel-it-to-believe-it) rocky mountain road from:
--snowy winter to tropical dry season.
--urban Anabaptist intentional community to Catholic campesino village.
--homes where each of us has our own bedroom to homes where six persons
of both sexes and all ages sleep in one room.
--cars in the streets to cows wandering wherever they chose.
--alarm clocks that ring when we set them to waking early and often
from a symphony of roosters, dogs, cows and parrots.
--flush toilets to outhouses.
--hot and cold running water faucets to an outdoor pila where once a
week the scarce water runs into an open tank from which the family dips
what they need for dish-washing, clothes-washing and personal baths.
--sleeping in our own bed to sleeping in the best bed in the house
because the whole family is doubling up in the other room.
--being competent in English to straining to hear everything in Spanish
with translation.
--dead bread to stone-ground minute-old griddle-toasted tortillas.
--institutions that work smoothly in our favor to anguished stories of
murder, flight, refugee status, and the struggle for life against a
hostile government.
--universal schooling as a right to meeting amazing young people who
have labored to earn university degrees and develop a K-12 school for
900 students from almost nothing.
--flying to El Salvador for $500 (round-trip) with passport in hand to
be served by a host whose family survived and built a house because he
entered the United States illegally under a truckload of tires for a
$3,000 one-way fee.
--being hosts in charge to being guests in need.
--loving family and friends we do know to loving family and friends we
did not yet know but soon would in that great economy of God.
The list of contrasts could go on. But we have to testify that these
differences turned out to be just samples of the rich diversity in
God’s world, not barriers that divided and set us against each other.
It is clear that our hosts valued our visit immensely and expressed
their concern that, since there were only five of us, these encounters
might be coming to an end. Their desire for relationship, to not be
forgotten, came through in every conversation. It had very little to do
with their hope for any specific help—even though they have many
obvious needs.
On March 18, following the community celebration of the stations of the
cross recalling their flight into exile, and following the evening
mass, everyone stayed on while I presented a slide show from the
history of our relationship with Valle Nuevo and the municipality of
Santa Marta, 1992 to the present. At the conclusion of the show Tomasa
Torres gave an impromptu sermon. She said. “These internationals come
to us and they value all that we are doing even more than we value it
ourselves. In their eyes what we have done is significant. There are
five communities and hundreds of people who will hear their report.
They help us remember why we are a community and what we struggle for.
God has sent them to us and we should be grateful!” After a sermon like
we can only say--God certainly has made it clear that we can not forget
our community of friends in Valle Nuevo. We are moved to pledge
ourselves to come again.
It has always been important for us to keep maintaining our
relationship as brothers and sisters in Christ foremost. Projects are
secondary, but projects do help us focus our relationship with specific
commitments. We came away from our visit talking about three (or
possibly four) projects that might deserve our ongoing attention.
- Permanent homes for the poorest families: The Valle Nuevo
Directiva has
identified the ten poorest families—those with no prospects to afford
permanent housing. These families are living in the wood and tin shacks
built from salvaged materials from the Mesa Grande refugee camp,
material that is now more than 20 years old. One elderly mother asked
me to see her house. I grasped the center post could have crushed it in
my hands, had I tried, because it was riddled hollow by termites.
The Valle Nuevo Directiva informed us that $5,000 will buy the
materials to construct one house—concrete blocks, steel reinforcing,
roof tiles, doors and windows, and a cement slab. This house would be
five by six meters with a porch in front. Nothing fancy—one large room
and that is all. If we would provide the materials, the family will
provide the mason (about $400) and the labor. The Directiva has
promised to take pictures of these ten houses for us. We promised to
share them with our communities and friends, hoping (not promising)
that over the next 2-3 years we could provide the resources for these
10 houses. The Directiva would decide the order of priorities for this
housing project. The first house will be for Margarita who is a widow
in her sixties, caring for an elderly couple and other dependents.
Margarita is a community poetess and a hard worker who has been in
community leadership since the days in the Mesa Grande refugee camp.
Hope Fellowship in Waco has already contributed $600 toward this house.
