From 15-23 November 2008, a CPT delegation convened in the Algonquin territory north of Kingston, Ontario.  There, the Algonquin First Nations groups and settlers of European origin are continuing the struggle to protect their territory from uranium mining.  The land that they are fighting for is unceded, and therefore falls under the protection of Royal Proclamation of 1763, which is a basis for current Canadian law.  Furthermore, the Canadian government has a legal obligation to consult First Nations groups before allowing mining exploration.  It has honoured neither of these laws.

Tuesday 14 October 2008
During afternoon school patrol, the escort did not accompany the schoolchildren along the complete route.  Two adult settlers shouted, chased, and threw stones at the children.  (See 15 October CPTnet release, “AT-TUWANI: Israeli military escort fails again protect Palestinian children from settler attacks,” http://www.cpt.org/cptnet/2008/10/15/tuwani-israeli-military-escort-fails-again-protect-palestinian-children-settler-at.)…

Thursday 30 October 2008
The team visited Umm Al Kher and learned that Bedouin of the village had moved to the area in 1948 when the Israeli authorities expelled them from their land near Beersheva.  An old man in the village spoke to the CPTers about the Israeli soldiers who had demolished their homes, saying, “Where is the democracy?  Do they accept what happens to children here to happen to their children?  What have these children done to Israeli children?”

On 21 and 22 November, the villagers of At-Tuwani successfully plowed fields to which Israeli settlers and soldiers had denied them access for as long as nine years.  The villagers, as they do each planting season, organized themselves and their relatives from the nearby town of Yatta to plow and plant the valley of Khoruba with wheat and barley.  Palestinians undertake these plantings in an organized fashion, with large numbers of people, in order to prevent attacks from Israeli settlers.  Settlers from the nearby illegal outpost of Havat Ma'on hope to expand into these areas, and have already taken a small plot of land at the top of Khoruba valley.

Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) is beginning a three-month project based in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) city of Goma.  A team of four CPTers will arrive there in early December 2008. Groupe Martin Luther King, a Goma human rights organization, has invited CPT to join them in their work of promoting nonviolence and conflict resolution, monitoring human rights, and providing a peaceful presence in the conflict zone and the camps for internally displaced persons.

K. had kept his flock out an unusually long time this morning.  The sheep and goats were probably happy because an inch of grass had grown in some places due to the recent rain.  Because it was the first rain of the season, however, the grass remained just short enough that the sheep appeared to have a tough time eating it.  Their grazing attempts reminded me of eating a pomegranate.  You exert so much effort to get those little kernels out, and when you eventually get them out and eat them, they don’t even put a dent in your hunger.