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Date: May 13, 2005
Contact: Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford
V: 847/742-5100 F:  847/742-6103
E-MAIL: CoBNews@AOL.Com

CHURCH OF THE BRETHREN	NEWSLINE
May 13, 2005

Peacemaker calls for `true Christian witness' in  Iraq

May 13, 2005 (Elgin, IL) -- "People in Iraq are beginning  to
understand the Christian message as the bombs that fall from the
sky or	the abuse of detainees in Abu Ghraib," said Cliff Kindy, a
Church of the  Brethren member recently returned from working with
Christian Peacemaker  Teams (CPT) in Iraq. Kindy returned to the US
at the end of March. He has  been with CPT in Iraq for five months
of each of the past three winters,  first arriving in Baghdad in
October 2002.

In an example of the kind  of daily violence that Iraqis are living
through, Kindy and the CPT team  "often hear about cars run over by
tanks for whatever reason," he said. In a  visit to Fallujah, they
saw a car flattened by a tank--a father and son were  killed in the
car. "How much good do we have to do to overcome that?"  Kindy
asked.

He warned that the true witness of Jesus Christ is  being
overwhelmed by the violence of the US military. Iraqis recognize
the  US as a "Christian nation," and are beginning to identify the
military  activities of the US as a reflection of the nature of
Christianity, Kindy  said. "The most important thing we can do is to
make clear what Christianity  is, and what it isn't," he said.

Kindy also told of points of hope that	he and other CPT volunteers
in Iraq have witnessed in the past six months.	The CPT team has
helped train a Muslim Peacemaker Team, worked with Iraqi  Human
Rights Watch, and served as election observers--although Kindy	said
that if the election had been held in the US it would not have	been
regarded as free and fair.

The Muslim Peacemaker Team (MPT) grew  out of the Iraqi Human Rights
Watch, which has begun documenting mass graves	from the 1991
uprising against Saddam Hussein, Kindy said. The group asked  CPT
for nonviolence training after members began to initiate  nonviolent
actions such as attempting an intervention between the US  military
and the Sad'r militia in the besieged city of Najaf, and  creating
a combined Sunni and Shi'ite response to the needs of refugees	from
Fallujah, Kindy said.

A CPT visit to Fallujah--a town the size of  Fort Wayne destroyed
after a months-long assault by the US military	against
insurgents--revealed the continuing hopelessness of Iraq,  however.
"It looked like what Hiroshima would look like," Kindy said.  A
non-governmental report has said that 40 percent of homes in
Fallujah  have been totally destroyed, another 40 percent are
unlivable, and another 20  percent are damaged, Kindy added.
Residents told CPT that they have received  no aid and no
compensation for their homes from the US military. Although the  CPT
team saw shops re-opened and people out on the streets, the team
also  witnessed the fact that residents had no running water,
electricity, or  telephone service.

The CPT team visited the hospital in Fallujah, which  has been
rebuilt following destruction by US bombing. It was one of  the
first targets in the assault, Kindy said. He shared a current  Iraqi
theory that hospitals, clinics, and doctors are targeted or  shut
down by the US military because they are the source of reporting  of
Iraqi civilian casualties. A CPT press release on April 26  said
physicians also are targets of the Iraqi insurgency. 

While the  team was in the hospital, a father brought in his infant
daughter, reportedly  made sick by depleted uranium left over from
US explosives. People in  Fallujah talked to the CPT team about
illegal weaponry that they suspect was	used there, including napalm
and other chemical weapons. Kindy also said that  CPT received
reports in Fallujah of mass burials by the US military, and  reports
that the official casualty count does not match the numbers  of
disappeared. "What does all this mean?" Kindy asked. "We don't have
a  very good handle on that."

Kindy asked Brethren to "keep an eye on" the  actions of the US and
Iraqi militaries, which may use the tactics that  destroyed Fallujah
in other places. "We begin to hear about things happening  in
Baquba, Beiji, Mosul," Kindy said, also mentioning Ramadi  and
Samarra.

He asked Brethren to be aware of dangers facing the CPT  team in
Iraq, which varies from three to eight members at any one time.  CPT
volunteers are among the last nongovernmental foreigners to remain
at  work in Iraq. Most have left for fear of insurgent kidnappings,
suicide  bombings, and other threats. Recently one of the CPT team,
a British citizen,  was warned by his government that he was a
high-profile kidnapping target.  This has caused the rest of the
team some hard heart-searching to decide what  is the right thing to
do, Kindy said. 

"There is no place in Iraq that  can guarantee security," he said.
"And we're being fed a line that it's just  getting better."

For more information about Christian Peacemaker Teams,	see
www.cpt.org. 

The Church of the Brethren is a Christian  denomination committed to
continuing the work of Jesus peacefully and simply,  and to living
out its faith in community. The denomination is based in  the
Anabaptist and Pietist faith traditions and is one of the  three
Historic Peace Churches. It celebrates its 300th anniversary  in
2008. It counts about 130,000 members across the United States	and
Puerto Rico, and has missions and sister churches in Brazil,  the
Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Nigeria.

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For more  information contact:

Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford
Director of News  Services
Church of the Brethren General Board
1451 Dundee Ave.
Elgin,	IL 60120
847-742-5100 ext.  260
cbrumbaugh-cayford_gb@brethren.org

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The  Church of the Brethren Newsline is produced by Cheryl
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