Allan Howe and I have made a commitment to bring this project home and
organize a response.
- Scholarships for high school graduates: We were immensely
impressed by
the dedication that built up a school in Santa Marta that could
graduate its first high school class of twenty-five students last year.
Thirteen of them won scholarships and are going to university in San
Salvador. They live together in three houses in the city and take buses
into their classes each day. We spent a marvelous evening with these
bright and eager university students sharing pupusas and conversation.
Despite the attractions of an urban setting, they are so committed to
their home community—returning most weekends and looking for the day
when they can serve their own people with professional skills.
However, there are twelve graduates who can not go the university, and
they feel the weight of closed-off options. (This includes “Meme,” the
young Salome who spent a summer at Plow Creek a few years ago.) We
learned that the Jesuit University in San Salvador has a scholarship
program whereby folks like us can make donations to a fund for
designated rural communities, so that these twelve young people could
continue in school. It costs about $200 a month to support a student
and pay his/her tuition. Joseph, Jesse and David Hovde have chosen to
take on this request and see what they can do to raise some funds for
the young people who accompanied us on our delegation, their
contemporaries in Valle Nuevo and Santa Marta.
- Pastoral care initiatives by Padre Luis in Santa Marta: About
four
years ago Padre Luis was appointed to serve the diocese that
Valle-Nuevo and Santa Marta are part of. He fell in love with these
awakened campesino communities who returned from the Mesa Grande
refugee camp. Following in the prophetic line of the martyred
Archbishop Romero, he quickly organized neighborhoods into base
Christian communities for study, prayer and reflection on their
community’s needs. Not surprisingly, he was soon removed by his bishop.
More recently, the bishop has tried to excommunicate him. Padre Luis
returns to Santa Marta as often as he can to lead mass—when the local
priest will agree to it. Padre Luis has been invited by the community
to find a way—whether as a high school teacher, school chaplain, or
whatever role--to come and provide the spiritual leadership that is
conspicuously lacking under the traditional hierarchy where everything
is in the hands of a few over-worked tradition-bound priests. Padre
Luis is a bit of a maverick and what he will do next is hard to
predict. But if he finds a role and makes a commitment to provide
pastoral care in the Santa Marta municipality, we believe he should
receive some support from those of us who are friends of Valle Nuevo.
This project is, at present, a matter of waiting to see what is given.
- Supporting the Valle Nuevo diaspora in the U.S. with spiritual
resources and community connections: Several times the question arose
in our conversations--whom would we bring north from Valle Nuevo in
2005 to connect with our Shalom Mission Community constituency? The
more we discussed this matter, the more Yvonne helped us focus on the
fact that there are dozens of Valle Nuevo folks already in the U.S.,
most of them working illegally to send support back home. They feel the
pain of their under-ground existence and their great distance from
family and home community. How could we support them spiritually and
make connections? The idea came to make them a serious invitation to
the SMC camp
meeting, so that this could be for them a spiritual
retreat and a “Valle Nuevo Reunion” among friends.
Yvonne Dilling lit up when we suggested that she spend two or three
moths in the U.S. to coordinate the invitation (they already know her
well) and attend the SMC camp meeting to welcome them. Yvonne said that
this might fit in with her own desire to spend some months with her
elderly parents in Indiana. We encouraged Yvonne to think and pray
about this vision. If she decided to do it, SMC would be glad to offer
her our support and make a home for our Valle Nuevo friends at Plow
Creek in the Camp meeting.
As you can see, we felt moved by the Spirit to step out on several
limbs. We are eager to share the inspiration we felt in this visit and
hope you can be part of it too by your responses.
Please get back to me with your thoughts about this report from a visit
that has changed all of us from long-range acquaintances to Holy Spirit
moved family members with our sisters and brothers in Valle Nuevo. Each
one of us were moved to commit ourselves to further visits and to labor
on behalf of those who have found a home in our hearts.
David Janzen de parte de Allan, Joseph, el otro David, y Yesse.
