WRL Homepage • WRL Programs • WRL Literature • WRL Actions • WRL Employment • About WRL
|
Homepages: | ||||||
|
Christian
Peacemaker Teams By Cassady Casey William Payne, a 29-year-old volunteer for Christian Peacemaker Teams hesitated. Then he answered, “That would be terrible—I don’t know what I would do. I never had to face anything so horrible.” “That is what happened to me,” Lucas said.
Since last November, Payne has met many young Colombians like Lucas who have seen violence and have lost loved ones—sometimes caught in the gunfire of opposing paramilitary or guerrilla groups, sometimes targeted by the paramilitary group that Lucas later decided to join. Payne is one of a group of 12 violence reduction workers in Colombia who offer protective accompaniment and other nonviolent aid to local people and organizations who want peace in their communities. An explicitly Christian group, CPT describes its activities as “Getting in the Way.” The phrase is a play on words that evokes both the work of “getting in the way” of violence around the world and the teams’ commitment to “the Way” of Jesus, who, they say, challenged systems of domination and exploitation in the first century as they do today. Funded by individual and church donations, the organization sends volunteers to Colombia and Hebron in the Occupied Territories of Palestine (see sidebar)—its two largest projects—and to Mexico, Canada, Puerto Rico, various U.S. sites, the United Kingdom and Afghanistan. The Crossfire
in Colombia
CPT came to Cienaga del Opon since May 2001 at the invitation of the civilian population. The team has built a secondary site in the Cimitarra River Valley, where the two principal guerrilla groups have a significant presence. When Payne heard that groups of paramilitaries were moving toward the Cimitarra Valley, he hastened to get there himself. “When opposing armed groups clash, the civilians always suffer,” he says. “The military and paramilitary kill and displace many peaceful residents.” In notes written after his return, he described his unsuccessful efforts to negotiate a peace with the three armed forces. “During our time there we came across members of the ELN (National Liberation Army) and FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and the invading group, the AUC (Self-Defense Units of Colombia).” he wrote. “As always, we talked with all three about looking for a nonviolent solution to the conflict. The AUC … commander … grew up in New York but … came back to Colombia to join the country’s armed forces and was sent by them three times to the School of the Americas … then joined the AUC because they were more effective. He spoke of clear connection[s], past and present, between the Colombian armed forces and the paramilitaries and … the U.S. armed forces.”
Colombia has been wracked by civil war for the last 37 years. Poor peasants rose up as guerrilla groups to defend themselves from the state and large landowners who were neglecting them or trying to take their land. The two main guerrilla groups are the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC, and the National Liberation Army, called the ELN. With a force of 30,000, FARC is the oldest and largest. The military and paramilitary forces “target not the elusive guerrilla[s], but their clandestine support networks, the hidden sympathizers among the civilian population,” says Bob Holmes of the Colombia CPT group. “Community leaders are always among the highest on the list. It’s called, ‘Drying up the water where the fish swim,’ a method taught to Latin American military officers at the SOA.” Does the CPT presence actually protect civilians? Last March, Pierre Shantz of the Colombia team answered that question in a report on his work. “Last year when the military did an operation and 10 men were missing, CPTers asked the military about these men and nine of them showed up within days. One was killed, and CPT helped [his] wife make a denunciation.” In another instance, when military forces disguised as paramilitaries were planning to stay in the Valle Cimitarra, the soldiers asked the CPT group how long CPT would be in the area. “Permanently,” they said. Three days later the military left. Shantz said the local people attributed the departure to CPT. The CPT
Story “Unless we … are ready to start to die by the thousands in dramatic vigorous new exploits for peace and justice,” he said, “we should sadly confess that we never really meant what we said, and we dare never whisper another word about pacifism to our sisters and brothers in those desperate lands filled with injustice. Unless we are ready to die developing new nonviolent attempts to reduce conflict, we should confess that we never really meant that the cross was an alternative to the sword … “ His call ignited conversations in peace-oriented churches across North America. One group of U.S. and Canadian members of those denominations responded by forming the Christian Peacemaker Teams. In 1992, the new organization’s steering committee (two people from each denomination) put together a series of delegations to Iraq, Haiti and the West Bank. Those experiences clarified the need for full-time teams of peacemakers in crisis situations all over the world. In 1993, CPT sent its first full-time team to Haiti, where they began