Christian Peacemaker Teams

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Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) ( Christian Peacemaker Teams ) is a church initiative originating from the historic peace churches ( Mennonites , Church of the Brethren and Quakers ) that sends trained peace workers to conflict regions. The teams are sent after being invited by local human rights and peace initiatives and remain on site for the long term. The team has both full-time and part-time employees. CPT has offices in Chicago and Toronto . It was founded in the mid-1980s.

There are permanent CPT teams in the cities of Barrancabermeja ( Colombia ), Sulaimaniyya ( Kurdish Northern Iraq ) and Hebron ( Palestine ). The Indigenous Peoples Support Team works with various First Nations in Canada. Finally, there are also temporary teams: the "Borderlands" team on the border between Mexico and the USA and the "Mediterranean" team on the island of Lesbos ( Greece ). Both teams support local activists in accompanying refugees and migrants.

The focus of the work is the accompaniment of people and groups at risk, the mediation of contacts between local and international human rights organizations, the development of nonviolent alternatives for resolving conflicts and the documentation and publication of human rights violations .

history

CPT was created after a speech given by the American Mennonite theologian Ron Sider at the Mennonite World Conference in Strasbourg in 1984. In it, Sider called on Christians to show the same courage and willingness to make sacrifices as are expected of soldiers. His original vision of a non-violent peace army that stands between the fronts of warring parties - according to the motto "getting in the way" - turned out to be unrealistic and unrealistic.

Nevertheless, practical and theoretical approaches for accompanying local peace actors who suffer from violence gradually developed. The motto of CPT is: “Form partnerships to transform violence and oppression.” CPT strives for inclusivity, ecumenicity and diversity as a sign of God's love in communities. War and oppression can be transformed through the power of nonviolence, partnerships with local peacemakers, and courageous and creative action. The teams refrain from missionary activity and work collegially with Muslims, Jews and secular groups.

Projects

The first full-time project was in Haiti , where the team accompanied a community that was targeted by paramilitaries during the 1993/94 coup regime that overthrew President Jean Bertrand Aristide . In Washington and Richmond , teams simultaneously supported humanitarian projects in the high crime environment. In Mexico, a team accompanied Mayans who were protesting non-violently against the evictions from their traditional villages by paramilitaries .

Palestinian Territories

CPT has been working in Palestine since 1994. The daily work in Hebron includes accompanying Palestinian school children to protect them from harassment by Jewish settlers and soldiers, documenting settler violence and guided tours through Hebron, which are mainly aimed at peace activists and church members. According to the CPT, the Israeli occupation is "violent" and reconciliation between Palestinians and Israel cannot take place until the occupation ends. While escorting school children in 2005 with Amnesty International and Operation Dove , a member was seriously injured by an extremist Jewish settler.

Human Rights Watch gives CPT the testimony to be “one of the few credible sources about the human rights situation in Hebron”.

Colombia

The team in Barrancabermeja has existed since 2001. The focus of the work is the accompaniment of villages along the Opon River, a tributary of the Río Magdalena . The communities fled their homes in 2000 during fighting between the armies of the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) and FARC-EP . Partly through the mediation of the CPT team, the violence against the campesinos and campesinas was ended and they were able to return to their villages. Since then, the team has been accompanying people in the region by monitoring and documenting human rights violations. The team also works with women's and human rights groups in the city of Barrancabermeja to reduce violence and threats of violence from the AUC.

Iraq

A team from CPT has been present in Iraq since October 2002 . Here the Christian Peacemaker Teams were the first to report on the torture scandal in Abu Graib prison . On November 26, 2005, four activists were kidnapped there. On March 10, 2006, the body of one of the abductees was found and identified. The 54-year-old American Tom Fox was killed by a shot in the head, according to Iraqi police. On March 23, 2006, the three remaining members of the group, Norman Kember, James Loney, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, were released from hostage custody.

In 2008 the team was relocated to Sulaimaniyya at the invitation of Kurdish groups, where the team worked in partnership with the various cultural groups in post-war Iraq.

See also

Web links

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  1. ↑ https://www.cpt.org/about/history
  2. ↑ In pictures: Christian Peacemakers, Hebron
  3. ↑ HEBRON / AT-TUWANI URGENT ACTION: Stop Extremist Violence
  4. ↑ Center of the Storm: A Case Study of Human Rights Abuses in Hebron District, pp. 67-68; Vol. 13, No. 2 (E). Human Rights Watch, April 1, 2001. The second Palestinian CPT team in At-Tuwani village closed in 2013.
  5. ^ Prize winner 2006: Christian Peacemaker Teams. German Mennonite Peace Committee , accessed April 10, 2018 .
  6. ^ BBC news