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Jim’s Peacemaking Update
The Christian Peacemaker Team Booth at Cornerstone Music Festival went
especially well. Serious interest in peacemaking seems to be growing
amongst Christians. I have already had dialogue with others about
helping at the Booth next year so we can reach more brothers and
sisters.
I had many serious conversations, especially with the 20 persons
who expressed interest in joining CPT work. I encouraged those
interested to pray about it, saying it is important to sense a clear
call from the Lord about this dangerous work. And if we pray, the Lord
will answer, something I feel I have come to see more clearly in the
last year. So get ready when you pray!
Here I am in a conversation at the
Cornerstone Festival. 230 persons signed up there to receive
peacemaking news.
Later in July I went to the funeral of my brother in PA. That was a sad
time, though at the same time it was encouraging to hear the many
stories of the way people showed love and care for Wayne. This concern
for him is a clear evidence of the activity of the Lord working in
people’s lives. I was able to tell him I loved him by phone a few days
before his passing. I was touched that he had asked to hug his
grandchildren just before that.
While traveling I was able to share with four travelers about the
Lord’s peacemaking work through CPT. Two of them are now on my mailing
list, and one is Amish. Often these personal encounters are some of my
most significant engagements with people. I feel somewhat akin to John
and Peter in Acts 4 where they just could not keep quiet about what
they had seen and heard.
Last Sunday I shared at the Prairie View Mennonite Church. I ask the
youth, “Have you thought about what you would do if there was a draft?”
I was surprised when two brothers responded, “We are ready to serve in
the military.” I then said, “Are you ready to kill and be killed?” They
said, “Well, yes if the cause is good.” One of the two brothers
afterwards shook my hand and thanked me for coming. Two other youth
told me, “I am not ready to kill.”
With this church I shared that we need to be ready to give our lives
for peace the same way soldiers give their lives for war; this idea was
Ron Sider’s founding vision for CPT. I sensed the Lord’s presence in
this church and in our time together.
August 5th I led a good workshop at our annual Shalom Mission Partners
Camp Meeting.
Please join me in prayer concerning
- The CPT Booth which I will
be holding at the Bureau County Fair on 8/24-8/28.
- CPT Congress on 9/8-9/11,
which I plan on attending.
- Preparations as I prepare
to return to Colombia for three months starting September 15.
- My acceptance of and
learning from my continued periodic episodes of depression.
Thanks and Peace,
Jim
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One
Pacifist's Answer to 9/11
The following is from Hope magazine's John Wilson's
(JW) interview of Colman McCarthy (CM), July/August 2003. His comments
on Peacemaking I found challenging and insightful. I hope
you do too.
Peace to you today, Jim
In 1985,
McCarthy and his wife, May, established the Center for Teaching Peace,
a Washington- based nonprofit that helps schools begin or expand
academic programs in conflict resolution and peace studies.
Today, he teaches classes at three universities and three high schools.
JW:
You oppose military solutions, but speaking as a pacifist, what is your
solution to September 11?
CM: • After September 11, we
had four options: military, political, legal, and moral. Predictably,
the military prevailed:
Got a problem? Go bomb
somebody. The
political solution:
Follow our own advice when we tell Israelis and Palestinians, or the
factions in Northern Ireland, or the factions in Sierra Leone, or the
factions anywhere -- to sit down, talk, compromise, negotiate,
reconcile, and stop killing each other. Sound advice, so why don’t we
follow it ourselves? It’s dismissed as naive: “You can’t talk with
evildoers like Osama, Al Qaeda, or Saddam Hussein.”
That was the thinking in
the early 1970s, when the evildoers and major threats were the Chinese
Communists who had the weapons and hordes to take over the world. But
then Richard Nixon went to China, talked, compromised, negotiated,
reconciled, and dealt. The Chinese sent him home with a bag of ping
pong balls and two pandas, and now China is a trading partner. The
political solution worked. Ronald Reagan, who in 1986 called the Soviet
Union “the evil empire” and “the focus of evil in the modern world,”
went to Moscow. He talked, compromised,
negotiated, reconciled, and dealt. They sent him home with a bottle of
vodka and now Russia is a close ally Once again, a political solution
worked.