learning how to put the techniques of nonviolent intervention and presence into action. After the fall of the Haitian military, however, Haiti’s commander of the police gave CPT responsibility for serving as an important component in local security. In May 1998, CPT established a team in Mexico’s San Cristobal de las Casas to serve as a nonviolent presence in the State of Chiapas, where local Mayans live with psychological warfare and the constant threat of physical attack. Since February 2000, CPT had also sent several emergency delegations to the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, which the U.S. Navy has used as a training ground for the last 50 years. CPT has also worked on projects in the United States in areas such as Columbia Heights in Washington, DC, and Richmond, VA. (Richmond has one of the country’s highest murder rates.) In both places, teams of between four and six corps members established civilian street patrols; they also held community vigils at murder sites. In Ontario, Canada, CPT has placed teams to document human rights abuses and reduce violence against the Native American populations. And since the start of the Afghan war, corps member Doug Pritchard and CPT Director Gene Stolzfus spent almost a month in Afghanistan and Pakistan (from last December 16 to January 13, 2002) to explore the war’s damage and continuing violence and to approve the development of a team, now in the planning process. How it Works
The reservists make up a larger pool of peacemakers. Equally well trained and equally committed to the CPT mission, they have family or job responsibilities that don’t allow them long-term leave—although Anne Montgomery of the Hebron team notes, “They do the same work and take the same risks.” Reservists commit two to eight weeks a year for three years. All full-time corps and reservists go through an intensive three-week training in Chicago where they focus on the spiritual and biblical basis of nonviolence and peacemaking and nonviolence training. In addition, they receive crisis intervention training and practice how to confront soldiers and de-escalate situations. They learn how to write a press release, use a video camera, conduct radio interviews, speak in public and conduct human rights reporting. “It’s very hands-on and interactive,” says Claire Edans, a 49-year-old, three-year CPTer who has been to Mexico and Hebron. “During the training in Chicago we live together in very simple conditions, working together, cooking together,” says Montgomery. “You get to feel what it’s like to live on a team because it’s very important [to] form consensus and act with other people because it’s a question of living, working and praying together.” Members of CPT are selected to represent a range of ages, skills, life experiences and ethnic backgrounds. The qualifications for the corps include being at least 21 years old, comfortable with prayer (members don’t have to be religious, but worship and prayer are part of the decision-making process), committed to peacemaking, experienced in nonviolent direct action, free to move into life-threatening situations at short notice and able to commit to three years of service. After a decade of work, word has spread about CPT projects. Groups in urban and rural areas in North America, Native peoples, Third World churches and non-governmental organizations have contacted CPT to explore projects. Stolzfus has had to turn some away. “We don’t do nearly as much as we could,” he says. “There aren’t enough people with the experience to move into all the situations. Right now we have 23 corps members and 120 reservists. Our goal is for 50 corps members and 250 reservists.” Meanwhile, current members witness the devastation of war, but also the hope of peace. William Payne in Colombia described a conversation he had during his first week there with an 80-year-old farmer: “He asked me if peace can come to Colombia. I answered yes, otherwise I wouldn’t have come. He responded that he too thinks that peace can come to Colombia. He went on to say that he believes that it will come only when Colombians who have lost a brother in the violence are willing to forgive. Before they are able to forgive, peace will not come. … I later learned that he has lost a son in this war, and that his brother and children remain targets of armed groups.” * * * The dates for the next CPT delegations to the Middle East are May 24-June 5, July 25-August 6 and September 13-26. The next peacemaker corps training will be in Chicago July 17-August 13. For more information call (312)432-1231, e-mail cpt@igc.org or see www.cpt.org. Among the other groups doing unarmed intervention/peacemaking in the Occupied Territories are the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (www.icahd.org) and the International Solidarity Movement (U.S. contact, (212) 979-9670, or see www.rapprochement. org), which is organizing a June delegation to the area. Cassady Casey, WRL’s spring 2002 Freeman intern, has written for the Atlanta-based newspaper Hospitality and for college papers. |
WRL Homepage • WRL Programs • WRL Literature • WRL Actions • WRL Employment • About WRL
hat
would you do if someone killed your mother, your brother and your father
in front of you?” asked Lucas. “Would you forgive that person?”