Compared to the Chinese and
Soviet dictators, bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are mosquitoes. The last
dictator to fall was Milosovec. It was well-organized~ students, not
U.S. pilots bombing Bel- grade, who brought him down. No one was killed
in the two years of protest and resistance. Milosovec is now getting
legal due process, on trial in The Hague for war crimes. The people who
attacked the World Trade Center in 1993 were arrested, convicted, and
sent to prison. They had due process. It could have worked with Saddam
Hussein or bin Laden.
The moral solution: three
days after September 11, Bush and his war council went to the National
Cathedral in Washington for a prayer service. A Catholic cardinal came,
a rabbi, an imam, Billy Graham, and assorted reverends offered
prayerful succor. They recited the Lord’s Prayer, including the most
ignored words in history: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive
those who trespass against us.” On September 11 some people did
trespass in New York and Washington. Were they forgiven? It was the
opposite: “Let’s go kill them.” If you re going to say the Lord’s
Prayer, mean it, but don’t use it in fake piety for your grubby
political goals. The moral
solution would have moved us to forgive the planners of September 11,
and then ask them to forgive us of all our violence-much worse when our
decades of bombing people is recalled-and then say, ‘Let’s start over;
the old way of violence is not working.”
U.S foreign policy is based
on the “izes”: theorize, demonize, victimize, and rationalize. Bush
theorized about Iraq’s threat, he demonized Saddam Hussein, he
victimized Iraqis at the other end of the bombing runs, and then
rationalized it as the way to peace.
Two types of violence
exist: hot and cold. Hot is felt, visceral, visual, obscenely cruel,
immediate, and well- reported by the media: the World Trade Center, the
Columbine High School massacre, the sniper attacks in Washington. Cold
violence is unfelt, distant, out of sight, and generally ignored by the
media: the 40,000 people who die of hunger-related or
preventable diseases every day. Executions on death row. But how can we be selective
about violence? The victims are dead either way Yet selectivity
prevails. On September 11, September 12, September 13-- and all days
since, 40,000 people died of hunger and preventable diseases. Why
so little attention to that violence?
More to come in the following weeks, Jim
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Creating a Peace Culture
In 1985, Colman McCarthy and
his wife, May, established the Center for Teaching Peace, a Washington-
based nonprofit that helps schools begin or expand academic programs in
conflict resolution and peace studies. Today, he teaches classes
at three universities and three high schools.
JW (John Wilson of Hope Magazine)
: How do we create a culture of peace- or is that an
impossible dream?
CM: Schools need to be one of the
major solutions. We have 78,000 elementary schools in this country,
31,000 high schools, and 3,100 colleges and universities. All of those
need to be teaching the basics of conflict resolution and the methods,
history, and practitioners of genuine peacemaking, and the belief that
we get strength through peace and not peace through strength.
Right now, we
have children in our first, second, and third grades who, in fifteen or
twenty years, will be convicted and sent to prison for violent crimes.
We also have children in
those grades who will
one day be in Congress, the White House, the Supreme Court, and the
corporate boardrooms.
Unless we teach our children
peace, someone else will teach them violence. Every conflict,
whether in our personal lives or among nations, is faced through
violent force or nonviolent force. No third option exists. It’s either
prevention before the conflict with nonviolence,
or intervention
after with violence.
Both violence and nonviolence have failed, but the worst failure-the
bloodiest, the cruelest, the stupidest-has been violence. If
violence were effective, we would have had a peaceful world long ago.
We have extraordinary faith in violence, and at the same time,
extraordinary skepticism of nonviolence. You can send a group of
pacifists to a scene of conflict, and a certain number are killed or
wounded. What’s society’s judgment? “The damned idiots!” Send in an
army loaded with weapons and a certain number are killed or wounded.
What’s the judgment? “That’s war, no problem.” The double standard
persists.
Peace, Jim
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Jesus and London Bombings
Friends Committee for National Legislation has some very
good suggestions for a Jesus response to the London bombing, and you
can write letters to all your Government's reps. with
one
click at .
http://capwiz.com/fconl/dbq/officials/ Sooner it
is done the better. blessings, Jim
July 8, 2005
Here's the letter I wrote,
More War is not the answer to the London Bombings, it
will just fuel the hatred that the world relations is now
full of.
An eye for an eye only makes all of us blind. If war and
violence led to
peace we would be full of it now, so it obviously does not
work. It only leads to more hatred and pain and suffering, escalating
the violence.
Please look into and support the Smart Security
Legislations that Rep. Lynn Woolsey's introduced in the House.
Please support the legislation to declare that we will and want to
bring US troops home from Iraq ASAP.
Sincerely,
Jim Fitz
Peace Work Update
Here is an overview of slide presentations and other peace work I
have done or will do soon.
4/18 Southside Mennonite, Elkhart IN
4/19 Manchester College, IN International relations class
4/20 Midway Mennonite Church Colombiana, OH
4/26 Messiah College, PA Convocation
4/27 New Hope Church of the Brethren, WV
4/28 Church of the Brethren Rossville, IN
5/4 Knox College, Galesburg, IL with Peggy Gish on CPT Iraq.
Peggy has given 7 presentations that I arranged in our area regarding
CPT's work in Iraq.
5/8 Henry Christian church, IL
6/14 Princeton Rotary Club, IL
6/26 Unitarian Universalist Church in Bloomington, IL
6/29-7/3 Cornerstone Christian Music Festival, Bushnell, IL CPT booth.
8/24-8/28 Bureau County Fair, IL CPT booth
July Hannibal, MO talks pending
Christian Peacemaker Congress September 8-11, Indianapolis, IN
“The courage to engage violence with nonviolence” Ecumenical and open
to all peacemakers, Call 773-277-0253 for information.
Return to Colombia for 3 months mid September.
Pray that God and what He is doing would be exalted, and not me in all
this peace work.
PS. I would welcome a time to share with your group or friends.
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Peace Vigil Conversations
A woman came up at the Peace Vigil at the
Princeton Courthouse the other Wednesday and asked me. "Can I give each
of you a hug to say thank you for your courage to stand up for peace
and question this war? Then, on the edge of tears and with obvious
anxiety, she took 10-15 minutes to share her feelings.
"I just
want to thank each of you for having this vigil. People seldom protest
war anymore thank you so much. My husband is in the National
Guard and a US soldier in Iraq. My husband has been there for 10
months with 8 to go. He is part of transport unit base in Kuwait that
periodically travels to Baghdad -- a very dangerous job these days. I
sure hope and pray he comes home alive. Neither he nor his fellow
soldiers believe we should be there. Saddam Hussein never did anything
to us. Seems we are just there for the oil." She had her 3
children under 5 with her, one wore a shirt that said, "Where is my
BagDaddy?" Say a prayer for the family.
A friend reflected, “
Unaware you were being a real listening servant to her. You provided a
safe place for her to express her pain and hurt, something hard to find
in the air of patriotism presence today.
Another passerby wound down
his window, and shouted, "I was a Vietnam vet, and I really appreciate
what you are doing. Please keep it up". He than gave us a big thumbs
up.
Then more recently a woman walked
a half a block out of her way to say, " I just want to say thank you
for what you are doing, keep it up."
Another parent who has had a
daughter in Iraq who passes the vigil most weeks said to me, "Keep up
your peacemaking."
Our numbers have been swelling lately. I
invite you to join us 11:30-12:30 on Wednesdays to let your light shine
for peace? .
As one of our signs says,
"Remember the Suffering US Troops and Families".
Jim Fitz
Tiskilwa, IL
PS. this was printed in the Peoria and Princeton papers in the
letter to the editor column.
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Colombia Petition
a sample to guide your letter to your legislator.
Honorable [your legislator here]
We write to voice our concern about what is
happening in
Colombia. For forty years Colombians have tried to solve their
internal conflict militarily and all they have gotten is more
deaths, 75% of which are civilians. Our government feeds this war
through Plan Colombia with $1.6 million a day in military aid.
Human Rights Watch, the U.S. State Dept. and the
Colombian
justice system itself have found evidence of army collaboration with
the
paramilitary. Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), which has had a
presence in Barrancabermeja since 2001, has seen the failure of Plan
Colombia's American-funded aerial spraying to kill coca, and the
devastating effects on food crops and suffering of local populations
caused by the spraying.
We add our voice to the growing numbers who are
calling on our government to encourage a negotiated solution to the
Colombian civil war. As well as ending the civil war,
negotiations need to have a goal of raising the living standard of the
poor.
Peace is coming to Colombia. In many ways it is just
a matter of how long we will stall it by giving more military aid
through Plan Colombia. Please keep us updated on bill HR 1361 and S600
to fund Plan Colombia. Would you please help by voting to
decrease military aid and increase humanitarian aid for Colombia?
We wait to hear your position on this important
issue.
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A Peaceful
Death
February 15,
2005
Treva, my sister-in-law who recently passed on, confided
to me about
eighteen months ago, “When we were just married we moved in with your
Mom and Dad. Your mother became one of my best friends. I could talk to
her about anything, something I was not able to do with my own mother.
“I used to love to go to the field to work with her for I knew we would
get to talk. One time when we were in the field, we laughed so hard we
peed in our pants.” I can still hear Treva laughing when she told me
this.
When I was 13 right after my parents died Harold and Treva made me part
of their family.
My brother Tom shared, “When I was 15 and on the Church softball team,
they had an evening in which they asked us to come to have our pictures
taken. It was the evening that my older brothers Wayne and
Harold, Treva’s husband and I were planting tomatoes. Wayne and
Harold had just got done telling me that I could not go to get my
picture taken with the team because I was needed to help plant the
tomatoes.
Just than Treva drove up in a truck and came over to the planter and
announced that I was going with her to have my picture taken. I thought
to myself that she was in for a surprise after the lecture I just got.
But Treva just insisted till, to my surprised my brothers gave in
and told me, ‘I guess you can go.’ Treva was more like a big sister
than a sister-in-law to me.”
These are some of the many stories we told which the Lord used to draw
the family together and bring healing to us as together we mourned the
loss of Treva in our lives. I shared this prayer during some of those
story-telling times:
Lord Jesus, you told great
stories.
They helped people make sense of their lives.
They revealed God in ordinary things.
They encouraged and changed people.
Make us more ready to share our stories.
Give us words where we are tongue-tied.
Confidence to know our stories matter,
Tact to know the right place to tell them.
Also, most importantly, make us ready to listen.*
One of the children said, “You know Harold was always the nurturer in
the family, not Treva.” I remember how when I lived with them, Harold
would always come around and kiss us good night, not Treva . “One of
the children continued, “But I noticed after Harold died Treva began to
fill that role, insisting on giving us a hug and often a kiss when she
greeted us.”
After one impromptu time of sharing, we sensed we should pray. I said
what I have said in Colombia numerous times to start prayer times.
“Gandhi said that we should accept people according to the light that
God has shown them. Here we are, people from four different churches,
and each of us has a little different way to express our prayer. Let us
recognize that God is listening to each of us.” After we prayed
there were tears in some of our eyes. After this, I shared about
Colombia with my slides. We ended with thanks and hugs for each other.
We felt God’s presence.
So in Treva’s very last days, when it was obviously a real effort for
her to even open her eyes, one way of saying good bye was to tell her,
“I am going to kiss you,” and she would pucker up her lips as we would
give her a kiss. When we put her six-month-old great granddaughter next
to her, she opened her eyes and reached for her.
We hugged each other often between our crying. Through this experience
God gave us a healing, peace and joy. We could say that Treva will soon
be with Harold, whom she missed dearly. And I could say to others and
Treva, “We are in the hands of a loving God and all will be well.”
Alleluia!
It sure helps to have a village to raise us up. It makes me very
grateful for all the friends that have been the village in my journey
all 60 years.
Peace,
Jim
See my photos of
Treva and her family.
* The Patterns of our Days, Worship in the Celtic Tradition from the
Iona Community p.99
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